THE NEWS IN PRINT

HP is distinctively ahead of its competitors for quite some time now. Although there has been a surge of a few other brands and new entrants in the field, HP's profits keeps multiplying and they keep getting a lot of printers off their storage facility.

Economic Times, a popular magazine in India caught up with Vyomesh Joshi, Vice President of HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) earlier this week. Hearing from company heads has become a rare phenomenon as the bluemoon nowadays. As expected, he was ecstatic about the company's performance and its prospects in the coming years.

Vyomesh claimed that HP presently has a 46% global share of all the printers sold at around 60 million. Another interesting fact is that an estimated 48 trillion pages were printed last year and only 1.6% of it came out of HP's printers. Off the total number of pages printed, majority (92%) was printed commercially by printers worldwide. Out of the remaining 8%, 1.6% sounds and looks pretty good. Just imagine the number of trees that disappear off forests as a result of this massive figure.

Regarding the popular Print 2.0 concept: The Print 2.0 strategy focuses on three areas: delivering a next-generation digital printing platform that increases print speeds and lowers the cost of printing for high-volume commercial markets; making it easier to print from the web; and extending our digital content creation and publishing platforms across all customer segments. The goal is to capture a more significant portion of the 50 trillion pages expected to be printed by 2010.

Here are some facts to justify that IPG has done exceedingly well in terms of profits. In 2006, its revenue was £9.5 billion and the previous year, 2007, it shot up to £14.25 billion which should act as a good indicator for the sales recorded.

We have heard and seen several instances of stupid acts by thieves which has made their catch a piece of cake. With printers, thieves tend to get ultra dumb. Remember the thief who called the printer technical support! Even mice have found it to sneak in and out of printers.

A man returned a printer at a Target store in the US with fake currency in it. The person in-charge of return items checked the contents of the printer; only to find copies of $20 and $10 bills in it. The thief rather desperate, grabbed the printer and made a run. An alert cop outside the store nabbed him before he went too far.

If you know any other instances of stupidity by thieves involving printers, do share it with us.

Via Savanna Now

With the rise in laser printers and a furore taking place in the inkjet market, a consumer is likely to be confused on his/her buying options. I will provide minimum number of points that should be sufficient to ponder over a few questions before making the decision.

- Laser printers are more expensive than inkjet printers. Even the toner cartridges are comparatively expensive but yield much more. So, one needs to decide if he has a bigger upfront cost to accommodate laser printers in their budget.

- The biggest factor to choose between the two is the projected number of prints undertaken. If the printer is used to print a lot, mostly black; laser printers would be ideal. If the printing habits are sparse, inkjets would be a better choice.

- Colour laser printers are on a high now. If you are a person printing a lot of colour, try out laser else for fewer printing jobs, inkjets should be preferred.

- Laser printers are fast devices. They can spit out more prints compared to an inkjet. If there is a need where time is of an essence, lasers are the ones to look out for.

- Toner cartridges provide a better yield than the inkjet cartridges. It's around 3:1. If the printing job is huge, replacing cartridges at short span of times is not desirable. Toner cartridges are expensive as well.

- Paper jams are common with inkjets. If you like to be hassle-free, stick to laser printers.

- Laser printers are bulky; hence making them not-so-ideal at homes.

If you have any queries relating to the choice of printers, do raise your question in the comment field provided below; we would be glad to help you out.

We have all experienced paper jams with printers and probably not heard of any other kind of a jam with printers. But, in this unique instance, a mouse got stuck in the toner cartridge of a HP Laserjet 1200 printer; it's still alive while its stuck.

These pictures have been doing rounds through e-mails for the past couple of years. With it, there have been several theories going around too. Some say that the mouse was placed inside the toner cartridge and pictures were captured. While some others felt that the mouse got inside the printer on its own and pictures were taken later. Another improbable theory is that the mouse was photoshopped. Nah! I don't think so...

Mice have the ability to squeeze themselves into the smallest of holes. I have seen some in person and heard about it quite a lot.

As we can see from the pictures above, the mouse is still alive and I hope it made out alive. If the user had an evil brain like my brother, he would have put the mouse to test by passing some print commands.

Many organisations have no clue regarding their printing needs and excess printing stationery and devices that are procured as a result. Without a proper foundation and printing policy in place, employees of such organisations tend to print unnecessary content. Last week, I had reported on the printing habits in UK offices which were far from satisfactory. To bring the printing process in line, there needs to be a print management system in place. A result of a print management system could be reduced costs of printing and saving of paper and other printing stationery.

Vnunet has published a longish article by Paul Bray which features several figures in the IT industry who are voicing their opinion on the need for print management. Here are some snapshots:

According to Neil Donohue, solutions product manager at Ricoh, print management comprises of-

- Route output directly to the most efficient device for the job.

- Accurately allocate output costs to user, department or project codes.

- Eliminate unauthorised printing and copying and protect document confidentiality with secure document release.

- Follow-me printing, where devices can be grouped and the document printed at the most convenient printer.

- Manage colour costs by enforcing quotas on colour output.

- Increase device efficiency for the best return on investment.

- Reduce IT support requirements via centralised printing.

- Monitor devices and redirect a print job should a device be unavailable.

- Obtain insight into usage patterns.

- Automatically capture meter readings.

As noted by a marketing director at Kyocera, printing management is about collecting information such as w hat is getting printed, by whom, on how many devices, how often and how much is it costing? Based on all these inputs, an analysis is conducted to prepare a blueprint for reducing or optimising the cost and efficiency of printing solutions.

Other views expressed were varied and interesting. Here are some highlights:

- individual users will be presented with functions and applications that are required for specific roles

- to prevent users from printing in colour and to restrict certain software packages

- recognise the print volume and route the printing jobs to available printers

- recognise measures to prevent problems with printing infrastructure

The bottom line is that every organisation immaterial of the size should have a printing management system in place. It's important on a broader perspective to know the needs and the printing that takes place.