Terms of the deal were not disclosed but it comes within weeks of new HP chief executive Meg Whitman stating the company would be concentrating on rebuilding its balance sheet rather than capital expansion after a mixed reception to its $11bn (£7bn) acquisition of Autonomy.

Founded in 1991, Hiflex offers both MIS and web-to-print solutions, claiming to be the first to offer a print MIS on a cloud platform, while with web-to-print it has leveraged the open-source Drupal platform for the web front end.

"HP wants to break the traditional barriers of how and where business customers print, making it easy for them to produce custom or personalized materials anywhere, anytime," said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP.

"Hiflex’s technology provides a powerful platform to deliver on this goal as part of our overall cloud printing strategy."

HP said the deal would extend its portfolio of cloud-based solutions but added it remained committed to offering partner products alongside its own roster.