HP Printer Contest Offers US$40,000 in Mac Prizes

by , 6:30 PM EDT, August 26th, 2004

Our friends at MacMinute noted that HP is holding a contest aimed at creative professionals with a grand prize of US$40,000 in Macs and Mac-oriented products. The contest is designed to promote HP's new professional photo printer, the Designjet 130. First, the most pertinent rules that explain the contest:

Step 1: Preview the HP Designjet 130 printer demo, which will provide access to the HP Designjet 130 printer photo library.

Step 2: Use one of the images you find in the HP Designjet 130 printer photo library (in the HP Designjet 130 printer demo) to create a work that demonstrates power of color from the HP Designjet 130 printer. Use the photo-manipulation or illustrative tools and techniques of your choice, but all work must be original. You may enter individually, or as a team composed of at least one (1) designer/art director and one (1) photographer.

The grand prize package for the contest:

Grand prize package
One (1) winner will be selected on the basis of the criteria described above to receive a Grand Prize package consisting of the following:

• 15-inch PowerBook G4
• Power Mac 5 GHZ
• 20-inch iMac G4
• iPod Mini
• Herman Miller office chair
• Pantone Spyder Pro
• Adobe Creative Suite Premium Full
• Mac OS X version 10.3 "Panther"
• HP Designjet 130
• HP Designjet 815mfp
• HP Photosmart 7900 printer
• HP Photosmart R707 digital camera
• HP Graphics Media & Supplies kit
• HP Digital Projector 6100

Approximate retail value of Grand Prize package: $40,000.

The 1st prize for the contest is a US$25,000 package that includes a trip and accommodations to New York City, and your portrait taken by Joel Meyerowitz.

You can find all the rules at HP's Web page for the Designjet 130.

The Mac Observer Spin:

We think it's very smart of HP to offer up this kind of non-HP prize package for creative pros. Obviously there are political reasons for the company to offer up its own Windows PCs as a prize in the contest, but this new printer is aimed at a market Apple dominates.

We might also point out that this is yet another sign of increased cooperation between Apple and HP. HP's version of the iPod is set to be released shortly, and while this contest is a minor affair in the overall scheme of either company's multi-billion dollar business, any level of cooperation from Apple is most definitely a departure from tradition. Furthermore, we think there are still more areas where a company like HP (or IBM) would make a great partner for Apple (Think Enterprise).

We're getting ahead of ourselves, however, and for today, this is merely a cool contest with a cool Mac prize package. Good luck to any Observers who enter.

HP's Designjet 130