Dot matrix maker steps up, replaces HP

HP exits business, so third party takes over for 3000 sites

Customers wondering about the end of HP’s manufacture of 3000s might take heart from another technology considered a throwback: dot matrix printing. In that field, a much smaller third-party firm has stepped up to provide a replacement product serving in many HP 3000 shops.

In July HP announced its exit from several printer businesses, including its dot matrix offerings. The situation was similar to the company’s position in line printers: The units were manufactured by a third party with HP labels applied. Since last summer, that third party has been selling and supporting the dot matrix products directly.

Or trying to, according to Frank Price, president of the US reseller for Printer Systems International (PSI). Price’s company has been disappointed with HP’s follow-through in telling 3000 sites where they can get consumables for the P405, a dot matrix unit.

“People have been looking for consumables for the printers for more than three months,” Price said. “It’s important they don’t think they’re sitting on a product that’s become a piece of trash, just because HP left the market.”

Price’s company, Impression Technology (800.881.8700) sells serial and networked dot matrix printers that used to carry the HP label, as well as consumables for the units. The P405 hasn’t been a big seller for HP of late. Since January of last year when Impression started representing PSI, Price thinks HP may have sold 100 devices. Impression dropped the price on the units from $2,995 to $2,195, and sold that many in its first 90 days.

The printers — both HP’s model and the PSI replacement — are at work at Victor S. Barnes, a building supplies wholesaling company driving them with HP 3000 9x7 systems. Tom Hula, head of IT at the firm, said he’s using a Deskjet as a networked printer, but finds that attaching the dot matrix units serially via a DTC works well for some applications.

“Most of the printers are dot matrix because of special forms, and inertia,” Hula explained. “The only reason our first laser printer was purchased was because of an application requirement for our largest customer. We print a large volume of paper for them — a ream a day — and required bar code.”

Dot matrix, while far from the cutting edge of print technology, remains the most cost-effective solution for some printing requirements. HP’s line printer solutions were too costly, Hula said. “I looked at the more expensive line printers from HP and they were just that — too expensive. When the P405 printer came out from HP, we had a need to replace an older HP dot matrix with a new printer for a critical function.”

PSI’s base model is called the PP405, but it’s an identical replacement for the HP P405, according to Price, except that it comes without any interface or emulation included. Customers choose what they need at the time of purchase. Even though P405 printers have parallel interfaces, Hula said he will be hooking them up to his network via Jetdirect external boxes.

“The P405 was configured for HP and sold by them always in the same configuration,” Price said, “a serial/parallel interface with HP-2934-A (PCL3) emulation. To have continuity for name recognition, PSI is continuing to sell this configuration as the PSI P405.”

Costs on the third-party print devices aren’t the only things that have dropped since HP exited the market. “Ribbons cost less, too,” Price added.