HP's Joshi: New SMB Engagement Plan Still 'Under Construction'

Speaking at the HP 2005 Imaging and Printing Conference in Half Moon Bay, Calif., Joshi said HP still plans to model the new engagement model on its enterprise strategy, but the company is still ironing out the details.

He also reaffirmed HP's stance that it does not have the global reach on its own to grow printing and imaging sales to SMBs, and must leverage VARs to grow its profits in this space.

"We have our strategy where we have partners in our mind when we want to reach SMB customers," Yoshi said. "Globally, we will not be able to do that without them."

At the HP Americas Partner Conference in February, HP executives promised a new sales engagement model for SMBs designed to ease channel conflict between VARs and HP's direct sales and call-center representatives. The proposed plan will be similar to one HP is now implementing in the enterprise space, which has HP moving 30 percent, or about 250, of its tier-one direct enterprise accounts to the channel.

Also, as part of the enterprise sales engagement model, HP's direct-sales reps don't receive compensation if they make sales incursions into channel.

HP Tuesday also unveiled a new product aimed at driving down the total cost of ownership for printing and imaging for SMBs.

In his keynote Joshi identified the core need of SMBs as wanting their printing and imaging capabilities to have the look and feel of an enterprise without having the IT resources to do so.

"They want to look like a big company, and we'll help them make that happen," Joshi said.

HP, a longtime leader in the printer space, has recently found itself in a heated battle with Dell, Lexmark and others, which have been taking market share from the Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor. To ward them off, HP has been lowering its prices, a move that is causing margin squeezing in the channel.

New products introduced Tuesday are in line with HP's recent price slashing. The vendor unveiled its first color laser printer for less than $400, the HP Color LaserJet 2600n, which costs $399. HP also introduced a $149 printer in its Business InkJet series, the HP Business InkJet 1000, and an HP Color LaserJet 2800 printer in the All In One series for $799.

Other SMB-targeted printers introduced Tuesday include the HP LaserJet 1020, which starts at $179; the HP LaserJet 1022, which starts at $199; and the HP DeskJet 9800 series, with prices starting at $299.