Posted by Jeff Walter, Inkjet Systems Marketing

I spent the last couple of days with close to 600 key accounts, retailers, resellers, press and analysts in New York at HP’s Print 2.0 event. It was really gratifying to see the enthusiasm our audience had for our vision and to get their feedback. The Imaging and Printing’s group full product line was on display in hands-on demos that mapped to real world scenarios. We had five experience centers with our inkjet products well represented throughout.

The Consumer Experience center looked like a small home with a home office, family room and teenager’s bedroom. We also recreated a small retail store. In the area we demonstrated a “day in the life” of a family and how HP could help consumers in a Web 2.0 world. This included showing how we are providing the tools to integrate personal and professional content in new and creative ways and allowing customers a range of options on how to print that content at home, on-line or in retail. We also highlighted, our Smart Web Printing software. With almost half of the printing content in the home coming from the web, fixing the current horrible printing experience from the web (cut off pages, extra pages with just one line of text, etc.) has been a high priority for HP. We will start shipping this software with almost all our new products and also have made it available for free download, just click Smart Web Printing. Finally, we also showcased new HP Photosmart wireless printers and AiOs with touchscreen displays and new compact photo printers. Also, be sure to check out the new Photosmart A826 and our new Next Day TV service that lets you get DVDs of recent TV shows and sporting events.

In the Small and Medium Business area, which was designed to look like a small winery, we displayed the new Officejet Pro K8600 B-size printer for in-house marketing and our new portal that provides resources to small business so that their marketing materials make them look just as slick as large corporations. Participants could also experience the Officejet Pro L7780 All-in-one which gives you the performance of a laser printer but at 30% lower cost for color printing. We also introduced the Officejet H470 mobile printer – the world’s fastest mobile printer. This small wireless printer is battery-powered so it can easily travel with you and your notebook PC.

Moving along, the Enterprise area included HP’s CM8060 MFP with Edgeline technology. This high-speed ink based printer and copier is providing a new very cost-effective alternative to the traditional department copy machine. We had lots of great discussions with the analysts and channel partners on Edgeline and received a tremendous amount of positive feedback – it’s great to see our customers as excited about this breakthrough technology as we are! Here is an example of what Microsoft has to say about their experience so far with Edgeline. Click to view video.

Finally, there was also a Graphics center with HP Scitex, Indigo and Designjet products that enable on-demand printing, large-format printing and even book publishing. Marc Hoog was on hand to pass out autographed copies of his book Letters from Katrina, a collection of stories of hope and inspiration from children who survived Hurricane Katrina. The book was printed on an Indigo press. And, last, but not least, the Supplies area showcased a number of new easy web printing solutions from Tabblo, Yahoo! Travel, BoingBoing.net, Dooce.com and more.

Overall the event was a great success as we were able to share our vision of Print 2.0 with customers, retailers, resellers, press and analysts. And special thanks to both the HP employees who staffed the event and our partners, customers, press, analysts and others who made time to spend the two days with us. And for those of you who were not able to attend I hope this write up and some of the links helps give you a feel for the event and our vision of moving beyond printers to printing – and that you are as exited about the Print 2.0 vision as we are.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.