HP Hits $500 Million Mark In Revenue On New Print Management Business

A pilot program in North America is under way to bring more resellers and integrators into the new offering, and it is coming along slowly but surely, they said.

HP's top services and printing executives conducted a one-hour conference call with reporters and financial analysts Wednesday to discuss their Total Print Management business, a product and services offering that the company launched in March and which has attracted enterprise clients ranging from Bayer to Bechtel.

Print, document and image management is "one of the last, untapped areas that CIOs can pursue to improve the return they get on their IT investment," said Ann Livermore, executive vice president of HP services. "Up to 20 percent cost reductions are possible for our customers.

"It further validates our very conscious choice to leverage the entire portfolio of our company," Livermore said.

The company issued a news release and held a conference call because of the $500 million milestone, and Livermore said HP has another $300 million in contracts it hopes to close in the near term.

In pushing its new Total Print Management offering, the company is brushing up against rivals including Xerox, which launched its own document management consulting business in April.

However, Livermore and Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP's Imaging and Printing Group, said HP was working to leverage its culture of printing and computer system expertise in evaluating clients' business processes.

Asked how many of the 625 print management engagements have included HP's channel partners, Joshi declined to say.

Another HP executive, Ernie Keith, vice president and general manager of HP's Imaging and Printing Services, said the company has had some success in dealing with third-party solution providers.

"We've worked in various regions of the world to engage them in some selling and delivery--the lower end of this [market] spectrum," Keith said. "We have had some very specific engagements even in this Total Print Management space."

In an interview, Keith said HP continues to work on its pilot program in North America to engage resellers and integrators in the "co-sale" and "co-delivery" of the solutions, but the efforts with the channel, while showing the best success in small and midsize accounts, has not been limited to that segment.

"This is a difficult and challenging space," Keith said. "The business model is more complex. It requires a more sophisticated portfolio. It's a ... slow process on the front end in terms of adjusting the business model [and] working with channel partners."

A majority of HP's printer product sales continues to go through the reseller channel, Keith said, and a portion of its printer services as well.