Unlike a product which can be seen and felt if, for example, you stub your toe on it services are not as easy to visualize. In Houston however we are able to show our technical support staff viewing giant flat screens with information coming from and going to customers to proactively take action to avoid an outage or achieve resolution as quickly as possible should one occur.

HP not only demonstrates its services infrastructure, it also lets guests look at the insides of some of its systems, to show how it's all service-friendly.

Socci also links to a video HP has made, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the company's services capabilities and strategies.

That prompted this response in the comments section of Socci's blog:

Over the years we have used HP products and have been very happy with them. We are an HP reseller as well but I am now reluctant to sell any HP products for fear that my customers may have a technical problem like us and not be able to get the support they need. This is just a simple printer that the display is malfunctioning on. The unit is unusable, we cannot even send faxes, I wonder what it takes to have our warranty honored, meaning onsite service, does the printer have to blow up first?

It's not likely that it takes an explosion to trigger any services contract. (In the video that Socci links to, a narrator says that "The fact is, HP is the only service provider willing and able to commit to certain time limits for resolving problems, including time to repair for hardware...") And the video notes that HP has 70,000 channel partners that provide service as well.

But as much time and resources that the company puts in to its services and promoting its services, it will probably have to keep looking over its shoulder. Not only do Xerox, Oki Data, Lexmark, IBM and the channel provide steep competition, now Dell is hammering out a plan to get into print managed services.