At 06:15 PM 9/25/00 EDT, Wirt Atmar wrote:
>But as to the razor-thin margin inkjet printers, the posting misunderstands
>the nature of the printers themselves. It's not the printers that matter. In
>fact, I suspect HP would almost give them away for free if they could. It's
>the ink cartridges that represent the profit -- and that profit is truly
>substantial.
>
>There isn't much to talk about in the news media about ink cartridges -- in
>that there is zero sexiness in ink cartridges -- but they does represent an
>enormous part of HP's currently profitability. Extremely high margins. Low
>customer support costs. Easy distribution channels.

And this, in my opinion, is why HP has entered the "consulting" field.  In
the not too distant future, I can see generic hardware being manufactured
by Dell, Gateway, etc and running any OS you order, and possibly multiple
OS' if necessary.  So the profit disappears from hardware and resides in
services, much as it has for desktop PCs and printers today.

John Lee
Vaske Computer Solutions