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Rich Duncombe Discusses HP in Private Session at Dan’s

Rich Duncombe, HP’s vice president, was gracious enough to pull himself away from the activities at Dan’s Camera City to allow me to pigeonhole him in a corner so I could be brought up to date on the progress of the HP program with the Photosmart Studio and Express products.

For one thing, I learned that the firm had quietly reduced the price of the Photosmart Studio, the system that turns out such products as large posters and bound photo albums, from $50,000 to $38,000. The addition of the pm1000 Microlab Printer to the HP line for 4x6 instant prints, at $12,000, brings the price right back to where it was for those looking for that function, but it’s an option for those that want it. He also mentioned that there have been software changes to the Studio that add new custom graphics and themes, and the added ability to crop, auto fix, and reduce red-eye.

He said that at PMA the Studio would be shown in as many as 10 different configurations as it might be installed in an actual retail environment. Some vignettes will dovetail the units with various wet-lab hardware that the dealer already has in place; others, in setups that would be all digital. Something similar was done at photokina, he said, but it was only exposed to certain people.

There are about 50 to 60 Studios now in operation at Wal-Mart locations, and Rich said that Wal-Mart is anxious to deploy the systems more broadly. “Wal-Mart has been very supportive. There are no new commitments from them, but we may be able to make some announcements around PMA.”

He indicated that Longs Drugs has about 100 Studios, and the Publix supermarket chain is installing the Photosmart Express kiosks. Albertsons Supermarkets is using both the Studio and Express systems.

HP’s first thrust has been to the mass merchant. Now there seems to be a greater interest on the part of HP to develop the independent photo specialist market. Thus the high-profile session at Dan’s. Rich mentioned that in addition to the Studio setups at Rush Hour and Dan’s, there are new installs at Sid Davidowitz’s Moto Photo in New Jersey; Wolfe’s Camera, Topeka; The Camera Shop, Bryn Mawr, PA; and Creve Coeur Camera, St. Louis.

Rich said HP was “actively engaged” with the big groups like IPI and PRO “to find out what they really need.” “We are looking to accelerate our specialty dealer activity.” He noted that the Microlab was drawing considerable interest among the specialty segment.

The subject of cost per print is always on my agenda, as it seems to be a sticking point for dealers with a chemical lab that can turn out a silver halide 4x6 for about 5 to 6 cents each. As always, HP won’t get into a discussion of actual cost, though it is estimated to be about 10 to 12 cents for a 4x6.

Rich pointed out that compared to silver halide, inkjet has meaningful offsetting savings. He mentioned lower hardware and operating costs, and zero environmental issues. He feels inkjet can be more competitive in a mid-sized lab operation than in a larger one—at least for the next year or so. Asked if inkjet will be competitive to silver halide in the near future, Rich’s response was, “Absolutely.”

Rich accepted this challenge before USA Today published a story on Nov. 27 about the promotional pricing of a 4x6 print from certain online operations coming down to as low as 5 cents each. While it was acknowledged to be a loss leader in the news story, it nevertheless puts pricing pressure not only on silver-halide paper manufacturers who have to respond to their largest customers selling at between 15 to 19 cents a print, but on the inkjet and dye-sub suppliers who are struggling to be more competitive to silver halide. Stay tuned. —J.L.