Hewlett-Packard earlier this week unveiled a major update to its multi-function printer portfolio, with new offerings for small and medium sized organizations as well as enterprises.

HP is finding that customers are increasingly looking to digitize their documents, and so it added the scanner from its ScanJet portfolio to its new LaserJet Enterprise flow MFP M525c and HP LaserJet Enterprise color flow MFP M575c multi-function printers.

In a recent interview with CRN, David Laing, director of future product marketing in HP's Printing and Personal Systems division, said the new LaserJets scan at 60 pages per minute and are also more accurate than traditional MFPs.

HP has included technology from ATMs that uses ultrasonic sound waves to discern whether two pages are stuck together, which can interfere with workflows. A full size keyboard is also part of the package, which makes it easier to add metadata to electronic workflows, according to Laing.

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HP is upgrading its line of SMB-focused HP Officejet Pro X Series inkjet printers with models that can print at speeds of up to 70 pages per minute. This is made possible by a new HP technology called PageWide, which consists of a print bar with minimal moving parts that spans the length of the page, Laing said.

In addition to printing two to three times faster than HP's current laser jet printers, the new OfficeJet Pro X models are significantly cheaper, Laing said.

In HP's annual meeting with Wall Street analysts last month, CEO Meg Whitman noted that HP had not updated its line of MFP printers in seven years and that this had hampered its ability to compete in the marketplace.

Rick Chernick, CEO of Camera Corner Connecting Point, a Green Bay, Wisc.-based HP partner, believes the new OfficeJet Pro X lineup will benefit the channel by allowing partners to offer cheaper, faster printers to customers.

"HP can now finally control the end-to-end inkjet printer space and not be dependent on third parties," Chernick told CRN. "This is great news and will improve our ability to compete."

It is not clear how much cheaper the new printers will be, since HP is not yet sharing pricing and availability details for the new products. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the printers will be the $2,500 to $3,000 range.

HP is also rolling out several cloud-based enterprise content management services that include technology from its $10.3 billion acquisition of Autonomy last August.

According to Laing, on-premise content management offerings are costly and often require IT staff to implement, but HP's new Flow CM Enterprise service is feature-rich and priced within the reach of SMBs.

The service includes Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) search engine, which allows users to search for data based on the contents of the repository. Laing said this is the first instance of Autonomy being packaged in a product that's aimed at SMB customers.

"IDOL analyzes every page as it goes into the Flow CM repository and does Google-like searches on content," Laing said. "This eliminates the need for tagging, making and simple and easy to find information. We have finally given SMBs as way to get rid of their file cabinets."

PUBLISHED NOV. 1, 2012