Getting an edge with HP Edgeline print technology

Company information

In this video transcript, HP executives talk about the impact of the recently introduced HP Edgeline technology. This breakthrough ink-based print technology was designed exclusively to handle high-volume workloads for businesses that require high print speeds, outstanding print quality and reliability, and a low cost of operation.

How does a global corporation like HP stay on the edge of print innovation?

"It's always about listening to what customers need, and sometimes even anticipating what they will need, and going back to our lab and inventing that, based on what will make a difference in their business," says Steve Nigro, senior vice president of HP's imaging and printing group.

The goal or the vision of Edgeline technology was to take inkjet printing into new markets by delivering breakthroughs in quality, breakthroughs in reliability, breakthroughs in performance, and breakthroughs in total cost of operation."

Gary Cutler, vice president of digital printing technology at HP, says Edgeline technology is all about radical change in print quality, performance, reliability and cost of operation — taking ink-based, page-wide printing to astonishing new levels. "Edgeline represents the best in ink and laser technology," he says.

In the last year, Nigro reports that HP introduced its scalable print technology into consumer and small and medium business products. "And in those products, we're talking about a technology platform that performs anywhere from 90 million to 150 million drops per second," he says. "Now, with Edgeline technology, we're going into a whole new performance space, whole new product categories — photo retail, up to business documents. We're talking about 900 million drops to over 1.8 billion drops within a second in those products. But it's the same base technology delivering a whole new level of performance."

Leveraging years of engineering innovation

HP engineers, researchers and strategists talk about how the company leveraged scalable print technology to create the high-precision, scalable and fast Edgeline technology.

"We've used HP's scalable print technology to create the Edgeline pens and printheads, which are all built with photolithographic processes at sub micron precision," says HP's Steve Rasmussen, senior mechanical engineer.

"What's different about Edgeline technology," adds Bruce Zignego, research and development director at HP, "is that we've taken years of HP engineering, invention and innovation and brought it forth into a platform that has the ability to scale into a large number of different products and markets."

According to Randi Dunn-Williams, HP solution strategist, the most critical and defining component of Edgeline technology is the ability to array printheads across the width of the page. "This allows us to print pages in one or two passes, instead of having a scanning head technology or a contact writing system — resulting in brilliant images at up to 71 pages per minute. That's more than 1 print per second."

Lowering costs. Raising speed, reliability and quality.

Zignego says Edgeline's biggest economic value to customers will be in devices that will print millions of pages. "That will allow customers to benefit from the total cost of ownership that will be the lowest in the industry," he says. "This is a powerful engine!"

Cutler says the combination of page-wide array printheads, micro-precision nozzle density, and HP ink chemistry and paper all work together to deliver incredibly fast speeds, image quality and reliability.

Rasmussen agrees: "Our ink formulation allows us to jet ink out of our nozzles really fast and we create prints that are fast drying, accurate and very high quality on many different kinds of paper," he says. "More nozzles contribute to better speed, quality, accuracy and reliability, giving us laser-like text and color images that only our ink can deliver."

What's next?

So where can you expect to see Edgeline technology in the future?

Zignego says HP customers are already enjoying Edgeline technology in existing HP photo kiosks in retail settings.

Nigro adds that we can expect HP to expand where Edgeline technology shows up in the office and elsewhere. "You will also see us expand where it shows up in retail locations and retail applications and you will see it in industrial applications in the future."

Cutler says Edgeline technology will provide the platform that will allow HP to go into very high speed industrial and graphics applications, as well as light production — vastly expanding opportunities for HP.

"How big a deal is this? This is a $30 billion market opportunity that allows us to build our portfolio and complement our current laser and industrial printing businesses," says Cutler. "For me, it's one of the most exciting steps we've ever made in creating breakthrough solutions for customers. This is gonna be huge for HP."

Legal: Information based on preliminary internal testing as of October, 2006. Class is defined as in-category devices. Edgeline technology spans multiple categories, such as retail photo kiosks with a single printer and department color MFPs. Some data based on internal projections. For further information, go to hp.com/go/edgelinetechnology and hp.com/go/pageyield. Results may vary.