Mike Feldman VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

I’m live blogging from Budapest at the Office Printing ’08 launch event. Throughout the day, I’ll be posting updates about the news HP is announcing, capturing some of the information being shared by the speakers, and sharing my impressions of the event.

So no matter where you are in the world, you will be able to experience the excitement of the latest launch of new devices, services and solutions from HP, and how HP is bringing Print 2.0 to life.

Budapest Street Scene

• Six new HP LaserJet printers including HP’s fastest single-function black-and-white laser printer and HP’s most powerful, productive and cost-effective color printer series to date in addition to HP’s first dedicated enterprise scanner. Read more about the new devices on The LaserJet blog.
• The industry’s first HP Solutions Business Partner Accreditation, Certification, and Test program (ACT) to accredit partners’ internal processes, review their designs and certify their solutions. Hear more about this one-of-a-kind program in a podcast with my colleague, John Johasky.
• Three new HP Access Control Secure Printing Solutions that are designed to help mitigate security and compliance risks, prevent fraud, protect data privacy and enhance device fleet management.
• A newly enhanced low-melt toner formulation that reduces energy consumption and is designed to melt at lower temperatures, yet deliver print quality consistency at faster print speeds.
• As part of the “What Do You Have To Say?” global interactive marketing campaign to target large businesses, HP is showcasing how 3M worked with HP to globally reduce its device count by 47 percent and save more than $3 million in just two years. Learn more about the campaign and 3M in a podcast I did with Peter Godfrey, Director of IT Infrastructure at 3M here.

For even more information, check out the launch online press kit.

Now back to the event! Jean-Pierre Le Calvez, vice president of marketing for HP Europe, is the master of ceremonies. In his opening remarks, he discussed why this is a momentous occasion because the presentations will all revolve around HP’s Print 2.0 strategy and going beyond printers… to a world of streamlined, personalized, easy-to-manage content where our customers can print, on demand, anywhere, anytime.

And this day is also momentous because this is a global launch for HP’s Imaging and Printing business, and the attendees at the event will be some of the first people to see the new spring product introductions.

Bill DeLacy, senior vice president and general manager for HP Europe was up next, and he discussed IPG’s Print 2.0 strategy and how it unlocks the advantages of printing, by moving from analog pages to digital – and the added benefit of flexibility this provides. Following Bill, Jan Riecher, vice president of commercial enterprise for HP Europe, talked about the “document process of the future,” where HP helps its customers go through the process of optimizing infrastructure, managing the imaging and printing environment, and ultimately, improving paper-based workflows.

Jan Riecher discusses HP’s enterprise strategy

Rounding out the first set of speakers was Alberto Bozzo, vice president and general manager of SMB for HP Europe, who described HP’s approach to the SMB market, and how “customers are the engineers,” since much of the product and service design and development stems from customers feedback.

Later on, I’ll be moderating a panel featuring HP SMB and enterprise customers, where they’ll be discussing their printing environment and how it impacts their business. I’ll be posting a recap of the panel to the blog later today.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer , MFP, Office Printing 08