1.0 Products

The initial product is a 2.5-inch hard disk drive mounted on a Printed Circuit Board (PCA). This device plugs into the EIO Drive slot in the back of selected HP peripherals. Current compatible peripherals are LaserJet printers, DesignJet Plotters and DeskJet Printers. Our product can be added to these models by the end user or bundled with other products for a complete solution. Currently, there are over 2 million compatible HP units in use and over 1 million HP-compatible peripherals are being sold every year.

Future products will include faster access EIO products and hard disk assemblies for other brands of printers. We are also working with IBM to introduce a product using IBM’s Microdrive technology.

 1.1 Product Description

Mass storage will become an increasingly important method of delivery for LaserJet printing solutions. The printing industry is continuing to put an increased focus on expanding the functionality of mass storage along with its accessibility and usability across key customer environments. The availability of common mass storage architecture across the product lines will enable innovation by HP and third parties to bring higher value solutions to both existing and new applications.

The main product consists of a 2.5” HDD mounted on an EIO card. This drive is forward compatible, starting with the LaserJet 4000. Current HP-compatible units include the LaserJet 4050, 5000, and 8000 printer lines.

 1.1.1 Disk-Based Mopying

The concept of Mopying (Multiple Original Prints) is to produce finished documents at the printer (many copies, collated, stapled) rather than print one copy and then produce finished documents on a copy machine. The strategic intent of this concept is to 'steal' pages from the copy giants (such as Xerox), and thereby increase pages printed on a LaserJet. The resulting increase in toner consumption from companies moving to this concept makes this a very attractive strategy if we can convince the customer to stop copying and start Mopying.

Hard disk storage is critical to enable effective Mopying. Mopiers download and rasterize the print job once, storing the job either in DRAM memory or on a hard disk. Once the job is held in memory, the printer can print it as many times as needed at engine speed, rather than downloading it each time.

Due to the high cost of the disk drive and some customer's unwillingness to pay for it, HP's printer divisions have implemented “RAM Disk”. Part of the DRAM memory is allocated, in a block, to function as a disk drive. This limits the functionality and the size of the print jobs the printer can process. Our disk drive assembly is competitively priced with DRAM, and disk drives add functionality beyond “RAM Disk”.

 1.1.2 Fonts -- Custom and Pre-Loaded

Today the practice of downloading fonts to the printer or purchasing special font solutions for the printer is relegated to specific industry, regional, or customer application niches. PiSi currently offers two solutions, pre-loaded fonts on disk for specific regional applications, and custom downloadable fonts on disk.

 1.1.3 Custom Font Accessories

HP's Resource Manager is a free software utility that enables users to download and manage items on the EIO Drive. It is available at www.hp.com. End users can download fonts, signatures, bar codes, and many other features onto the EIO drive using the Resource Manager.

PiSi is capable of pre-loading custom fonts for customers. The majority of the custom font market is currently using flash devices to deliver these products to customers. By loading fonts onto the EIO drive, customers will not only be able to access their fonts more quickly than they can using flash, but also have the increased functionality associated with the EIO drive (faster printing, reduced network traffic, mopying, job retention, etc).

Storing fonts directly on the LaserJet printer is especially important in the Asian market. If an Asian user is running a Windows-based system but does not have the fonts stored directly on the printer, the fonts have to be downloaded every time a document is sent from the PC to the printer. This can slow the printer down from 17 pages per minute (ppm) to less than 1 ppm. With the fonts stored directly on the printer, it can operate at maximum print speed.

Over half of the Asian market does not use the Windows operating system. Without fonts stored directly on the printer, customers who do not use the Windows OS cannot print with LaserJet printers.

Future Trends
As the Asian market grows and more print jobs are being sent over networks, the need for resident printer fonts will grow substantially. The EIO drive provides the best overall solution for customers.

 1.1.4 Proof and Hold, Private Printing

Private Printing and Proof and Hold capabilities provide security and convenience. Print jobs can also be retained on the EIO drive and printed later using Quick Copy and Stored Job Functionality. These functions are only available using the EIO drive, however, and since the majority of the HP printers are shipped without the drive bundled, there is a strong after market for this product.

 1.1.5 Electronic Forms

Overlays, or macros, are files that are stored on the printer in nonvolatile memory, and then are referenced in print streams so that the print data merges with the overlay and the result is a complete print job. The most common example of overlays are Electronic Forms, where the form is the overlay and only the data for the fields is transmitted with the print job. Other examples are bar codes, downloaded letterhead, and electronic signatures.

The advantage of nonvolatile memory, such as a hard drive, is that whatever is stored on that device remains there until purposely erased, even if the power to the device is shut off. DRAM, which is volatile memory, can store many things, but when the power is shut off all data is lost. There are several advantages in using nonvolatile memory versus volatile memory including mopying, custom font storage and electronic forms. Nonvolatile memory is essential when using overlays.

The primary target customer for overlays are current purchasers of pre-printed forms who own or are buying LaserJets. Any office of any size in any region of the world can take advantage of this technology. PiSi is currently focusing its efforts on medium to large office environments in the US and Europe. The customers currently purchasing pre-printed forms are looking for a more cost-efficient solution, such as using their existing laser printer to print electronic forms at a greatly reduced cost-per-page. In addition, some of these customers would prefer to store their overlays on the printer to reduce the large network overhead associated with printing large E-forms jobs.

 3.1.6 Wide Format Spooling

When installed in a DesignJet wide format printer, disk drives are not used to store files in non-volatile memory, but are used essentially as large blocks of additional memory to spool a print job. The average print job on a DesignJet may be only one page, but the file size can be up to one hundred times that of a LaserJet print job. Therefore, large amounts of memory are required to speed the user return to application. This customer has been typically waiting several minutes to plot a large file on older plotters. With the new DesignJets, speed is the key message. This is not just engine speed but fast return to application. Therefore, the key customer need that is being addressed is a faster printing experience for printing large files.