Printers and Copiers

I live several hundred miles away from most of my extended family, and when I travel back east for the holidays, I always compile all of the most memorable photographs I took over the course of the year and bring them along. This year, I printed the photographs at home, packed them in my suitcase, and set off for the airport. But when I arrived at my family’s home just outside Memphis, I realized the photographs weren’t there! I started to stress because there was no way I was going to get photographs reprinted on Christmas Eve.

After some time had passed, I asked my dad what I should do, and he said he had purchased an OKI high end mono digital printer for my mom as a Christmas gift. I was overjoyed! But, of course, that meant she hadn’t yet opened it and I wanted to have the pictures ready for her and the rest of my relatives in the morning.  So my dad and I snuck downstairs and took the printer out from under the tree, opened it, installed the ink cartridges, and printed out my pictures, then haphazardly rewrapped the present. On Christmas morning my mom unwrapped the printer, and immediately asked “Has this been opened?”. My dad and I burst out laughing and then showed her the photos. I imagine it’s a Christmas story that will be passed on for generations.

Hewlett Packard is currently the largest technology company in the world, with an annual revenue exceeding $100 billion.  An industry giant today, HP was formed by two colleagues who graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford.  William Hewlett and Dave Packard started Hewlett-Packard in a garage in Palo Alto, California.  Their first successful project was an audio oscillator, and a simple design difference allowed them to sell their oscillator at a fraction of the price of the competition. The direction of the company was unclear in the early years, until HP decided to focus on high quality electronics and test equipment. This eventually led to HP’s dominance of today’s technology market.

Now HP is a primary seller of personal computers, printers, software, technology services and HP copier models. A significant amount of sales revenue also comes from the HP printer cartridges necessary for HP printers.