One of the more baffling aspects of the computer industry is the defeatism that observes the fact that Hewlett-Packard Co set, and brilliantly succeeded in a strategy to create and then dominant a mass market for laser printers, and then says that was impressive, but there are no comparable hot products now: one of the more obvious is the affordable text-scanning server with all intelligence and software built in rather than having to be loaded on the host – that would enable users to load into a hopper all incoming correspondence and other material worth keeping with minimal preparation, so as to make the text available on-line in ASCII; the market from database operators and publishing houses alone would be enormous, and for a company like Digital Equipment Corp, which still has the research and development resources to create the software – the hardware is already available to be bought in OEM – it would add a buffer product line that could generate $2,000m or more a year to see it through times when its core businesses were going badly; the only drawback is that there are signs that Hewlett-Packard itself may already have spotted the potential of that one, and be working towards another monster hit to sit alongside its market-leading laser and inkjet printer families.
