When future paleontologists examine the fossilized remains of today’s corporate printers, they’ll re-use dinosaur die-off theory to explain the mystery of these inkjet beasts: “A series of environmental changes and perhaps a disruptive technology or two set them on the path to extinction.”
One of those disruptive events has only recently meteored through the tech sky. Anyone passing an empty Barnes and Noble— say for example, the Brontosaurus-size flagship near NYC’s Lincoln Center—knows that ebook readers have smashed the book industry into bits. Borders ain’t doing so well either.
But what’s happening in the consumer world is also recurring more quietly in the closed corporate ecosystem.
Instead of feeding their printers with reports, PowerPoints, and emails, enterprise workers have been using their laptops and now their mobile gadgets as electronic readers.
When will printers disappear from the enterprise scene altogether?
In 2005, I had the good fortune to be assigned to cover Hewlett Packard’s Imaging and Printing Conference at the achingly beautiful Half Moon Bay Resort near San Francisco.
At the keynote address, executive vice president Vyomesh Joshi told analysts and reporters that HP sells lots of printers, over 300 million per year. And then he boldly proclaimed plans to conquer BRIC countries with millions of low priced multi-function printers.
Along with other IT sellers, HP is digging itself out of the Great Recession. A peek at HP’s 2010 financial numbers reveal the printer group is still reckoning with reduced unit sales and lower margins due to competition.
HP’s printer and print supply revenues remain below their 2008 numbers.
HP eStation printer with Zeen tablet
Like lots of other tablet toting consumers—mine is Archos’s 7″ Internet tablet—I have one less reason to get a hard copy version of emails or web pages. I just slip this Android tablet into my carrying bag and head off to my next meeting, reviewing content while I’m on-the-go.
Printers obviously won’t completely disappear—I am being somewhat melodramatic. But I wouldn’t call the enterprise printer market a growth area in terms of units sold and profits.
And there are now stirrings in the consumer printer market that may be the first ominous signs of the great changes to come.
In September, HP announced the eStation personal printer. It’s an “all-in-one” inkjet printer and scanner, the type you find in your local Staples, with one difference: it includes HP’s 7” Zeen Android tablet, which acts as both a remote control for the eStation as well as an e-reader.
The Zeen does not come loaded with Android Market or many apps, but based on a quick look at an Android forum, hackers are busily trying to turn this into a usable tablet.
No doubt margins on the eStation printer are low, as everyone knows the real money is in replacing spent inkjet cartridges.
But it may just be that HP’s personal printer business has become a mere pretext for new tablet and app revenues.
The New York Times’ Ashlee Vance reported that HP has applied for a trademark for Zeen, which it has described as a “portable handheld device for receiving and displaying text and images and sound; computer software for use in transmitting and displaying text, images and sound; computer peripherals; computer hardware.”
Sounds pretty broad reaching for just a remote control.
The corporate printer market is toast. During my last stint at a corporate HQ, we were all bringing laptops to meetings to review presentations. With Androids and iPads breaching the corporate gates, there’ll continue to be less demand for laserjet or inkjet printed material.
HP’s ultimate strategy could be to use their printers to attract consumer attention to the Zeen, and then lead the masses to ebooks and other apps—perhaps remote printing of photos that are then mailed back. In this theory, the Zeen brand name is also HP’s entry point into the enterprise tablet market.
Is this software and computer maker far off from offering Android app credits for consumers who return their eStations or other printers?
Related articles
- Review: HP eStation All-In-One Printer With An Android Tablet (crunchgear.com)
- Have You Zeen What HP Is Up To (nytimes.com)
- HP eStation Zeen is more printer controller than tablet (gottabemobile.com)
- HP Zeen 150 Tablet (androidforums.com)
