When I had to go out and buy ink for my Canon printer this week, it made me riled up about the fact that I can’t use the great 2600n printer I bought last year. Here’s a message I sent through to Mark Hurd, the CEO of HP (nice that they have a page from which to do this, even if his assistant is going to be reading it):
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Mr. Hurd,
Late last year I purchased an hp 2600n colour laser printer. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was with it – great price, amazing performance. I was extremely happy with my purchase. Today, on the 24th of April, I haven’t used that excellent printer in nearly four months. Why?
Vista. I upgraded all of my computers to Windows Vista in early January. I knew that Vista wasn’t officially being released until the end of January, so I wasn’t expecting an HP driver for the 2600n until then. I waited. And I waited. In the middle of February I was starting to wonder what was going on, and upon contacting tech support I was told that no driver for the 2600n would be ready until July 2007. My brand new printer is completely useless without a driver, and it’s taking the hp driver team nearly half a year after the launch of Vista to create a driver? Unacceptable.
I’ve since switched back to using my Canon MP780 printer since Canon was quick to release a Vista driver for it – and that includes all of the scanning and faxing functionality. Mr. Hurd, hp is the most prominent printer company on the planet, and I know the release of Windows Vista wasn’t a surprise for you or your team – so why weren’t there drivers ready at launch or shortly thereafter? Why are customers such as myself staring at brand new hardware, now useless, all for lack of a driver?
I’m deeply disappointed in this situation and will find it hard to buy another hp printer in the future knowing how low hp places the needs of customers such as myself.
Sincerely,
Jason R. Dunn