HP has introduced a new subscription-based hardware purchasing and services program for SMB buyers.
Called HP Business Boost, the bundled offering was one of several services and solutions showcased at the manufacturer’s Reinvent partner conference, which took place online today. HP announced a series of forthcoming PCs and printers optimized for the new normal of work-from-home computing at that show as well.
Subscriptions to Business Boost combine PCs, monitors, and printers, plus accessories, with proactive remote management and pickup and return of broken devices or onsite repair services at both offices and homes. The support components of that offer in particular are exactly what SMBs need now that the coronavirus pandemic has millions of employees working remotely, according to Andy Rhodes, global head of commercial products in HP’s Personal Systems group.
“All of a sudden, small and medium business owners, and IT, are struggling to manage, struggling to protect and support, their employees remotely,” he says. “The old practice of support in the office at the office is nonexistent.”
A premium edition adds security services and accidental damage protection to the core Business Boost offering. Starting in November, the upgrade will also include HP Active Care, a remotely delivered service that proactively identifies and resolves hardware issues.
Business Boost packages are available in good/better/best versions for mainstream home and office workers as well as professional creators and power users with more demanding requirements.
Scheduled to reach market this fall in select countries, Business Boost will sell for $29.99 per user per month and up.
According to HP, Business Boost is an SMB-friendly counterpart to the enterprise-oriented Desktop as a Service (DaaS) offering it introduced over four years ago. A revised edition of that program announced today features four main components: devices, repair services, remote management that includes device analytics, and financing.
Business Boost, HP DaaS, and HP’s managed print service are all central elements of the company’s ongoing, strategic effort to meet rising demand among companies of all sizes for as-a-service procurement options. HP unveiled a security-as-a-service subscription for Windows 10 endpoints at last year’s Reinvent show.
Further underscoring the mounting importance of subscription-based purchasing programs, HP today previewed plans to create a version of its popular Instant Ink service for toner-based laser printers. Used by more than 8 million people worldwide, Instant Ink sends inkjet replacement cartridges to users automatically whenever HP senses their printer is running low.
Also previewed at Reinvent today were plans to make Upland Software’s Document Workflow Cloud Services solution available to HP print customers by the end of this year. A unified workflow platform, the Upland system will let companies extract data automatically from scanned documents. The system will also digitize paper-based faxes and route them automatically to email or shared network folders in SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, and other file storage platforms.
A new Fleet Onboarding Tool announced today is designed to help partners and end users add large volumes of printers to HP’s cloud-based Command Center management system rapidly.
HP announced a series of print solutions for remote workers in July.
