Tuesday, June 28, 2011

USAF Grants HP Contract for Printers, Supplies and Services

United States Air ForceHP just recently announced that the company has been competitively awarded a purchase agreement by the United States Air Force. According to a statement from the USAF, "The U.S. Air Force is demonstrating strategic leadership in driving operational efficiencies and lowering overall costs through fleet consolidation, standardization and the use of environmentally sound devices."

As a part of the United States Air Force Information Technology Commodity Council Semi-Annual Enterprise Buy for Digital Printing and Imaging capabilities, which is basically a blanket purchase agreement utilized by the United States Air Force for the procurement of IT services and products, HP will be responsible for providing a plethora of HP branded standard printers and multifunction printers to the USAF.

Under the terms of the contract, the printers and multifunction printers will include pre-installed, value-added capabilities like the HP Universal Print Driver, USAF-approved security settings and the use of a Common Access Card Reader in order to support authorized use and other secure operations. This contract agreement also includes provisions for HP Original Toner, installation services and a four year Care Pack warranty which includes enhanced technical support.

The United States Air Force selected HP to meet its goals for modernizing, standardizing and consolidating its imaging and printing fleet, lowering overall operational costs and minimizing environmental impact. This also includes a significant reduction in the consumption of paper while at the same time improving device and network security. These devices are currently available on AFWay, the USAF's portal for the purchases of IT hardware, software and services which provides users leveraged buying power, asset tracking and oversight.

According to the Executive Vice President, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Vyomesh Joshi, "The U.S. Air Force is demonstrating strategic leadership in driving operational efficiencies and lowering overall costs through fleet consolidation, standardization, and the use of environmentally sound devices. This leadership extends to the environment where the Air Force looks to HP for solutions that reduce carbon footprint and power consumption. HP is thrilled to build on our 20-year history of providing the USAF with secure solutions that improve productivity, increase efficiency and reduce cost."

HP's DBI-10B device and toner price is, at the moment, lower than the pricing outlined in the U.S. government's General Services Agreement, which establishes guidelines for long-term government-wide contracts with commercial firms to provide access to commercial supplies and services at volume discount pricing. HP has been a strategic supplier of computers, both notebook and desktop, for over five years under a companion agreement. This agreement, as well as the previous one, is focused on leveraging USAF spending in order to improve mission effectiveness at lower costs with improved security built in at the factory.

Source: BLI - HP Awarded Contract by U.S. Air Force for Printers, Supplies and Services

Power Point Projectors
Most business class projectors will do a good job displaying your PowerPoint presentation. If you have a small presentation group, a 2000 lumen LCD projector will be able to produce a nice and clear picture. For larger audiences you should consider a 5000 lumen LCD projector.

Monday, June 13, 2011

The V.34 Fax Standard

fax machineWhen it comes to businesses communicating with other businesses and with customers, no solution is quite as important or quite as cost-effective as a fax. You may be thinking that fax machines are something you would only see in a movie from the 80's or in your grandpa's home office, but that isn't the case. Over 90% of businesses in the United States have fax machines in the office. In addition to that, the sales of fax machines has maintained a slow, yet steady increase over the past few years.

A lot of people and businesses have tried to forgo using a fax machine by instead opting to use emails. However, despite the growing popularity of emails, more then 7.5 million fax machines were sold in 2002 alone. To help stay the obsolescence of fax machines, a lot of manufacturers have made some recent advancements in fax technology. These advancements have resulted in a renewed interest in faxing in the business environment. One such advancement was the introduction of the V.34 fax standard. The V.34 fax standard is something that can help businesses increase productivity while reducing costs at the same time.

The V.34 fax standard, which was developed by the International Telecommunications Union, is the standard for full-duplex modems, sending and receiving data across phone lines at up to 33.6 Kbps. This is a huge improvement over the previous V.17 standard which ran at only 9.6 Kbps and allows the V.34 standard to achieve faster transmission times per fax page as well as greater adaptability to varying line conditions and a reduction in the number of resends per fax. These improvements result in cost savings from reduced fax phone bills.

Advancements like the V.34 standard are keeping the fax machine industry alive and kicking and are helping a lot of businesses save time and money.

Source: Office Product News - V.34 Fax: Superior Performance and Cost Savings

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