Time Warner, H-P Plan Interactive Printer : Technology: The device, which will offer coupons, maps and other home shopping information, is called significant.
Time Warner Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. said Monday that they are developing a home printer for Time Warner’s interactive television network, another step toward turning living rooms into one-stop shopping centers.
The service will let cable TV subscribers print coupons, retail and restaurant promotions, maps, video images, invoices, magazine articles and other information.
The companies said one possible application would allow a subscriber to use a remote-control device to shop for a car via a local auto dealer, receive a car brochure, then arrange a test drive at home.
The printer will be available by April. It will be free of charge to 4,000 households in Orlando, Fla., where Time Warner’s TV network is being developed. The cost of the printer after that has yet to be determined, Time Warner spokesman Edward Adler said.
Wall Street analysts cheered the venture as a further step toward delivering full interactivity to households, if not a major financial boon for either company.
“This makes things far more interactive than they were before,” said analyst Sharon Dorsey Wagoner at Argus Research. “So far, the concept of interactivity has been far ahead of reality. This is a step toward the ultimate vision.”
Hewlett-Packard’s stock was up $2 at $69.875 on the New York Stock Exchange. Time Warner shares edged up 62.5 cents to $42.
Matthew Harrigan at Bear Stearns & Co. said the printing venture is significant in completing the package of the television network.
“It’s hard to quantify (the value of a printer). But it just highlights that this whole process is moving much faster than people had realized,” he said.
Time Warner’s Adler said the printer will also help deliver more magazine information to home subscribers. For example, a viewer could print out a copy of a Time magazine article available on the interactive system.
Hewlett-Packard said the service will be based on its VidJet pro print manager technology, which is scheduled to be available in December.
The technology permits video images from any source to be quickly printed on plain paper or transparencies.
Gerald Levin, chairman of Time Warner, said at a conference of magazine publishers in Orlando that the company plans to invest about $5 billion in installing the full-service, interactive television network in all of its major cable systems.
The $5 billion will be invested over the next five years to reach all of the company’s 7.1 million cable subscribers in the United States.
The company expects to finance the network through operating cash flow as well as from funds provided through a venture with US West Inc., Levin said.
Levin said the various services to be offered through the network will generate additional revenue, but he declined to elaborate.
“It’s a whole new revenue stream we never put in our projections, we never counted on, that’s going to come as a result of this digital network,” Levin said in an interview. “We’re confident that the financial returns will be there.”
