HP Advances Adoption of Digital Technology for Commercial Printers

BIRMINGHAM, England, April 4, 2006, HP today introduced offerings designed to enable commercial printers to more easily add high-value digital printing services to analog environments.

The offerings include new and enhanced HP Indigo digital presses as well as a host of products and solutions that support hybrid analog/digital workflows to create more integrated and efficient print shops.
The company also announced agreements with new partners in the graphics industry, including one with the Founder Group which will expand HP’s presence in China’s growing commercial printing market.

Under the theme “Your Digital Difference,” HP is demonstrating at IPEX 2006 its small- to super-wide-format portfolio including HP Indigo digital presses, HP Designjet wide-format printers, HP Scitex super-wide-format printers, HP Specialty Printing Systems (SPS) original equipment manufacturer solutions, and products from more than 50 partners.

The expanded portfolio is a result of HP’s graphic arts strategy, which is built on three integrated tenets: co-existence – between analog and digital technologies; community – connected by the Internet and digitally accessible; and collaboration – with customers and other industry leaders.

“Print service providers are discovering a real digital difference as they leverage HP products to build competitive advantage and raise profitability,” said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “The announcements we are making at IPEX pave the way for our customers to migrate to high-quality digital printing faster and more cost-effectively than ever before.”

Eight different application areas are featured in HP’s 2,200-square-meter booth: Marketing Collateral; Direct Mail, Books and Manuals; Photo Specialty; Labels; Flexible Packaging; Indoor and Outdoor Signage; Industrial Wide-to-Super-Wide Format; and Specialty Applications.

New and enhanced HP Indigo digital presses

The HP Indigo press w3250 is a new, highly productive web-fed digital press that produces offset-quality prints as low as 0.03 $/€ per page (A3 4/0). Achieving speeds of up to 136-pages per minute (ppm) when printing four colors and up to 272 ppm for two colors, the w3250 is designed for a variety of high-volume applications including direct mail, postcards and publishing.

The best-selling HP Indigo press 5000 has been enhanced to reduce monochrome printing costs to less than USD$0.004 per page while producing double the monochrome print speed (1/0) with up to 16,000 impressions per hour.(1) The HP Indigo press 5000 now enables commercial printers to cost-effectively use the same device and workflow for one- to seven-color applications and was recently named the “first true universal production device” by InfoTrends.(2)

New partners and solutions providers expand HP’s presence in key commercial markets

HP has signed an agreement with the Founder Group, franchise owner of the EasiPrint network of print service providers and the largest print solutions provider in China. Founder will become a distributor of HP Indigo presses to the commercial printing segment in China, and the companies will collaborate on research and development for digital front-end solutions for the commercial printing industry globally.

Expanding opportunities for high-impact personalized direct mail applications, HP now has support from solutions providers PrintSoft, Creo Darwin and MindFireInc for HP Indigo presses. They join direct mail partners GMC, XMPie, Printable and Direct Smile in the HP booth.

HP has also expanded its offerings for the flexible packaging market – which has an estimated market value of $70 billion – by offering new software applications, substrates and finishing options for its HP Indigo press ws4050.

Maximizing the value of print workflows though digital adoption and JDF compliance

The new HP Indigo Production Stream Server, powered by Creo, facilitates unified workflows driving both offset and digital equipment. Leveraging Creo Print On-Demand Solutions technology, this exclusively designed digital color server is fully integrated, using JDF (Job Definition Format) standards, with popular hybrid workflows such as Brisque, Prinergy and Synapse prepress. Products from JDF-compliant workflow and finishing partners will also be demonstrated.

HP plans to offer a variety of JDF-enabled end-to-end workflow solutions that will enable HP Indigo owners to streamline their production through seamless integration with web-to-print, workflow management, MIS and finishing solutions. By interconnecting multiple HP partner offerings into complete workflow scenarios, HP lays the groundwork for the establishment of a fully automated and transparent print shop.

HP also plans to resell the Dorn SPE DMC 19-inch UV coater, an affordable, user-friendly product that protects digitally printed marketing material and enhances design aesthetics with gloss, matte and satin finishes.

To help HP Indigo customers maximize the value of their digital press investment, HP is offering a series of new customer service programs, including the HP Indigo Business Development Program, Digital Press Service Implementation and Customer Ramp-Up Management Program, and HP Instant Support for Digital Printing.

Greater inkjet versatility with new HP SPS solutions

The HP mPrinter 4000 imager has been enhanced with stitching and ink swapping capabilities, which enable HP OEM partners to design systems that cover larger widths for continuous printing and other applications.

In addition, HP has added new industrial-strength specialty inks to its HP SPS OEM offerings, enabling inkjet imprinting on a broader range of substrates including coated and overcoated substrates, PVC and plastic media. These inks dramatically expand the range of suitable OEM applications.

More information on HP’s presence at IPEX and its solutions for the graphics industry is available at http://h30267.www3.hp.com/country/us/en/events/ipex2006 and in an online press kit at www.hp.com/go/Ipex2006.

About HP

HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company’s offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended Jan. 31, 2006, HP revenue totaled $87.9 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.



(1) Full monochrome (1/0) 8.5 x 11-inch images per hour (two-up; recommended with media of 90-200 gsm) using previous HP Indigo press 5000, which printed 8,000 monochrome impressions her hour.
(2) InfoTrends Inc., March 17, 2006, “Improvements to the HP Indigo press 5000 Make It the First True Universal Production Device.”

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they ever materialize or prove incorrect, could cause the results of HP and its consolidated subsidiaries to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including the expected development, performance or rankings of products or services; statements of expectation or belief; and any statement of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the development, performance and market acceptance of products and services and other risks that are described from time to time in HP’s Securities and Exchange Commission reports, including but not limited to HP’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2005 and other reports filed after such report. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

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