HP announced yesterday that as the company switches its focus to other areas, it will soon halt development of digital cameras.
In an official statement, HP said "This shift in strategy is intended to enable HP to accelerate its investment in Print 2.0 initiatives. These include furthering HP's leadership position in home photo printing and online photo services, while accelerating the company's retail photo-finishing business."
As a result, HP are now actively looking to establish an OEM partner to design, source and distribute digital cameras of the HP brand. The current range of HP digital cameras will continue to be sold throughout the holiday season and HP hopes to have an OEM partnership arranged in the first half of 2008.
Due to this change of strategy, HP will take a pre-tax charge of approximately $30 million in the fourth fiscal quarter ending Oct. 31, 2007.
HP's Print 2.0 strategy, announced in May 2007 highlights three key areas; a digital printing platform, easier printing from the web and extending HP's digital content creation and publishing platforms.
