*  HPHP is heralding its Edgeline technology as the biggest thing to hit the printer market in many years and, globally, expects the market opportunity for it to be worth more than $30 billion by 2009.Edgeline Technology is designed with printheads that span the width of a page – with more nozzles per printhead – to distribute ink across paper rapidly and precisely in one pass. That means the paper moves, rather than the printheads, resulting in faster print speeds and what HP says is excellent print quality.

Allan Farquharson, HP business development manager, says Edgeline MFPs provide an excellent alternative to laser printing.

“Edgeline is directly aimed at making an inkjet as attractive as laserjet and, for HP, is a real push in the MFP space,” he says.Farquaharson adds that with the new Edgeline models - CM8060 and CM8050 – HP’s range is the best it’s ever been.

Although the market for MFPs has been undergoing tremendous growth, Farquharson says the gains have mainly been in the hands of the copier companies - many of whom don’t push that part of the business through the channel.

“The beauty of the new technology is that HP partners can go into the large corporate copy production areas and compete with the copier companies. This opens up a whole new market to the channel.”

Initially, Edgeline MFPs will be made available to two or three players in the market, however Farquharson stresses the rest of the channel will have access to products.As with any other technology, Farquharson says if partners are just selling equipment then they’re not going to win.

“Edgeline presents partners with the opportunity to sell into a new market, or gives them something new and improved to take to their existing client base. The resellers that provide additional services and aren’t just focused on hardware are the winners.”When it comes down to purchasing, customers want to buy stand-alone devices and amalgamate them into their existing infrastructure, says Farquaharson.“HP has made its technology a whole lot smarter and the resulting workflow benefits are clear to see. Edgeline offers high running speeds and quality at low cost, with significant cost savings.”So how fast is fast? The HP CM8060 prints an average of 60 pages per minute (ppm) black and white and 50 ppm colour on plain paper while the HP CM8050 prints an average of 50 ppm black and white and 40 ppm colour.TakeawaysHP Easy Select Control Panel – an award-winning 10-inch colour touch-screen clearly displays all available applications and settings.HP AutoNav – an automatic navigation tool that reduces helpdesk calls by giving users with an intuitive way to resolve problems. Features include action video, step-by-step control panel instructions and a series of LED guide lights and door sensors that act as “digital breadcrumbs” to easily guide users to the source of a problem. Innovative pricing – usage-based pricing that offers savings of up to 30% on colour printing and copying.

The new HP Colour Accent feature also further reduces costs by charging the black-and-white price for pages that use small amounts of colour.

Enhanced supplies – New HP Vivera office inks and a bonding agent produce fast-drying, vibrant colour images and crisp text quality at any speed on plain paper.