Liveblogging Web 2.0 Summit: Hewlett-Packard Finds Printing Exciting

While Internet enthusiasts like to sneer at "ink on dead trees," and predict the death of print, in fact the opposite is happening. And that's the core of Hewlett-Packard's $30 billion printing business. Vyomesh Joshi, executive VP of the imaging and printing group, talked with conference content co-chair John Battelle about how the new technology of Web 2.0 affects the ancient technology of printing.

Battelle: "You sell printers. What's so exciting -- how come you're here?"

HP: People are talking about content creation and distribution, but nobody talks about consumption, nobody talks about what they do with their stuff. That's what we do. There's two things people do with content -- they view it or print it. Turning bits into atoms -- turning bits into objects. That's what we're good at.

If you look at all the pages printed in the world, that's 49 billion pages. Photos, home, work, marketing collateral, everything.

B: Isn't that going down because of the Internet?

HP: No, it's increasing. Will be 53 trillion in a few years.

B: What percentage of printouts are printed from the PC, and what percentage from the Web? How has that changed.

HP: Five years ago, most of it was from Microsoft applications. Word, Excel, etc. Now, 48% is from the Web. We aren't going into Microsoft apps as much. Will go up 70% in the next few years.

Photos tell stories like grandparents used to tell stories to children. How can we help people tell the family stories using the Internet? "How can we help people do that and hopefully print lots and lots of pages?"

B: "And lots and lots of money."

HP: Our business is supplies. We install great printers and make money off supplies.

HP wants to help organize documents and photos into print books. Bought Snapfish, which had 11 million users, now has 45 million users.

HP helps businesses design stationery and business cards at home, which can be printed on a home or office printer, picked up at Staples, or printed out elsewhere.

"Our business model is very simple: Print."

B: Sounds like a media business -- going into the ad business?

HP: Might be of interest, combining online-offline, but don't want to compete with big online ad companies.

"We take content, mash it up, and allow you to print it anywhere, online or offline."

B: "HP has had a lot of troubles over the last few years, some issues with journalists, but astonishingly, at least to an outside observer, the company just pushed through it and doing really -- kicking butt, essentially." As a senior executive, what did you learn? How do you get through something like the last three years?

HP: HP is a great company, combination of strategy, execution, and people, I think that Mark Hurd is an extraordinary CEO ... reinvested in sales and R&D. Empowers business heads, such as head of print and HP business.

It's a $100B company and will continue to grow. "I am very bullish. Good things are happening and more will happen in the future."

B: I've had something like 10 jobs in the last three years. How can you stay interested in a company for 27 years?

HP: When I came to America 27 years ago, I had no money. When I went to HP I walked to work. Started in the lowest possible tech job at HP.

Will grow 4% to 6%

"Passion comes from the technology and the people." Hurd focused on execution and taking costs out.

He's on the board of Yahoo -- 18 months.

B: "What's going on there?"

HP: "I can't talk about it."

laughter

B: "Let me put it another way. ... Of the things you can't talk about ... what have you learned the most from?" Yahoo is a founder-run company, and HP is the most famous founder-run company.

HP: Need to keep innovating: Shift from printers to printing, from Unix to pages. And need to do it before getting in trouble. While still successful.

"People want to share the Internet with friends and family. And the printing part of it is organizing."

Question from audience: How soon will binding change -- will you be able to print a book soon and have it look like a paperback book?

HP: Just introduced a kit, although it doesn't look as good as a professional book.

The next thing we need to do is finish it.