HP unveils Edgeline inkjet printers for business

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Hewlett Packard has unveiled a new range of printers and multi-function printing (MFP) devices for the enterprise that make use of the company's new Edgeline high-speed inkjet printing system.

The new range, comprised of the CM8060 and CM8050 colour MFP devices are the first examples of mainstream printers and MFP devices available in Europe to use the Edgeline print head.

Edgeline was announced in October 2006 and uses a revised print head that is the full width of the printed page, rather than a character-wide head that scans along the page in the same way that dot-matrix or golf ball print head technology operated. This approach not only allows for faster inkjet printing, but also improves output quality by reducing the striping effect traditionally associated with high-speed inkjet output.

"We are seeing clear growth in certain device categories among small to mid-size businesses, as these organisations come under increasing pressure to improve the quality and look of every item of printed media that comes out of the business" said Michael Hoffmann, senior vice president of HP's imaging and printing group in Europe.

So far Edgeline has only been used in commercial printing equipment, where quality of output is paramount.

In addition to the Edgeline print head, the company also announced a new range of inks. The Vivera office ink range use a new bonding agent to speed up the drying process, trying to tackle the problems associated with colour inkjet printing and wet pages on colour-heavy print runs.

The CM8060 can print at up to 60 pages per minute in black and 50 pages per minute in colour. The CM8050 is slightly slower at 50 pages per minute in black and 40 in colour. HP declined to provide any cost per page information.

"Edgeline can deliver copy-room speeds but from a printer offering high quality and colour output" said Hoffmann.

Hoffman added that there were significant growth opportunities for printing technology as a result of the continued digitisation of day-to-day business and consumer data, where technologies such as Edgeline will be positioned as a means to achieve speed as well as maintaining quality of output.

"More and more content in the world is digital, and more of the production process involves digital reproduction. What is happening right now is that businesses and applications are moving to a digital, web-centric environment and that will require the printing and imaging technologies that can output this digital content at speed and without compromising on quality."

Areas for growth in enterprise printing include retail, photography, marketing and in technical environments such as manufacturing.

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