As IT has shifted from managed desktops over to BYOD (user-managed systems) and mobile devices, a whole new set of complexity has appeared. Wasn’t technology meant to make our lives “simpler”? Let’s see how that’s gone in the printing world:
Making printing simple again
As you can see, it’s been a history of two steps forward, and one step back! As user laptops and phones have ventured into the work and education space we have been feeling the pressure to solve the problem - not just for ourselves but for all our users and customers. That’s why we’re so passionate about Mobility Print. Our vision is simple:
“Have the software do the heavy lifting so printing “just works” on any end-user device”.
Something else we have found over the years is that solving printing from mobile is not the whole challenge. Even on our customers’ busiest sites, Smart phone printing makes up only 4%. The challenge is supporting the content creation devices such as BYOD laptops. Mobility Print nails this.
These challenges exist in all organizations ranging from small business up to multi-site campus. In particular, trends such as 1-to-1 laptop programs (1:1) in schools and colleges have added to the complexity.
We hope you, or more importantly your end users, appreciate our handy work! You’re welcome.
The Education Story
We’ve worked with printing in education now for two decades. Student printing is a challenge. For example, consider this situation: A student who wants to quickly print a document at their university, currently doesn’t have a simple way to do it. If they were to print from a Samsung phone, they would have to download a printer app for Android, which needs to be specific to the brand of printer they are printing to, which they may or may not know. To print from a notebook, they may use PaperCut’s Email to Print , which involves them emailing an attachment. Not ideal!
Student printing should be simpler! Whether they want to print from an iPhone, print from a Samsung tablet, print from the residential hall or print from a classroom, the solution should be the same, and the experience as easy as Files -> Print. Hey presto, that’s Mobility Print!
The Commercial Story
Our journey in enterprise printing has radically evolved over the last decade. We’ve seen printing change from “easy”, to “difficult” again. Consider this situation: Your friend takes her laptop to her work, because they are encouraging BYOD. To print to a work printer, she needs to involve the SysAdmin or IT guys and get them to set up her machine to allow printing across the network and that’s assuming they are nice enough and willing to help! Or she will be sent complex instructions about joining the Wi-Fi, then a domain, searching for and configuring the printer… it is all too hard.
Well the IT department’s dream of easily getting everyone printing from their personal device is possible. That’s Mobility Print! And as a bonus, it helps with guest printing and visitor printing as well.
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