June 11, 2007—Making big news this spring, Hewlett-Packard (HP) hosted events in several parts of the world—Rome and New York—introducing new printers, a new tagline, and an initiative to drive print on the Web and beyond.

The highlight of the Graphic Arts Summit, Rome, May 9-11, was the introduction of the new Indigo 5500 and 3500 presses.

The 5500 replaces the 5000-series models, updating and enhancing the line. According to the company, it "takes everything we learned on the 5000 to the next level." Improvements include near-zero downtime on spot color ink replacement for optional 5th, 6th, and 7th color stations; an expanded range of supported media; and resolution enhancement technology for higher-resolution imaging of up to 1,200 dpi.

For customers who already own an Indigo 5000, HP will be offering an upgrade path. While the company did point out that it won't be able to upgrade everything on an older model, it will be offering free software upgrades to all customers, and optional ink replacement and enhanced media capabilities introduced on the 5500. These upgrades will be available by the end of the year, with the new press expected to be available this month in North America.

According to Rich Raimondi, vice president/general manager, Graphic Arts Business, Imaging and Printing Group, the 5500 was in beta for the last quarter with very positive results. HP, he noted, spent a lot of time talking to customers before sitting down to develop the 5500. The company wanted to find out what was important to them, he said, asking what new features they wanted to see, what applications most customers were either targeting or wanted to target, and what could be upgraded.

The Indigo 3500 is an entry-level version of the product line, designed to give printers a way to enter the market while keeping the initial investment down. It is also a smaller footprint for shops where space is a concern.

According to HP, the 3500 "is a high-quality digital production device, available at an entry-level price, for commercial and in-plant printing firms.... The 3500 offers the look-and-feel of offset printing, with the superior liquid electrophotographic (LEP) technology of HP ElectroInks. [It] offers the ideal solution for printing firms specializing in marketing collateral, direct mail, books, and manuals with usage needs in the lower end of the production volume space."

The Power of Print
At the New York event, May 29-June 1, the big news was the unveiling of the company's new slogan and initiative: "Print 2.0: Unlocking the Power of Print."

Billed as the company's strategy for making printing relevant and empowering as content moves from the desktop to the Web, Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, noted that in this new era of imaging and printing, HP has seen growth in the Imaging and Printing business for the past six years, growing every quarter. Looking to the future, the company is targeting the Internet and Intranets.

"The Web will play a very important role," said Mr. Joshi. "The Web empowers the customers to create the content. We need to make sure we understand that, and how to increase the pie. We want to get all that content created by users and customers and drive them to printing."

But how do you go after the Internet as an opportunity, he asked, when the vast majority of content created online is never printed, and even those who want to print encounter poorly designed utilities for it?

He outlined three key areas:

1. Continue to innovate, delivering a next-generation printing platform. "We need the right kind of speed and cost of ownership. Find the right kind of the break-even point, better quality, right print speed, and right cost of operation, you get the tipping point," he said.
2. Increase the pie—creation is happening on the Web. Take that creativity to a printing platform, "converting he bytes into atoms," he noted. "We can help you to connect to the physical world."
3. Extend the digital content creation and publishing platform that you can scale and repeat.