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H-P to acquire online photo
startup SnapfishSAN FRANCISCO—Hewlett-Packard plans to acquire online
photo services startup Snapfish, the computer maker announced Monday.Palo Alto-based H-P hopes to boost sales of its popular
photo printers and ink by targeting the San Francisco-based company’s 13 million
members.Snapfish’s Web site contains roughly 350 million photos,
which users can organize into digital albums, share with other members, turn
into calendars or mouse pads, and have printed for as little as 15 cents per
photo.The companies would not disclose terms of the acquisition,
which is expected to close in April.Snapfish is an independent unit of District Photo, which
started as a black-and-white photo lab in Washington D.C. in 1949. District
Photo is the world’s largest mail-order film processor, with labs in the United
States, United Kingdom and Canada.H-P is the latest technology powerhouse to move more
aggressively into the lucrative niche of online photos. Americans will purchase
roughly 20.5 million digital cameras this year, up more than 70% from last year,
according to the trade group Photo Marketing Association.On Friday, Internet portal Yahoo signed a deal to buy
Canadian photo-sharing startup Flickr, which lets people upload digital photos
from computers and camera phones, publish photos in their blogs, share digital
photo albums with anyone else who uses the service and alert other users
whenever they upload a new photo or album.Last summer, Google purchased digital photo software
company Picasa, which helps users edit and circulate large numbers of photos.
Larry Lesley, senior vice president for H-P’s Consumer
Imaging and Printing division, said the computer maker plans to ask all 1.5
million HPphoto.com customers if they’d like to migrate to Snapfish when the
deal closes next month. Then Snapfish’s 80 employees will work with H-P to
produce new products and services — including promotions that help people who
don’t have fancy photo printers print images from their digital cameras.“This is absolutely a natural extension of our digital
photography strategy,” Lesley said Monday. “It’s not just about printing 4-by-6
photos. We’re talking about creating things with images you couldn’t possibly do
at home or at retail — personalized neck ties, baby blankets, all kinds of
things.”
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