HP Executive Vice President Vyomesh Joshi said the company was introducing three high-end machines that could serve as laser printers, copiers, scanners and fax machines. In contrast to past multifunction devices, Joshi said HP's machines will be as fast as traditional copiers made by market leaders Canon, Ricoh and Xerox.

``We are transforming the copier market,'' Joshi said at a news conference at the Comdex computer trade show in Las Vegas. ``We will have a full portfolio of devices from the desktop to the print shop.''

Joshi claims companies that use integrated approach to managing printers and copiers can cut copying and printing costs by 30 percent and improve productivity by 30 percent. Estimates for operating printers run as much as $800 an employee a year, Joshi said.

Xerox officials say they've won this battle before. HP tried to attack copiers a few years ago with multifunction devices called ``mopiers.'' But those machines proved neither as fast nor as high-quality as copiers.

``HP has tried this a few times,'' said Rob Stewart, Xerox's vice president of worldwide marketing. ``In this market, they have yet to show that they have the market knowledge.'' He noted that Xerox refreshed its own line of digital copiers in April with 21 new products.

The new HP machines can copy as many as 85 pages a minute, a rate as fast as many standard copiers.

By: DocMemory
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