Today, the Hewlett-Packard Company owns about 46% of the printer market share, they're sitting in a relatively profitable position for now. But like all great companies, they must always be steps ahead; like a game of chess. So what's next for HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG)?

Vyomesh Joshi, EVP of HP's Imaging and Digital Group says passionately, "There are 50 trillion pages printed a year... and our market share is only 1.8%. We want to drive more analog to digital transformation of pages. Every print that you see ten years from now will be done on ink-jet. If we could get another 1.8% of the pages market share, we could double our business."

Now that a majority of Americans own a digital camera, Joshi believes HP's IPG can focus solely on the digital printing transition. HP acquired Snapfishin 2005 and now the website has increased their consumer base from 10 to 50 million users. But, how could HP's IPG reduce its carbon footprint with increase consumption of printing?

Joshi says, "We absolutely believe that we need to be environmentally friendly. The most important part is to really reduce the carbon footprint of all of our customers. All of the imaging and printing devices have instant-on technology which reduces power consumption." As a side note, HP recycled nearly 250 million pounds of hardware and print cartridges worldwide in 2007.

Where is the future of imaging and printing going? "In the next three years, we're going to transform books, newspapers, magazine. When it goes digital, on-demand printing will be very successful. What has happened to the music industry and the photo industry... the same thing will happen to the newspaper, magazine, and book industry."

Hitlines:

1 - Yahoo! An Open Approach to Search:

Yahoo's opening up their API that allows publishers to change how their searches appear in Yahoo's search engine. Is this a game changer within battle for search engine supremacy? Not likely, Yahoo needs to make a bigger splash.

2 - Network Solutions & ICANN sued over "front running":

This week, Network Solutions and ICANN gets slammed for taking advantage of domain name seekers. Whenever someone searches for the availability of a domain name through Network Solutions' website, the company immediately registers the name for itself, preventing other companies from selling it and forcing consumers to pay Network Solutions' expensive fees.

Network Solutions' scheme is made possible by ICANN. ICANN allows companies that sell domain names to avoid paying registration fees for names cancelled within five days. Thus, Network Solutions can defraud customers at no cost to itself.

Will we get good domain names back? Maybe, but this is definitely one of the contributing factors to losing that one "must have" web domain.