HP appoints German distie for cheap printers

Hewlett-Packard has appointed German company Medion as sole distributor for its new subsidiary selling cheap and cheerful printers. The manufacturer's Apollo Consumer Products division will sell low end ink-jet printers, aiming to do away with H-P's traditional image and be more modern. The wholly owned subsidiary will have ten employees, with the rest of the business run through outsourcing. Resellers will buy sub $100 Apollo-branded printers through Medion. An H-P representative said the break into this end of the printer market would let Apollo be "hip and fun, with a more dramatic design than H-P products." He said it was necessary to open the separate subsidiary to effectively depart from H-P's main brand. H-P denied it was an attempt to sell the printers direct without tarnishing its name and channel relations. The representative stressed: "There are no plans to gain direct purchases through this latest venture." ®