PALO ALTO, Calif. -- HP recently announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tabblo Inc., a privately-held developer of Web-based software located in Cambridge, Mass.

HP plans to leverage Tabblo's technologies to make printing from the web easier and more convenient than it is today. Tabblo's technology allows people to simply and efficiently arrange and print text, graphics and photos from the web. This is made possible by Tabblo's custom template engine, using an Ajax-enriched interface.

HP plans to make this simple-to-use Web-printing experience broadly available to people by working with other companies to integrate the technology into their Web sites. Together, HP and its partner companies will provide customers with a vastly improved Web-based printing experience to meet the ever-growing need for simplified Internet-based printing.

"HP's goal is to make printing content from the web the easiest and best experience possible for people -- whether they are printing a simple map or a book of their favorite blogs," said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. "By acquiring Tabblo's technology and making it available to companies that host popular Web sites, HP will be firmly on the path to becoming the print engine of the Web."

The acquisition is subject to certain closing conditions and is expected to be completed within the next few weeks. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.