58.9 F
San Diego
Monday, Mar 18, 2024
-Advertisement-

HP Coveting Lost Ground With Printer Technology

Hewlett-Packard Co. is firing a salvo at rivals in the increasingly crowded computer printer market by thinking small and precise.

Last week, the company unveiled a less expensive way to make a print head , the device on the business end of a printer that shoots ink through tiny holes onto a page.

The technology also prints faster.

Palo Alto-based HP said it spent $1.4 billion on the five-year printer effort. Some of the work was done at HP’s Rancho Bernardo facility, which employs roughly 2,000 people.

“This technology is the next step in our business transformation , the master key that unlocks new market opportunities and further growth in our printer business,” said Vyomesh Joshi, the San Diego-based executive in charge of HP’s Imaging and Printing Group, in a statement.

Joshi was more blunt speaking off the cuff in a conference call with analysts.

“No competitor can catch up,” he said.

HP engineers hope to use the print head technology in various devices, from home photo printers to industrial presses, Joshi said.

David Haueter, an analyst with Gartner Inc., a Connecticut-based tech market research firm, said the technology gives HP a jump on rivals.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see similiar technologies from other vendors within a couple of years,” Haueter said.

HP said it had found a way to turn a single piece of material into a print head with tiny ink chambers, resistors (to make the ink boil out of the chamber at the right time) and nozzles.

The conventional way of creating a print head mechanically brings two layers of print head into alignment.

Stephen Nigro, one of the HP executives charged with introducing the technology to a group in New York on July 11, illustrated the process by slowly rubbing the flat of one hand against the other.

The new, one-piece process , employing a photolithographic process common in chip production , improves accuracy from the micron level to the sub-micron level, Joshi said. A micron is one one-thousandth of a millimeter.

The design also supports an increase in the number of nozzles, with 3,900 or more on a single print head.

Development costs decrease by 50 percent with the new process, Joshi said.

Last week, HP showed off a consumer printer using the technology. HP executives said it can push out a 4-by-6 photo in 14 seconds. The cost to produce the photo, 24 cents.

In the fall, HP said it plans to bring out an inkjet printer for small and midsize businesses, hoping to beat the cost of laser printing by 30 percent.

HP is working against a perception that inkjet printers are consumer devices with slow-drying ink, Gartner’s Haueter said.

The move comes at a time of stepped up competition.

HP shipped 1.05 million inkjet printers in the first quarter, down from 1.25 million in the year-ago quarter, according to Gartner.

Lexmark International Inc. shipped roughly 600,000 during the first quarter. Seiko Epson Corp. shipped 475,000.

Dell Inc. has rocketed into fourth place, shipping 467,500 inkjet printers for 15.6 percent of the market during the first quarter.

Dell shipped 40,000 printers (just 1.5 percent of the market) in the year-ago quarter.

Besides eyeing lost market share, HP hopes to lower costs by cutting Imaging and Printing Group staff by 2,000 workers. The company in May offered voluntary severance packages.

The design effort, dubbed Big Bang 2005, isn’t HP’s first printer revamp. The company spent $1 billion to re-engineer its printers in 2002.

The new approach is “radically different,” Joshi said.

The 2002 effort mostly affected consumer products.

“We could not scale it,” Joshi said.

This time, Joshi said HP intends to adapt its technology to printers for companies, photofinishing, graphics and industrial printers.

More formidable products will follow the home and small-office printers, according to Joshi.

“Stay tuned,” he said.

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

Oberon Eyes Europe for Renewable DME

Leaders of Influence in Law 2024

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-