The arrival of the electronic office has not brought about the paperless office. Far from it: Companies are printing more complex documents and more pages. To keep up with demand, IT managers are looking to higher volume network printers to shoulder the load. For 1998, the winner in this category is Hewlett-Packard Co.'s HP D640.

A successful high-volume network printer must possess several qualities. First, it has to be reliable. A printer that fails to work will end up as a large doorstop. HP is known for quality, from its low-end personal printers to the high-volume D640. This quality is evident in the diverse client drivers, strong documentation and excellent service and support.

Second, paper-handling features are important. The D640 supports sheets up to 11x17 in size. In addition, its impressive input capacity of 4,500 sheets makes it ideal for large printing jobs. To help carry the load, the D640 has a monthly duty cycle of 300,000 impressions.

Finally, a printer must be a good network citizen. The D640 comes standard with an external HP JetDirect print server. This lets the printer service print jobs from a variety of clients and network operating systems, using a variety of protocols, such as TCP/IP, IPX/SPX and AppleTalk.

HP D640, $15,995,
Hewlett-Packard Co.,
(408) 447 4000.
www.hp.com/computing/spo/ds/hp5000.html