Ink-jet Ball-And-Chain

HP CEO talks up HP-ink-only print hardware and higher upfront costs for machines that use other cartridges

This story from The Register opens with the subheading: ‘These actions will help us to optimize the business by reducing the number of unprofitable customers’.

And you can probably guess what form the extraction of ‘profit’ will take.

Just this month HP began to roll out HP+, described as an “end-to-end platform strategy” that ties customers into only using HP ink, which “provides a differentiated value proposition for our loyal customers,” said Lores.

HP+ includes web-connected “standard print hardware”, which HP says “automatically detects and fixes connectivity issues”, the Smart Security monitoring system, native in-OS printing, and a Forest First feature where every page printed is “balanced with investments to help protect and restore forests in equal measure.”

The requirements of HP+? An HP account, internet connection, and “use of Original HP Ink or Toner for the lifetime of the printer.” It comes with no subscription but HP is dangling a six-month trial of Instant Ink, the service that caused some annoyance recently when HP ended the print-for-free lifetime deal and swapped it with a monthly payment plan.

So, that’s definitely crossing all HP ink-jet printers from my list of prospective replacements for my old printer.