HP announces business printer push

Hewlett-Packard will today announce several new moves in the business printer market, including the unveiling of a $799 (£495) colour laser printer.

The company also plans to introduce the HP Print Server Appliance 4250, a server designed specifically for managing printing tasks such as distributing print drivers, spooling printer requests and hosting documents that are waiting to be printed.

HP is also pushing a concept for businesses to lower their printing costs through what the company calls Total Print Management (TPM) services. The company is pitching businesses to let HP analyse how companies are doing their printing today and make recommendations, offering customers the option of outsourcing their printing to HP or continuing to own their own gear. HP recently launched a services business in its printer unit.

HP quoted Gartner analyst Peter Grant as saying that "businesses that proactively manage their printing infrastructures stand to reduce their overall cost of printing by 10 per cent to 30 per cent."

As for the new printer, HP said the Color LaserJet 1500 series offers four pages per minute output in colour and 16 pages per minute in black and white.

Ian Fried writes for News.com