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PRINT.IT
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Printers
consumables are ink cartridges
– the printhead lasts for the
lifetime of the printer.
“Inkjet technology is extremely
environment-friendly,” Mercè
Barcons explained. “If you look at
the entire system, including the
cartridges themselves, we put
many more pages into a smaller
package than other technologies.
The cartridges also have less
packaging around them and
that serves to reduce costs and
enables us to offer a lower
cost per page.”
The combination of HP’s Flow Series of laser MFPs and its CM
Professional cloud-based document management system reflects the
changing role of business MFPs
Going with the flow
HP’s other stand-out new
products (out of more than 20
announced this year) are the
Flow Series of colour and mono
MFPs introduced to meet
the growing need to digitise
paper-based information for
archiving or digital workflows;
and a cloud-based document
management system that can
be accessed directly from a
Flow MFP or any computing
device with a web browser
including smartphones.
Essentially ‘capture-
optimised’ versions of existing
products, Flow MFPs (somewhat
confusingly identified by a
letter ‘c’ after the product
number) incorporate a high-
end document scanner with HP
EveryPage technology providing
‘no compromise’ scanning for
an extra 400 euros – a small
premium, says HP, considering
the productivity savings it brings.
There is also a larger, 100-page
ADF and a hard keyboard for
easy data entry.
Examples of ‘no compromise’
scanning include a dual head
scanner that scans both sides
of a page in a single pass at
speeds of 42ppm mono and
30ppm colour (84 and 60
images per minute for two-sided
documents); automatic image
rotation; double-feed detection;
blank page suppression; crop-to-
content to remove unnecessary
white space and keep file
sizes down; and long-lasting
components – the scanner has
a lifetime of 1.5 million pages
compared to 350,000 on a
standard model.
Flow MFPs also include
optical character recognition
(OCR) free of charge. This
converts scans into editable text
with all processing done on the
MFP itself. For this reason, it is
most useful when scanning a
small numbers of pages: users
who scan large numbers of
pages at a time are advised to do
OCRing on a server.
Scanning short-cuts
As standard, Flow MFPs offer
the ability to scan to folder,
email, USB, Sharepoint and
programmable QuickSets for
recurring tasks. They also offer
tight integration with the HP Flow
CM Professional cloud-based
document management system.
Scanning to HP Flow CM
Professional requires a separate
subscription, but once activated
can be accessed from the MFP
via a short-cut on the colour
touchscreen. A subscription costs
$20 per user, per month. There
is also the option of a site licence
costing $500 for unlimited users.
HP Flow CM Professional
can be operated from a PC but
the advantage of using the Flow
MFP to connect to the cloud
service is that it allows two-way
communication so that users can
scan to and print directly from
online storage. The alternative
of uploading and retrieving
information using a web-
connected computer involves
more steps.
HP Flow CM Professional itself
is a chopped down, simplified
version of Autonomy designed
for small and medium-sized
businesses.
PrintIT
has only
seen a very early version, but
that includes the ability to
search unstructured data, share
documents, apply permissions
to documents and view full audit
trails. Another useful feature is
the ability to capture images of
documents with a smartphone
camera. Images
are cleaned up
automatically and
uploaded to the
cloud.
Regional
datacentres
Flow MFPs have
been introduced
to meet the
needs of
paper-intensive
businesses
such as banks,
healthcare,
insurance
companies and
the legal sector.
In order to meet
their compliance
requirements
Work to be done
Despite everything going for the
Officejet Pro X series, HP will still
have to convince customers that
they are robust enough to support
the workloads advertised and
that the fixed printhead will last
the lifetime of the machine. At a
time when businesses are aiming
to provide consistent output
(often choosing to standardise on
homogeneous devices through a
managed print service), there may
be concerns about using printers
based on a different technology.
And it will have to fight
against people’s prejudices.
The activities of other inkjet
vendors could be critical in this
regard. The emergence of high
speed office inkjet printers from
Memjet, Brother and others
could help dismantle buyers’
preconceptions or it could
reinforce them if the printers
don’t deliver the reliability and
print quality demanded by
business users.
For the time being – and
at first sight – HP’s Officejet
Pro X series does appear to
offer a genuine alternative to
laser devices for workgroup
printing. As HP brings out more
devices based on its PageWide
technology, it will be hoping that
the debate moves away from
the type of technology used and
focuses purely on the suitability
of a particular device to a
customer’s needs.
“Today the only technology
in offices is laser,” said Ferrari.
“But over time HP will continue
to use inkjet technology to build
a portfolio of products parallel to
laser technology, so we will offer
customers choice.”
and regional data security
legislation, HP is building HP Flow
CM Professional datacentres
within distinct territories as it rolls
the product out across the globe.
The combination of optimised
hardware and cloud services,
plus integration with mobile
devices, represents a significant
change in the evolution of
office printing. As Ferrari said:
“A printer used to be a device
connected to a PC, then a device
shared on a network. Now, more
and more, it is a platform for web
services enabled by the cloud
with the capacity for printing.”
He added: “Printers are
going to become a sort of self-
contained device for document
management that also have the
capability to print. This is not a
small change.”
www.hp.co.uk
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