HP Seeks to Boost Convergence of Its Printers With Services Firms

Hewlett-Packard Co. said Wednesday that it would pursue more deals tying its dominant printer business to services companies as it tries to spur demand for the hardware and supplies that contribute more than half its profits.

The Palo Alto-based computer and imaging giant announced new ventures with Federal Express, custom newspaper printer NewspaperDirect and others and said that additional efforts, including minority investments in start-ups, will follow.

The company also will offer more specialized and printer-friendly hardware, Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina said in a San Francisco speech to business partners and the media.

“New technology makes anything print-capable,” she said.

Digital cameras can already print without going through computers. Personal digital assistants unveiled Wednesday by Hewlett-Packard and others using Microsoft software also can print, and HP executives said that within a year cellular phones should be able to print.

Other hardware on the horizon includes a slimmed-down version of a $250,000 machine from Dazel, a company HP bought a year ago, that directs documents to be printed one place, e-mailed to another place and faxed or sent as a page somewhere else. By the fall, the technology should be available for about $25,000, HP said.

Fiorina, who has stressed what she calls “e-services” since joining the Silicon Valley pioneer last year, said printers would become a central spot for varied tasks such as ticketing and mailing.

Many smaller companies are doing similar things, and the new HP products thus far don’t match the high-flown rhetoric about merging information appliances and electronic services, said GartnerGroup research director James Lundy. But Fiorina’s moves are in the right direction, he said.

“This is kind of like the coming-out party for the printing division relative to e-services,” Lundy said.