If you thought that digital killed the printed photo, you’re mistaken, says Hewlett Packard (HP). Determined to pick itself up after poor performance and the subsequent resignation of CEO Carly Fiorina recently, the IT consumables giant has unveiled its latest strategy in capturing the imagination, and the dollars, of the image-capturing generation: the Vivera ink range.
Speaking at last week’s Dublin-based press conference, HP’s general manager for imaging and printing in the Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Herbert Kock, described the climate of digital imaging as in a “tornado phase”.
HP predicts that a staggering 213-billion photos will be captured by digital cameras in 2008, of which more than 31-billion are likely to be printed.
Determined to be at the forefront of this wave, HP’s revolutionary new ink and inkjet printer range will make home printing all the more easier, accessible and affordable.
Derived from the words “vivid”, “vibrant” and “era”, the Vivera ink range is designed not only to maximise the longevity of prints and extend the lifetime of colour prints to an estimated 108 years — an added 40 years or so on the previous generation’s printing system — but to reduce drastically the cost of home printing to about R2,80 a 6″ by 8″ (about 15cm by 20cm) print.
The affordability of home processing is set to improve, said Kock, with larger picture sizes becoming ever more cheaper to print at home than send to a retailer.
Although only available for use in the latest range of HP eight-ink printers — most of which will only be available later this year — the Vivera ink range “represents the next generation in the evolution of inks”, said Kock. According to HP, the new ink range can produce almost 73-million colour combinations and combines best colour output with fade resistance. Photographers need no longer compromise one quality for another.
The launch of this “premium” and higher-priced product is presumably in response to the knock-offs market, and HP is appealing to the quality concerns of its market, unmatched by other printing materials. It remains to be seen if this strategy will work, but the forecast looks good, say industry experts.
Because research has indicated that more than half of Western European households alone do not have home access to a PC, HP has endeavoured to break this link with the introduction of printers that print directly from the camera’s memory chip, bypassing the need for PC-based software and image management.
“This year,” said Paul Withington, IDC research manager, “we predict that all-in-one device sales will overtake single purpose printers.” Local statistics indicate that HP commands a 73% market share of multipurpose units in South Africa.`
Another question was whether the camera phone will see the demise of the digital camera.
While the first generation of the camera phone undeniably crashed and burned, said Withington, revolutionary advancements in the areas of resolution and software will help camera-phone image capturing overtake that of the digital camera.
HP has been quick to spot a gap and form a partnership with leading cellphone manufacturer Nokia that allows direct, instant and wireless download of images from phone to printer via Bluetooth. This functionality has also been extended to other cellphone makes.
The camera phone’s second coming, believes Withington, will see a substantial increase in the number of images captured and the users’ desire to print them. And the statistics seem to substantiate that claim: 24-million of last year’s 34-million cellphone units shipped worldwide were equipped with camera-phone applications.
Whatever the method of capture, the increase in digital photos will be a major driver for consumer printer sales, say HP.