This entry was posted by Darren Gladstone, Blogger-in-Chief at HP’s thenextbench.com.

Hi, my name is Darren….but most people call me “Gizmo.” I’ve been digging into the guts of computers for….well…a long time. Let’s just go with that. 

Besides being a bit of nerd (#understatement) I also happen to be the blogger-in-chief for all the content you see over at HP’s TheNextBench.com. Now, if you’re not familiar with HP’s official consumer blog, allow me to break it down for you.

Our job at TheNextBench.com is to help people get the most out of their products. We do this by providing tons of useful how-to tips, give you insights into how (and why) some things are made – and chat directly with you about HP products. Think of HP’s blog as your pipeline to the latest HP intel and insights on consumer gear.

What you can’t see since you don’t walk around the halls here, is how proud we are of the innovative gear that we create at HP. Whether it’s being the first to think of encapsulating an entire laptop in Corning glass (The ENVY 14 Spectre) or building the sleekest all-in-one touch-screen (TouchSmart) PCs around, other companies just can’t compete with our unique designs. Yes, we’re a huge company with a long legacy of innovation…and my job is to tell you all about what’s coming next.

On the blog, HP gave me a mission: Be real with you, our customers. I take our products out of the labs and into the real world to show you how each one works. Besides, say, sneaking an ENVY 14 Spectre into a bar before you could buy it in stores, I’m looking for ways to make your computing experience even better.

When a hot, new game like Diablo III or Crysis 2 comes out, I’ll find ways for you to get your game up-and-running with minimal hassle. Or how to configure an ENVY 17 to kick even more tail than it already does.

And then, every so often, I’ll give a couple video reviews and walkthroughs to help show you what I’m doing. For instance, I recently walked people through how to install a graphics card in the new HP Pavilion HPE Phoenix.

If you have a couple minutes, click play and you’ll see what I mean.

All right, so that’s me – and what we do over at TheNextBench.com.  

Fair warning: The guys on the Data Central blog have agreed to let me come poke my head in every once in a while and let you guys know what we’re doing over at TheNextBench.com. But I’d love to hear from you. I’m always checking comments and keeping my ears peeled for your questions.

So? What’s on your mind with HP products? 

This entry was posted by Sumeer Chandra, Vice President for Worldwide Marketing and Strategy at HP’s Graphics Solutions Business 

In my last post I talked about book and magazine publishing, print preference, and the ways HP is addressing that market with HP Indigo Digital Presses and HP Inkjet Web Presses at the world’s largest printing trade show, drupa 2012.

In addition to the publishing industry, print has a significant presence in direct marketing, along with e-mail, mobile and social media. With all the customer relationship management data available today, direct marketers have the information they need to send consumers effective, personalized ads. In fact, it is relatively easy for a marketer to send you an e-mail with your name, touting an offer that reflects your interests. The problem is getting you to open it. In fact, direct marketing e-mail placement rates have been in decline, and direct marketing e-mail open rates remain relatively low.

When marketers take that easily personalized e-mail offer and create a personalized direct mail piece instead, open rates can increase. As a result, marketers are taking a closer look at the lists they work with, parsing data to reach people who may buy when they get a mailer but are less likely to respond to an e-mail, online or mobile message alone.

Getting back to publishing, there are even some groundbreaking campaigns applying these techniques in the magazine space. Magazine promotions using HP Indigo digital presses have won Cannes Lions advertising awards for Time Inc. and Billboard magazine. Project Match, a program developed by Hearst Magazines, HP and HP Inkjet Web Press customer Strategic Content Imaging, has developed high-response, personalized, QR Code insert and outsert advertising programs for Harper’s Bazaar and Popular Mechanics magazines.

In many cases, once PSPs’ customers see the strong advantages that come when integrating print with data, they no longer question print as a promotional medium. Instead, they often recognize print’s enduring ability to deliver a strong return on marketing investment and its unique value in creating a more personal connection with customers.

