HP and Canon in managed multifunction printer JV

Two traditional rivals in the multi-billion dollar business printing industry – HP and Canon – are to join forces to sell multifunction device technologies and support services to the business and enterprise market.

HP and Canon said last night they plan to jointly market and distribute a new range of multifunction office systems that unite the best of both companies: Canon’s leading multifunction devices and HP’s enterprise printing and imaging assets.

The alliance builds on an established relationship between Canon and HP, and positions the companies to offer customers a new class of web-enabled solutions that combine Canon’s multifunction device processing and imaging systems with HP’s device manageability, IT integration and office workflow capabilities.

The alliance’s software and service offerings will be supported by EDS, an HP company, along with Managed Print Services from HP and Canon’s global services and support groups.

The alliance includes current and future product portfolios from both companies.

“HP has long been an industry leader with a portfolio of products, software, services and solutions that enable enterprise customers worldwide to improve their imaging and printing efficiencies without compromising the reliability, quality or professionalism of their documents,” said David Murphy, senior vice-president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP.

“In growing our relationship with Canon, to offer customers value-added and more holistic IT solutions, we are confident organisations will enhance productivity with their imaging and printing and overall business workflow needs,” Murphy added.

Canon and HP will also benefit from access to each other’s management and third-party development software portfolios, including Canon imageWARE Enterprise Management Console and Canon MEAP as well as HP Web Jetadmin and the HP Open Extensibility Platform.

The expanded portfolio of products and services is expected to be available to customers in North America and Europe, as well as global customers from these regions.

“Through this new alliance with HP, we look forward to bringing the advantages of Canon’s high-versatility, high-performance multifunction products to an expanded user base,” said Masaki Nakaoka, managing director and chief executive, Office Imaging Products Operations, Canon Inc.

“We expect this will maximise benefits for both companies’ customers while also paving the way to increased growth for both Canon and HP.”

Video camera body with dual-digic 4 processors— a DSLR that’s meant to shoot video, but it can also take stills. Something that can record onto a drive, so no CF cards. It will still be a lossy codec and not as good as Red’s, but the selling point here is to prosumers, independent filmmakers, and event videographers that want HD with a shallow DOF. And, if they were smart, it would mount EOS lenses.

I’m not a product designer for Canon, but if they don’t release a Red-similar video camera, then whoever is telling them what products to make should be fired. Hire me!