Lester Co is HWM’s Associate Editor for print, and a one-man army looking for legions of articles and reviews to beat into submission. He recently came back from an HP – sponsored press briefing held in Shanghai, China, and here he shares his thoughts and observations in the first “celebrity” guest – written blog entry in hardwarezone.com in recent history. Take a look at HP’s latest innovations and productivity concepts with the intrepid editor from HWM.

Shanghai – China’s most modern city where the hustle and bustle rivals that of neighboring Hong Kong and Macau may not steal Beijing’s thunder when it comes to Olympic sports, but when it comes to the high technology, the high fashion, and the high towers, the Shanghai-nese are living life on the edge. It is in this former fishing town where HP has taken its audience of business and IT editors from across the region to share their vision for the year in transforming how people see and use printers in their offices and businesses.

While the Web 2.0 experience has been transforming the web in how people perceive and surf the Internet, HP has been transforming how people perceive printing with their Print 2.0 campaign over the past year. For the uninitiated, let’s tackle what Web 2.0 is first. The Web 2.0 concept moves the average web page to an interactive web application where one can seamlessly be updated without the unsightly page reloads, where one can enjoy seeing and uploading new content faster, where one can interact with another seamlessly, and where one is immersed in creative graphics that interact with the user and presents information that thrills the sight and wows the mind. Think of young community-oriented sites like Flickr, Friendster, and Digg, and you’ll see what we mean. In the consumer side of HP's Print 2.0 campaign, the company tackles how to get web content off the screen and into pages and creatively executed materials (ex. Post cards, photobooks, and photocubes).

By integrating printing services through HP’s online print services and partners, it’s now possible not to think of printing as a hassle to go through, rather, as a new and easy way of appreciating content like never before. For example, imagine giving a custom and pro-quality photobook of your photographs done with Tabblo, an HP online print service, as a gift to a close friend. The photobook has a personal touch to it, and yet it’s professionally done, as if you spent a lot of time and money on it. But the reality is, you didn’t, and the good thing about Print 2.0 is, since it’s an idea that works with economies of scale, it’s possible for such services to be done at a lowered cost for typical consumers.

Moving on to the business side of things, HP’s GO! Print 2.0 conference at the Le Royal Meridien Hotel, Shanghai, presented a whole package and set of solutions for transforming how the commercial space looks and uses their printer resources. It's about getting the most out of printers – from choosing and fully maximizing business features to managing the printers to keep printer costs as controlled as possible. For this blog, let us first take a look at the newest SMB offerings.

Small and Medium Businesses
Part of the Print 2.0 model HP wants to get across to business consumers is the fact that small business owners and managers don't need their actions to be dictated by the obstacles – or rather, limitations – that they face that are imposed by the current market situation for being a “small-time” operation. For example, businesses don't need to spend so much on marketing collaterals and be tied to minimum print runs, or waste paper or ink on non-business related print outs. With a total of over 25 new printers and imaging products, HP covers productivity tools for every department: from marketing to sales to the administration. We won’t bore you any further, let's go through a photo walk through of the new products showcased at the event.

Over 25 new HP printers are on this wall, and it's among the larger if not the largest roster of business-friendly printers to date!

In-house or outsource marketing collaterals? For small quantity but urgent jobs that require a manager's utmost attention, one of HP's Color LaserJets that come bundled with the Business Marketing Design CD such as the CP1215 saves the day. Producing collaterals such as restaurant menus and brochures is now as easy as picking a template for Word or Publisher by StockLayouts provided in the CD, customizing its contents, and start printing. The Business Marketing Design CD contains over a hundred templates by Stock Layouts, $50 off any logo package from LogoWorks by HP service, access to 20 free high resolution stock images from iStockphoto, and a trial version of Microsoft Office Publisher 2007.

Thinking of producing more than just brochures and newsletters? How about a magazine or booklet? The HP A3 Document Creation Studio or the CP6015 can fold, stack and staple pages for business users. It also prints in A3 format for even more creative possibilities.

HP claims this new jumbo ink cartridge can produce up to 2,500 black and white documents (assuming the ink is only covering a small portion of the page.) That's quite a number of pages for typical wordy documents. Color versions are also available.

The HP OfficeJet L7950 all-in-one printer along with the high speed K8600 series can make use of the 88XL ink. The L7950 has an automatic document feeder built-in as well as a fax machine (sorry folks, no handset here.)

The K8600 may look like a simple printer, but it's made for speed and for lower cost of printing. Built to take in extended ink cartridges like the 88XL, it can print up to 2,500 pages of documents in black and white, and 1,700 color documents. It prints at up to 35PPM by the way, producing a page in a little less than 2 seconds.

This scanner's a feisty one. Believe it or not, the ScanJet N9120 can scan at up to 50 pages per minute! And it's capable of scanning A3 poster documents, too. Not quite an SMB solution judging from its capabilities, but who's to say an SMB with a growing need of document processing won't find this handy? With a matching OCR software suite from HP, it's the ultimate document digitizer device with a stated capacity of 5,000 pages a day.

This all around all-in-one color laser printer from HP can fulfill requirements ranging from the creative department all the way to accounting. If there's a need to highlight payment due dates in eye-catching red, this series can do it for businesses, all the while controlling costs. Oh yes, before we forget, this printer uses the new ColorSphere toner technology with the improved chemically grown toners meaning this laser printer can reproduce color with a greater gamut and a more even distribution. This printer also uses Instant On technology and LED-based scanning heads for instant printouts and other all-in-one tasks.

Just looking for an all-in-one machine that's smart enough to deal with faxes alone, and affordable enough to run without the scary thought of color toner prices? Then meet the HP LaserJet M1319f MFP. This model comes with a handset for calls, and not only that, this office appliance only rings when there's an incoming voice call and automatically silences and processes fax calls. With caller ID it's possible to filter junk faxes and keep them from wasting ink and paper. It, too, has Instant On and LED-based scanning head features.

Ever heard of the preposterous idea of trying to print using laser on photo paper? Well, what if we told you it is possible now? HP's new Laser Photo Paper extends the capabilities of laser printers to photographic printouts. While the results still cast doubt on whether a four color toner can match that of an 8- or 10-color ink system, the bottom line is, it's now possible, and the print outs looks good nonetheless.

That's it for now, watch out for the second part of this blog in a couple of days where we continue taking a look at the new SMB offerings as well as the new Enterprise solutions from HP. For more information on Hewlett Packard, visit www.hp.com.