BEIJING: Hewlett Packard on Monday launched the first products based on a radically new printer technology that the company has been nurturing for over two decades.

Touting the `winning edge' of a new print head — that for the first time in a general-use corporate machine, extends across the full width of the printed page — the U.S.-based printer leader unveiled two multifunction ink-based models claiming to offer the best of both worlds — colour and monochrome — on a single platform.

The CM8060 and CM8050 harnessed the new technology — first announced six months ago — that did away with the need for a print head to move across the paper to print a line at a time.

This has helped boost inkjet printer speeds to almost twice what has been possible: to a typical 50 pages a minute and a peak of 70 PPM.

In addition, the technology — to which multiple development centres of HP, including the one in Bangalore contributed — has enabled the printer to be set for different quality prints and combinations of colour and black ink saturations.

"This is the biggest move that HP has ever made in ink-based printer technology... we have to rewrite the laws of reliability and simplicity,'' said HP's Vice President for Edgeline Technologies, Gary Cutler, said while speaking to The Hindu soon after the Asia-wide unveiling here of the new products. The company had been working on a paper-wide print head for over 20 years and had already obtained dozens of patents for the new technology, he added. In India and Asia, it will initially offer the printers on a pay-by-use model.

The event also saw the launch of a large format Designjet printer — the T1100 series — and a new colour multi function laser model , the CM4730.

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