HP’s new ink-based enterprise printers are twice the speed and half the cost of laser printers

Hewlett-Packard is introducing several new ink-based enterprise printers that can operate at twice the speed and half the cost of laser printers. These are the big commercial printing machines that keep a whole department humming.

“It’s an evolution of a technology that we keep moving upward in the market,” said Andy Binder, general manager of enterprise ink business at HP in an interview with VentureBeat.

In 2006, HP launched its PageWide array technology, which can produce printed pages at a rate of 70 per minute. Last year, the company included that technology in its HP Officejet Pro X printers for small and medium-sized businesses. More than 60 billion pages have been printed with the PageWide array technology.

Now the company is on its fourth generation of that technology with its enterprise solutions.

HP has five products coming, including three that take the form of multifunction printers. The products include the HP Officejet Enterprise Color MFP X585 and the HP Officejet Enterprise Color X555. The machines use up to 84 percent less power while printing and up to 25 percent less power using a low-power method compared to competing laser printers.

“Never before has an ink-based device been fully capable of meeting the performance requirements that large organizations demand,” said Dion Weisler, executive vice president of printing and personal systems at HP. “CIOs and IT decision makers can be confident that the HP Officejet Enterprise series provides employees exceptional enterprise-grade security, fleet management, and mobile printing options along with the fastest speed and lowest total cost of ownership.”

The products have the same user interface as is built into 12 million HP enterprise LaserJet printers. They support the latest LaserJet FutureSmart firmware and Open Extensibility Platform. The HP Officejet Enterprise Color MFP X585 and HP Officejet Enterprise Color X555 will be available worldwide on April 1. The HP Officejet Enterprise Color MFP X585 will sell for $2,000 to $2,800, while the HP X555 pricing options range between $750 and $1,200.