This entry was posted by Sumeer Chandra, Vice President for Worldwide Marketing and Strategy at HP’s Graphics Solutions Business 

It is not too difficult to see why, and how, print will thrive in the future: It will thrive with digital printing – an efficient alternative to analog offset, flexographic and screen printing process. For the HP Graphics Solutions Business (GSB) and its print service provider (PSP) customers, digital printing momentum has been exceptionally strong, with double-digit percentage growth in the number of pages printed each year. We are optimistic that there is even more growth to come based on the advances HP is bringing to market.

While HP is best known for home and office printers, Graphics Solutions provides print service providers with digital presses, large-format printers and related workflow technologies. And while most print comes from general commercial printing and publishing, our solutions portfolio also produces applications for photo merchandise, direct mail and transactional, label, packaging, sign and display and architecture, engineering and construction /technical design printing applications.

Our customers benefit from innovation that makes print in all forms more targeted and relevant to end consumers. At the world’s largest printing tradeshow, drupa, May 3-16 in Düsseldorf, Germany, HP is launching new technologies that make digital printing even better, including a new HP Indigo 10000 Digital Press and faster models of HP Inkjet Web Presses.

But is print better, or worse, as a medium for the future? While that depends on whom you ask, it is far too easy to underestimate why print endures and prospers. Look at print only as words and images on a surface, and print arguably does less than any electronic medium that incorporates sound, video, gaming and web connectivity on a single device. Look beyond the surface, though, and it is fair to say print does less, better.

Print is a complex medium, with different types of products – publications, marketing collateral, packaging, signage and more – available in any number of size and substrate options. But each type of print product is specifically designed simplify meaning and enhance a reader’s ability to receive and comprehend content. Data from companies such as Millward Brown, Miratech and Epsilon Targeting show how complex options available with e-readers or tablets potentially diminish our ability to comprehend a text.

E-readers have many strengths, of course, including the ability to go into the long tail of specialized content. Analog-printed books usually only make economic sense when produced in large quantities, which means publishers often cannot afford to keep low-volume selling titles in print. HP digital presses, however, overcome those economic limitations, meaning print can capture more of the appeal e-readers offer for the many people who prefer or can only access a hardcopy book.

For example, as HP’s Alon Bar-Shany recently wrote in GreensheetBIZ, there are many specialized and personalized publications that live online, but are printed one-off, on-demand using HP Indigo digital presses – the industry market leader in print quality. This includes thousands of magazines available through HP’s MagCloud service, as well as personalized children’s storybooks from Penwizard and Frecklebox, and self-published, color books from CreateSpace, Lulu and Blurb. Many mainstream book manufacturers use HP Inkjet Web Presses to affordably print small- and mid-volume titles that are just too expensive to print, store and distribute using offset production models, or customized books that can only be created using digital systems.

The new HP Indigo 10000, launching at drupa, is an especially important development in this space, as it is built in a larger, 29-inch format ideal for book printing applications.

HP made publishing industry news last year by introducing the world’s first 42-inch wide inkjet production solution, the HP T400 Color Inkjet Web Press. Received with broad acclaim, it is helping to redefine what the publishing industry can do with digital printing. In fact, new HP T400 installations include a press purchased by Australia’s leading book manufacturer, McPherson’s Printing Group.

The high-volume HP Inkjet Web Press portfolio gets even more productive with the recent unveiling of faster models and the introduction of new, coated media that can bring inkjet publication printing into new areas of publishing.

These opportunities are important because, when you set aside assumptions that print is going away and take a closer look, you see the real trend: print is changing. The more relevant, timely and personalized you can make a piece of print collateral, the more value it has to the end user. That has become the real momentum driver in the print industry.

My colleague Alon probably put it best: “As strange as it sounds, there are segments of print that are actually aligned with the transformation away from hardcopy communications. And where that alignment exists, the opportunities are tremendous.”

In my next post, I will talk about the role data play when capitalizing on these opportunities with HP Graphics Solutions.