HP to acquire Samsung’s printer/copier business (dumb deal)

Speaking frankly, I don’t get the point of this deal.  Other than a reduction in competition, what’s the point of HP buying a copier/printer business, when HP already has a very, very significant copier/printer business of its own.  Spending a billion bucks on “another” copier/printer business, given the fact that consumers and businesses are continuing to find ways to “print less” (and less, and less) is kind of dumb.

Two of the short articles I found about this deal appear below.

This one comes from theverge.com:

Samsung has announced it's selling off its printer business to HP for $1.05 billion. HP says it wants to use the purchase to "disrupt and reinvent" the $55 billion copier industry, which "hasn’t innovated in decades."

"Copiers are outdated, complicated machines with dozens of replaceable parts requiring inefficient service and maintenance agreements," says HP, and it’s apparently happy to buy into that. The deal is the largest print acquisition in HP’s history, with Samsung spinning off its printer business (including 6,000 employees) into a separate company that will be sold in totality to HP. Samsung will continue to sell printers under its own brand in Korea, but will source them from HP.

This one comes from arstechnica.com:

HP announced Monday that it will acquire Samsung’s printer segment for $1.05 billion. The acquisition is part of a move to “disrupt and reinvent the $55 billion copier industry, a segment that hasn’t innovated in decades,” the company said in a press release.

The Palo Alto-based HP will also acquire over 6,500 patents pertaining to printing and Samsung printing's team of 1,300 researchers and engineers.

In 2014, HP said it would split into two separate companies: Hewlett Packard Enterprise, selling servers and enterprise services, and HP Inc, selling PCs and printers. That process completed in late 2015.

“When we became a separate company just 10 months ago, it enabled us to become nimble and focus on accelerating growth and reinventing industries,” Dion Weisler, president and CEO of HP, said in the Monday statement. “We are doing this with 3D printing and the disruption of the $12 trillion traditional manufacturing industry, and now we are going after the $55 billion copier space. The acquisition of Samsung’s printer business allows us to deliver print innovation and create entirely new business opportunities with far better efficiency, security, and economics for customers.”