HP CEO Enrique Lores admitted this week that the company’s long-term objective is “to make printing a subscription” when he was questioned about the company’s approach to third-party replacement ink suppliers.
The PC and print biz is currently facing a class-action lawsuit (from 2.42 in the video below) regarding allegations that the company deliberately prevented its hardware from accepting non-HP branded replacement cartridges via a firmware update.
When asked about the case in a CNBC interview, Lores said: “I think for us it is important for us to protect our IP. There is a lot of IP that we’ve built in the inks of the printers, in the printers themselves. And what we are doing is when we identify cartridges that are violating our IP, we stop the printers from work[ing].”
Later in the interview, he added: “Every time a customer buys a printer, it’s an investment for us. We are investing in that customer, and if that customer doesn’t print enough or doesn’t use our supplies, it’s a bad investment.”
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HP has long banged the drum [PDF] about the potential for malware to be introduced via print cartridges, and in 2022, its bug bounty program confirmed that third-party cartridges with reprogrammable chips could deliver malware into printers.
Kind old HP is, therefore, only concerned about the welfare of customers.
Sadly, Lores’s protestations were somewhat undermined by the admission that the company’s business model depends – at least in part – on customers selecting HP supplies for their devices.
“Our objective is to make printing as easy as possible, and our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription.”
This echoes comments by former CFO Marie Myers, who said in December:
“We absolutely see when you move a customer from that pure transactional model … whether it’s Instant Ink, plus adding on that paper, we sort of see a 20 percent uplift on the value of that customer because you’re locking that person, committing to a longer-term relationship.”
Source: HP CEO: You’re ‘bad investment’ if you don’t buy HP supplies • The Register
Robin Edgar
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