HP Drivers

Background
At work we had an HP PhotoSmart Scanner laying around which I wanted to test its quality of scanning slides and negatives. Unfortunately the previous care taker of the scanner lost the software and drivers that came with it. So I was off to the HP site to download the software.

Finding the correct section on the HP site was not too bad. A lot of clicking but a fairly straightforward path. HP Products > Digital Imaging Products > Scanner Products > Discontinued Products > PhotoSmart Scanner

After arriving on the product's homepage, which clearly states this product is discontinued, the only link I can find in the body of the text is to purchase the product. A list of links on the left leads me to guess which one will my drivers be behind. I guess the Technical Support section.

The first thing I see in the technical support section is "download software and drivers". Good guess, just what I want. So I go there and all they have are Win95 and Win98 driver updates, not the full software, and not NT which is what I need. So the page is no help. I find an FAQ link, and hope my question is answered, of course not. FAQ's are not really frequently asked questions but themselves making up guesses to what their customers may ask.

So I go back to the Technical Support section. PopUp window, no I don't want to take a survey, I want the software. So I try their Assistance link doesn't look promising, Search only finds the new PhotoSmart scanner software for NT.

After browsing around a bunch on their site, I finally go back again to tech support and see some text hiding in plain site which says "to obtain Windows 95/98/NT software for the scanner call Software Distribtion at 1-661-xxx-xxxx and order the software". Now, I could have saved 20 minutes if I saw this the first time I came to the tech support page, but I was looking for a link to download the software, and not a phone number.

So I called up the number, placed my order which is free, and received the software in the mail a week later.

Summary and Analysis
My biggest issue with this is that I wasted 20+ minutes on their site and ended up having to call and order the software by phone which is then shipped out. The nice thing is that I could still get the software, and I didn't have to pay for it (except the long distance phone call)

HP claims to be an innovative internet company, yet software that they have available can not be downloaded from their site. The business impact of this amazes me. This is software which could be stored on a computer and linked to from the web. Instead they have a Software Distribution center which requires a person to answer the phone, look up and place the order, the software which is on a CD (another cost) is then shipped to me. What a waste of money. They should hire some interns for the summer whose job would be to make all the software in their distribution center available on the web. It would take less than three months and they would have happier customers who demand instant gratification, and much cheaper distribution costs.

NOTE: When I went back to do my research and re-map out my path on their site every image was broken and I got lots of 404 errors when clicking around. Not too impressive.