HP Boosts Quality and Value of Graphic Arts Photo Printing

Webmaster — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:40:00 -0700

HP today introduced two digital press solutions with capabilities that improve photo printing quality and color consistency.

The company also announced that output for HP Indigo presses has received a Wilhelm Imaging Research (WIR) Display Permanence rating of approximately 45 years, the first of its kind for a digital press.⁽¹⁾

The new press solutions are designed for photofinishers, professional photographers, yearbook publishers, print service providers and other graphic arts professionals.

The HP Indigo WS6000p offers professional portrait output quality as a high-quality, low-cost replacement to silver-halide systems.
The enhanced HP Indigo W7200 Digital Press improves color management and consistency for high-volume printing of photo specialty products, including photo books.

HP additionally launched a partner solution from M-photo to manage professional lab workflow for HP Indigo presses and silver-halide output devices. HP also announced the general availability of the ARTtrust self-certification system for photographers and artists using HP Designjet Z Series Professional Photo Printers.

“Digital has crossed the gap between traditional and digital photofinishing in terms of quality, productivity and consistency, and now digital printing surpasses silver halide for photo permanence,” said Christopher Morgan, senior vice president, Graphics Solutions Business, HP. “HP’s solutions are accelerating the shift to digital, creating new business opportunities for print service providers, publishers and photographers.”

Three Simple Recycling Strategies for Your Office

Webmaster — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:08:00 -0700

The world is focused on recycling. One of the best places to start may be with your office laser printers and multifunction systems.

Here are three simple steps to cutting waste and saving money:

Recycle Paper Put recycling bins next to your printers and copiers. Most municipalities have recycling services. You can also use recycled paper in your printers and copiers. Make sure to select a good quality of recycled paper that is rated for laser printers and copiers.
Duplex Printing A great way to immediately cut paper usage is to set your printers and multifunction systems to default to duplex (two-sided) printing. This is especially helpful for long print jobs because duplex printing literally cuts your paper usage in half.

HP Helps Organizations Reduce Business Risk with Transparent Records Management

Webmaster — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:37:00 -0700

HP today introduced a records management solution that enables customers to significantly reduce the business risks associated with the growing regulatory compliance and legal discovery demands.

HP TRIM 7 – an advanced records management solution built on 24 years of experience and best practices – enables organizations to transparently manage all of their Microsoft SharePoint Server records in a single environment, regardless of the source. This includes documents as well as information found in SharePoint Server blogs, wikis, discussions, forms, calendars and workflows.

Widespread adoption of SharePoint Server provides the opportunity to consolidate and simplify the management of content stored across multiple SharePoint instances. HP TRIM 7 enables the transparent capture, search and management of all types of physical and electronic business information, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the upcoming SharePoint Server 2010.

“Organizations today need solutions to manage the explosion of large volumes of information,” said Mark Gilbert, research vice president, Gartner. “New solutions are growing rapidly for authoring and managing enterprise content in various formats and sources, and this trend is truly changing the way organizations do business.”

“The explosion in Content 2.0 blogs, wikis and discussions creates new information management challenges for organizations trying to meet an escalating set of regulation,” said Jonathan Martin, vice president and general manager, Information Management Solutions, HP. ”HP TRIM allows customers to marry records management best practices and governance with dynamic collaboration platforms such as SharePoint.”

Why NOT Color?

Webmaster — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:07:00 -0700

Color helps you communicate more effectively with your customers, and it also helps you communicate more effectively internally.

Color Improves Customer Communication

Did you know that color invoices get paid faster, reducing collection time? Color marketing materials and proposals command attention. Color newsletters and publications keep your clients informed of your new offerings.

Color Improves Internal Communication

Did you know that training materials are more effective in color? Spreadsheets and financial reports are more understandable in color – and color even helps to reduce errors when working with reports. Key memos and internal flyers capture attention in color.

What to Look For When Purchasing a Printer

Webmaster — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:24:00 -0700

Technological advances have resulted in many different printers, but of course not all printers will print the same quality. There are many different types of printers on the market, and all of them have different functions and characteristics.

Some questions you may want to ask before buying a printer are:

· Are you a large or small company?

· What will this device be used for?

· What quality and performance features are you looking for?

· What is your budget?

What is Workflow?

Webmaster — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:53:00 -0700

All too often, we hear and even use terms assuming others know exactly what we mean. One term used in the document industry is workflow- but what does it mean?

