KeepItPrinting.com

[GR81]

Here is the skinny I got.
Yes there will only be a select few who will be able to sell the pagewide HP.
Not only that you will have to be an exclusive HP dealer only, if you sell any other product you will not be allowed to sell the HP's.
So if you are selling KIP, Canon, or Oce they will ask you to drop those dealers.
They are only looking for one dealer for these pagewide machines in each region.

[mark in vegas]

Asking a dealer to turn their back on current customers is unreasonable. In light of the fact that HP is launching new, unproven technology that may not perform as advertised I would think that would be a deal breaker for most of us. If it does work out this technology will change the way we do business almost overnight.

If HP really does require exclusive sales the door is wide open for 3rd party guys to pick up a bunch of pissed off customers.
_________________
Regards,
Mark
RVN 68-69
It's so nice to be insane
No one asks you to explain

[tjohnson]

This is what I found out today regarding the Page Wide program.
There will be only 50 dealers in the US. You CAN sell other LED printers, but you won't get the full discount on HP product if you sell a toner based line, another ink jet based line is not allowed.
There is a quota of 13 systems that must be sold annually or they will dump you at the end of the first year. That is about a half mill per year quota. That will definitely eliminate my dealership since we are in a rural part of the country with a small customer base.

[cmwade77]

I actually posted a question about this on the HP forum, not realizing this thread was here.

Our dealer is one of the 50 that has been selected to sell these, and they are telling me that the HP PageWide XL 8000 that does 30 D size per minute will be about the same price as the KIP 9900. We know from experience that HPs are good machines. I am being told that the estimated cost per sq. ft. is about the same as the KIP 9900 and maintenance costs are estimated to be lower.

It will also be out this fall, which is about the time frame that we are looking at for replacing our KIP 8000. So looking at this as a viable alternative to the 9900 is a very real possibility.

I also know from personal experience that the PageWide technology has been used in other fields, so it's not completely untested.

That being said, I am feeling like I am missing something, because this sounds way too good to be true and my general experience is that when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.