Hewlett-Packard is repositioning itself as not just the maker of printers for office and home documents, but also for commercial printing--wine labels, books, newsletters and advertisements that stick
onto buildings and cars. H-P also is reducing its emphasis on market share of printers sold, while increasing focus on the percentage of total printed pages that come out of its machines.
Yesterday, H-P announced plans to acquire large-format printer NUR Macroprinters for $117.5 million. In the past few years, it has shelled out more than $1 billion to acquire high-end press maker
Indigo NV and large-format printer makers Scitex Corp.'s Scitex Vision and MacDermid ColorSpan.
Many office and home documents are printed with H-P products, giving the unit a 47%
world-wide printer market share and helping it generate more than 40% of H-P's overall profit. But internal research shows that H-P printers produce only 1.6% of the world's total pages. "It's all
about moving from printers to pages," says Vyomesh Joshi, head of H-P's printing unit.
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