According to Wikipedia

A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations...

The flow being described often refers to a document that is being transferred from one step to another.

A workflow is a model to represent real work for further assessment, e.g., for describing a reliably repeatable sequence of operations. More abstractly, a workflow is a pattern of activity enabled by a systematic organization of resources, defined roles and mass, energy and information flows, into a work process that can be documented and learned.Workflows are designed to achieve processing intents of some sort, such as physical transformation, service provision, or information processing. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow )

HP Strengthens Security Capabilities to Help Customers Protect Data and Combat Business Threats

Webmaster — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:37:00 -0700

HP today introduced a security services portfolio and new solutions that offer increased vulnerability assessment, enhanced data protection and improved compliance controls, enabling customers to reduce infrastructure risks.

The addition of new services and solutions to the HP Secure Advantage portfolio helps customers establish a comprehensive security strategy encompassing key areas of the technology infrastructure – from the data center to desktops and printers – across the enterprise and via the cloud.

Why Automation Should be Your Company’s New Year’s Resolution.

Webmaster — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:23:00 -0700

Everyone knows how bad the economy was this past year and this downturn caused many companies to put their IT strategies on hold. Others however, saw this as an opportunity to be proactive and begin implementing automation and moving forward with new ways of getting the job done. As we head into the New Year, look at these strategies to think about re-organizing and working smarter.

Be proactive! While companies need to react quickly to industry trends and changing economic and world environments, they also need to formulate strategies for the future. Think about creating a team who will think ahead and make sure the company will get where it wants to go in the next few years.
Follow a business strategy roadmap. Don’t just jump blindly expecting the technology to magically work for you. Build a business strategy that will clarify and outline the issues you’re trying to solve. Be sure that your company is starting with a good foundation for their infrastructure that can be further built upon.
You don’t have to implement everything at once. In fact, it is much more practical automate your business according to a strategic plan—focus on what needs attention first. Look at your industry specific government regulations to see how they expect a company to handle information management.
Don’t wait to “play it safe” and have other companies experiment with new technology. If you stand back and wait for another company to make the first step and prove automation as a valuable investment, the next generation of technology will already have hit the business world. Your company will remain one step behind other innovating companies and will lose competitive edge.
Think about your return on investment (ROI). If you’re worried about staffing and hiring issues, realize that once automation is implemented, people used to working manually with documents can be re-deployed to other valuable tasks. While automation still needs staff to run it, the amount of personnel can be greatly reduced. This feeds right into the ROI. Create a flowchart and see how much faster your product can hit the market with new technology. That’s savings.

The Power Punch of ITEX 2010

Webmaster — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:37:54 -0700

Each year ITEX brings in the big guns, unleashing an arsenal of new information and product to help the office channel. The ITEX strike force is again in motion with its tenth show to address the current state of the “office economy.” Each year they find and deliver red hot information to industry providers that’s aimed at ramping up their arsenal of business tools. The annual tradition of arming the evolving Dealer, VAR, ISV, CTO and other providers in the channel has ITEX delivering key information to help organizations widen their knowledge on new innovations for product and supplies, service and IT, on document solutions or emerging programs such as MPS. Bottom line? ITEX assists providers in repositioning their business models to magnify profits.

Professionals in office technology have found that the environment has shifted due to the “new economy” and are looking for answers; to address the changes along with their customers’ demands for cost-efficient and conveniently acquired product and services. Within this transformation, providers see the need to integrate & merge offerings of hardware, software and services to become better, single-source providers to their customers in order capture and retain market share

As providers evolve into “hybrids,” ITEX breaks it down and provides an actionable tool kit.

Stop your Office from Becoming the Next Bermuda Triangle

Webmaster — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:47:00 -0700

When a company wants to go paperless and begins to scan the contents of their filing cabinets into a document management system many are surprised to find many files previously thought to be lost.

When it comes to document storage, filing cabinets are simple things with no brain. We’re provided a drawer and a key and the rest of the work is left up to us. There’s no advice on where to put documents, we’re not told exactly where certain documents can be found, documents aren’t automatically routed to the right people in workflow, and our key certainly can’t be taken away to stop our access to the files.

Filing cabinets have gained the reputation as the office “Bermuda Triangle” of lost documents. Over the years multiple people in the office file, misplace and not return documents to the filing cabinets. As people organize to their own standards and methods, documents are inevitably filed in the wrong places and the next time a file is needed, it can’t be found.