HP Says: “Now’s the Right Time for ePrint”

Vyomesh (VJ) Joshi is the Executive Vice President of the Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) division from the Hewlett Packard Company. He has been rather successful in his career. Under VJ’s leadership, the IPG division saw a significant growth during the last seven years. They managed to increase their income from US$ 19 billion to US$ 29 billion. IPG’s profit has even reached US$ 4 billion. Suffice to say, VJ secured HP’s position as a world-class premier printing company.

VJ has been with HP since early 1980. He did not immediately join the IPS division. Instead, VJ first served as an engineer in the research and development division. He acquired a degree in electrical engineering from the Ohio State University.

We managed to ask him a few questions about the ePrint technology during an interview session. Here are the quotes:

Q : About the timing of launch for this product, in your opinion, is now the right time?

A : Yes, I think now is the proper timing. Internet penetration rate continues to increase along with smart phone growth. Indonesia, for example, has 30 million internet users. Smart phone adoption is growing ever higher, and with it, internet penetration climbs up as well. The current number is 28%, but, according to predictions, it will keep increasing until up to 70%. The growing internet penetration in Indonesia helps promote smart phone sales. Eventually, users would feel the need to print out their documents instead of just reading them on the screen of their smart phone or netbook. This is where the ePrint comes in. According to our analysis, around 5% of smart phone users need to print documents. So, yes, now’s the right time.

Q: In Indonesia, sometimes you need to push the products you are selling into the market. Indonesians need time to adopt new technologies. How would you deal with this particular challenge?

A : We have some strategies in mind. First, we would sell the products under a friendly price tag, starting from US$ 99. With such affordable price, we are certain that many people in Indonesia would buy the printers. Secondly, we will provide SDK developments for local developers, thus enabling them to make local applications. Lastly, we believe that Indonesia has numerous small to medium business consumers. We also believe that Indonesia has many entrepreneurs. By introducing our line of products to them, we can confidently say that these products will flourish in the Indonesian market.

Original article by Deliusno
Translated by Oik Yusuf