Oh, Brother, What a Marketing Play HP Has Made
January 24, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I must admit I am not sure if the story “HP CEO Says Customers Who Don’t Use the Company’s Supplies Are Bad Investments” is spot on. But its spirit highlights some modern management thought processes.
The senior boss type explains to his wizards the brilliance of what might be called “the bricking strategy.” One executive sighs, “Oh, brother.” At the same time, interest in Brother’s printers show signs of life. Thanks, MSFT Copilot Bing thing, second string version. You have nailed isolated, entitled senior executives in this original art. Good enough. How’s security of your email coming along?
I love this quote (which may or may not be spot on, but let’s go with it, shall we?):
“When we identify cartridges that are violating our IP, we stop the printers from working.”
Brilliant. Hewlett Packard, the one that manufacturers printers, perceives customers who use refilled cartridges as an issue. I love the reference to intellectual property (IP). What company first developed the concept of refillable cartridges? Was it the razor blade outfit cherished as a high-water mark in business schools in the US? But refillable is perceived as a breakthrough innovation, is it not? Give away the razor; charge a lot for the blades which go dull after a single use.
The article reports:
When asked about the lawsuit during an interview with CNBC, Lores said, “I think for us it is important for us to protect our IP. There is a lot of IP that we’ve built in the inks of the printers, in the printers themselves. And what we are doing is when we identify cartridges that are violating our IP, we stop the printers from working.”
I also chuckled at this statement from the cited article:
Lores certainly makes no attempt to conceal anything in that statement. The CEO then doubled down on his stance: “Every time a customer buys a printer, it’s an investment for us. We are investing in that customer, and if that customer doesn’t print enough or doesn’t use our supplies, it’s a bad investment.”
Perfect. Customer service does not pay unless a customer subscribes to customer service. Is this a new idea? Nah, documentation does not pay off unless a customer pays to access a user manual (coherent or incoherent, complete or incomplete, current or Stone Age). Knowledgeable sales professionals are useless unless those fine executives meet their quotas. I see smart software in a company with this attitude coming like gangbusters.
But what I really admire is the notion of danger from a non-HP cartridge. Yep, a compromised cannister. Wow. The write up reports:
Lores continued to warn against the dangers of using non-HP cartridges and what will happen if you do. “In many cases, it can create all sorts of issues from the printer stopping working because the ink has not been designed to be used in our printer, to even creating security issues.” The CEO made it sound as if HP’s ink cartridge DRM was there solely for the benefit of customers. “We have seen that you can embed viruses into cartridges, through the cartridge go to the printer, from the printer go to the network, so it can create many more problems for customers.” He then appeared to shift from that customer-first perspective by stating, “Our objective is to make printing as easy as possible, and our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription.”
One person named Puiu added this observation: “I’m using an Epson with an ink tank at work. It’s so easy to refill and the ink is cheap.”
I have been working in government and commercial organizations, and I cannot recall a single incident of a printer representing a danger. I do have a number of recollections of usually calm professionals going crazy when printers [a] did not print, [b] reported malfunctions with blinking lights not explained in the user manual, [c] paper lodged in a printer in a way that required disassembly of the printer. High speed printers are unique in their ability to break themselves when the “feeder” does not feed. (By the way, the fault is the user’s, the humidity of the paper, or the static electricity generated by the stupid location the stupid customer put the stupid printer. Printer software and drivers — please, don’t get me started. Those suck big time today and have for decades.)
HP continues to blaze a trail of remarkable innovation. Forget the legacy of medical devices, the acquisition of Compaq, the genius of Alta Vista, and the always-lovable software. HP’s contribution to management excellence is heart warming. I need to check my printer to make sure it is not posing a danger to me and my team. I’m back. The Ricoh and the Brother are okay, no risk.
Subscribe to HP ink today. Be safe. Emulate the HP way too because some users are a bad investment.
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2024
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