HP Feels SMB's Pain - Offers Sympathy And New Products

"This is not business as usual. This is not just like a bad day." Those simple statements from HP vice president Duncan Campbell set the tone as various parts of HP came together today to present a cross-company SMB marketing strategy -- along with a collection of new products, services, and offers. The unifying element was the giant company's attempt to remain relevant to smaller companies struggling to get through the economic crisis."In this economic climate, it's all about survival," said Kathy Chou, HP's vice president of worldwide commercial sales and just one of the many HP execs gathering to show some love to the SMB market.

After all, SMBs can use all the help they can get. Despite growing their tech purchases 4% to 7%, much faster than enterprises, SMBs face declining revenues, limited credit availability, and cash flow problems. To make it through, SMBs have to focus on retaining existing customers and streamlining operations to increase efficiency, even as they look for new business. As Lisa Wolfe, HP worldwide midmarket strategy and marketing leader put it: SMBs have to choose "do I make payroll... or do I invest in IT?"

On the plus side, according to Fred Bullock, Vice President, Marketing Personal Systems Group - Americas, SMBs "suffer the economy less than their competitors, and also come out of the recession sooner than enterprises do."

That's been the case in past recessions, anyway, and everyone is hoping it holds true this time.

At today's HP Small and Medium Business Press and Analyst Event, at least, HP's interest in SMBs played out in new business ink-jet printers, new scanners and fax machines, new marketing offers, new support options, and new partner deals.

For me, just the recognition of the importance of the SMB market was heartening. Kathy Chou, HP's vice president of worldwide commercial sales, put it in perspective. She put the worldwide SMB tech market at $260 billion this year, growing to $290 billion by 2011. The US market is the largest single portion, at $68 billion for 2009. But she undercut my enthusiasm a bit when she described HP's goal to increase its "share of wallet" in those underserved areas.

Anyway, on to the products.

A Cornucopia Of New Printers, Scanners, And Faxes Stephen Nigro, Senior Vice President, Inkjet and Web Solutions, introduced the HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-One series, the HP Officejet Pro 8000 Printer series, and the HP Officejet 6500 All-in-One series of inkjet printers A good deal for busineses, I guess, but it kinda makes me feel gypped when I need to replace the ink in my home printer. On the other hand, when you're only paying $50 for the printer (instead of $150 - $500 for one of these business models), you can't complain too much.

But wait, there's more! Nigro also rolled out three new managed and unmanaged scanners (the HP Scanjet 5000 Sheet-feed Scanner, the HP Scanjet 7000 Sheet-feed Scanner, and the HP Scanjet N6350 Networked Flatbed Document Scanner) and the HP 2140 fax machine. Yes, a fax machine. "Fax is still very much alive," especially for some small businesses, Nigro said.

According to Parasher, while fax sales are declining 10% in the US and the developed portions of Europe, they're holding steady in "emerging Europe" and still growing in developing countries. "Not dead yet" was how Parasher described the business.

New Services And Pricing Models "Doing more with less" is a big concern for HP customers, Campbell said as he rolled out remote monitoring, an HP "stimulus package" of discounts, and a deal to let HP resellers provide cloud-based email hosting via USA.net.

The USA.net deal lets SMBs buy Software as a Service (SaaS) not from some faceless online operation, but from the local consultants and resellers they already know -- the proverbial "trusted advisor." But they still get pay as you go subscription pricing, not a capital expense.

HP Insight Remote Support, meanwhile, offers 24/7 secure remote event monitoring and fault detection services for SMBs via their HP partner resellers. The service is free for HP servers and storage products still under warranty. "The enterprise has always had this," said Wolfe, "SMBs haven't."

Finally, the Total Care Access card is sold to resellers for $49 and includes $1000 worth of bundled discounts. It's being touted as a loyalty tool for VARs. Heck, if the supermarkets can do it, why not HP?