HP unveiled “Print 2.0,” the company’s strategy for making printing relevant and empowering as both personal and professional content increasingly moves from the desktop to the web. At HP’s annual Imaging and Printing Conference, Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of the company’s Imaging and Printing Group, described how HP will seek to capture a significant share of the 53 trillion digital pages estimated to be printed in 2010 alone - an opportunity valued at more than $296 billion.

Joshi identified three key areas of focus of the Print 2.0 strategy:

• Make it easier to print from websites, such as blogs and travel sites, and bring new printing capabilities to online properties;
• Extend the company’s digital content creation and publishing platforms - for example, Snapfish and Logoworks - across customer segments spanning from consumers to enterprises; and
• Deliver a digital printing platform that increases print speeds and lowers the cost of printing for high-volume commercial markets.

In its enterprise imaging and printing portfolio, HP also announced new applications, services and an enhanced solution partner program to help businesses improve their imaging and printing workflow, management and infrastructure.

“Today, we’re introducing a new era in printing. We’re redefining what it means to print and further accelerating the transformation from analog to digital printed pages,” said Joshi. “In today’s world of ‘mashed media’ - words, pictures, video, songs - the question becomes ‘How will people publish this content?’ Print 2.0 is the answer. This vision centers on empowering our customers to create and consume their content, their way.”

Making the web more print-friendly
Content from the Internet accounts for nearly half (48 percent) of all printing done at home. Yet, many of the most popular destinations on the web - such as blogs and travel sites - have limited or non-existent printing capabilities. In an effort to broaden and improve the web-printing experience, HP is creating technologies to make it easy to print content from the Internet in a useful format.

The company is working with a number of leading Internet destinations and hosting companies to either improve their digital printing capabilities or introduce new ones. For example, HP has collaborated with ViaMichelin, a leading map provider in Europe with more than 28 million monthly visits to its online mapping service. ViaMichelin’s website now offers customers improved map-printing by better aligning what is seen on-screen with what is printed on the page, as well as with how maps are used once people are on the road.

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