HP printers, like blue jeans in the old Soviet Russia, are apparently a hot item among consumers in Iran.
According to a report in Monday's Boston Globe, a third-party distributor in Dubai has been selling HP printers in Iran since 1997. That's two years after President Clinton signed an order banning all trade with the country. If HP executives cut the deal with the Dubai company, called Redington Gulf, knowing it intended to sell HP products into Iran, the deal could be a violation of trade law, according to the Globe.
As to whether HP knew what the small Dubai outfit was doing, the Globe reported that the distributor's website says it began in 1997 "as a team of five people and... HP supplies as our first product, we started operations as the distributor for Iran". The article also quotes an HP executive in the late 1990s enthusiastically discussing sales in Iran.
Since it was started, Redington has grown considerably, and now sells hi-tech equipment throughout the Middle East and Africa for a number of manufacturers, ranging from other hardware makers such as Cisco and IBM to software makers such as McAfee and Microsoft. "Today, Redington is proud to be described as 'the brand behind brands' in the region," the company's website says.
An HP spokesman told ZDNet UK's sister site, CNET News.com, that HP has "a policy of complete compliance with all US export laws".
The Globe story comes at a particularly sensitive time, with fighting once again escalating between Israel and Hamas forces in Gaza. The trade embargo against Iran was put into place by President Clinton in 1995 to force the country to stop funding militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and to pressure it to curb its nuclear programme.
But scarcity, or at least the knowledge that owning an HP printer is in some way taboo, appears to have had the opposite impact: it has made them highly desirable among Iranian consumers. By some accounts, HP has better than a 40 percent share of the Iranian printer market.
Talkback
I remember stories that the French had sold communications equipment, FAX machines and printers I believe to Saddam's Iraqi military before the first World Oil war. Supposedly NATO triggered a Trojan that took out the communications system right at the beginning of the war. I have no idea if that's real or not but it sounds cool.
Maybe that's what's happening in IRAN.
I have an HP 3100 and as far as I'm concerned its a Weapon of Mass Aggravation. It takes forever to start printing. It eats $25 cartridges like they're cereal. You can't put much paper in it. Humidity or the lack of it can make the pages stick together and cause the feeder to slip and jam in extra sheets.
If it will help the war effort against terrorists, I'll willingly donate my HP printer to the cause.