HP service uses cell phones to help travelers with printing

Ryan Kim at the San Francisco Chronicle writes about a cool new service from Hewlett-Packard today.

This will make it easy for people who work away from home, office, or printer to continue to work without lugging a printer along.

More mobility normally means either more enjoyment of work or the opportunity to earn more money or both.

As a free service, it’s profit potential is in HP linking to printing outlets using HP printers and supplies… win/win/win. Customers get a free and needed service, retail outlets get new customers who might not otherwise have come in, and HP builds a market and customer loyalty for their printers and supplies by providing a free marketing service.

Here’s how it works: A user uploads a document to CloudPrint (cloudprint.hpl.hp.com is the beta site), which then issues an ID code for the file and sends that code via text message to a cell phone. Later, the recipient can take the code to a computer with Internet access and use it to retrieve the document from HP Lab’s Web site. Then he can print it out using an available printer; the service includes a printer-finder feature to help locate one.

The company is close to announcing a deal with a major retailer that will allow users to print documents at various stores.