All that's fit to print

IT Pro: So that's where you seen the main difference between HP and its competitors, in software and services rather than hardware?

VJ: No, we are ahead in everything. Look at our innovation we have 14,700 patents! We have better inkjet solutions than anyone else in the world, so I wouldn't say that at all. Competitors all want to find their own niche and we have a broad portfolio and we are going to continue to work on that.

IT Pro: With inkjets, do you think it is a mature technology or are there big developments on the way?

VJ: I firmly believe that inkjet technology has a long way to go. We have our own Moore's Law - every 18 months we are doubling the speed of our inkjets. In 1984 we had 96 dpi from 12 nozzles. Now we are at 8,000 pages a minute with WebPress! We can continue to improve the speed and improve the quality and take the cost of printing down. So we have tremendous room for improvement in inkjet technology.

The important part is the apps and not the operating systems, so there is a big shift going on. Applications are now platforms in themselves, like Facebook.

VJ on webOS printers

We are looking at that. We already have web-connected printers and all our printers have a thin, web operating system. It's there in the 20 million printers we ship, a thin web operating system which is how they connect to the cloud. The important part is the apps and not the operating systems, so there is a big shift going on. Applications are now platforms in themselves, like Facebook. There are lots of photos on Facebook that people want to print and that is more important for us than any operating system.