A Letter to Hewlett-Packard

6 August 2006

Mark Hurd, President
Hewlett-Packard Co.
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304

Mr. Hurd:

Almost ten years ago, I bought a Hewlett-Packard printer for my first PC. I chose a LaserJet 5L because of Hewlett-Packard's reputation for quality and durability.

My first PC used Windows 95. Later, I bought a new PC and upgraded to Windows 98SE. I also moved my LaserJet 5L to that new PC.

A week ago, I bought my third PC, which uses Windows XP. My LaserJet 5L still works well, and it is now connected to my new PC.

However, Hewlett-Packard no longer supports the LaserJet 5L. To connect the printer to my new PC, I had to rely on drivers inherent in Windows XP. This caused me to lose valuable functionality, especially the status window that would appear whenever I printed something. That status window would show the progress of printing (the total number of pages and the number remaining to be printed) and had buttons to allow me to pause or even cancel the print job. Also lost was the warning that popped up when a page misfed or jammed.

In checking various Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft online forums, I discovered an apparent lack of any way to recover the lost function­ality. The consensus of the responses to my queries in the forums is that Hewlett-Packard's failure to provide this function­ality for use with Windows XP is an intentional example of planned obso­lescence, an attempt to induce me to buy a newer printer.

If those assertions are true, your intent will fail. My LaserJet 5L still works, and I have no immediate plan to replace it. Further, when my printer does indeed require replacing, I will purchase a product whose hardware durability is matched by the durability of its manufacturer's commitment to support it.

Note this letter and its envelope were printed on my LaserJet 5L.

Sincerely,
David E. Ross