The companies announced this week that CPI would no longer look after service and support for HP Scitex products within the Industrial range from 1 November. HP will handle service and support directly.

CPI’s agreement to handle the HP Scitex Commercial and HP Designjet ranges remains unchanged.

The reseller will also continue to handle sales and consumables for the Industrial range.

HP Scitex Industrial machines include the Turbojet suite, the FB7500, FB6100, XP2700, XP2750, and XP5300 machines.

David Booth, general manager of CPI Graphics, said the decision was reached mutually, and was “influenced by market conditions and the rapid evolution of technology”.

“Our customers’ demanding business environments, along with the ever-changing models and complexity of the HP Industrial large-format printer range, means that only a company with the resources and access to training and technology that HP has can provide the level of service and support that customers in this space demand,” he said.

HP Graphic Arts South Pacific director Shane Lucas (pictured) told ProPrint that his company also wanted “more direct engagement with customers”.

He added that this strategy was specific to the Scitex Industrial range, with no plans to adopt a similar approach for other Scitex machines or for the Indigo range, which are exclusively resold by Currie Group.

HP said it would increase its engineering coverage and spare parts logistics and supply to ensure a smooth transition for existing customers, which it said will be largely unaffected by the change.

“Those with maintenance agreements will continue to contact the HP Call Centre directly, while those who previously logged service calls with CPI will now be directed to HP,” the company said.

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