For many years now, and with only a few notable exceptions, print management in the enterprise has remained fairly stagnant. The vast majority of organizations are conducting print management more or less as they always have: either struggling with print servers or struggling with conventional direct IP printing.
However, as these organizations grow (through mergers, acquisitions and diversification) and evolve (by transitioning to a more mobile client pool, for example, or using “gig economy” freelancers in lieu of permanent in-house employees), both the need and the demand for print management software alternatives is starting to reach critical mass. Organizations want to spend fewer resources on managing printers and more on their core operations. For those reasons, we’ll see some of the emerging trends in print management turn into widespread behaviors in the coming year.
Cloud-Based Solutions
Industry analysts such as Gartner are projecting a $162 billion global spend—up from $67 billion in 2015—on cloud-computing initiatives in 2020, and cloud-based enterprise print management will certainly be a part of that. A rapidly increasing number of organizations are starting to recognize the exciting benefits that cloud services have to offer, such as convenient and predictable software-as-a-service (SaaS) pricing models, reduced physical infrastructure, and ubiquitous access and administration.
BYOD and Mobile Support
From an anecdotal standpoint, IT professionals tell us they’re seeing a sharp uptick in enterprise mobile computing initiatives. These tend to arise from and stimulate increased requests for BYOD use and guest access. The analytical data backs that up. One research firm expects that the BYOD enterprise mobility market size will reach $73.3 billion by 2021, more than doubling the 2016 figure of $35.1 billion.
Unfortunately, traditional print management software is well behind the mobility curve, offering minimal to no native support for mobile devices and making BYOD support far more challenging than it ought to be. At a time when enterprise print management needs to be more flexible and intuitive for admins as well as end users, the status quo is holding many organizations back.
Print Security
Security has always been a priority for system admins, but recent high-profile data breaches have put it at the front of everyone’s mind. Those concerns have extended to the way that organizations approach day-to-day printing as well as managing printers. On the backend, they want better 10,000-foot oversight, more auditing capabilities and more insight into specific printing habits. On the frontend, they want convenient methods of secure printing for their end users.
In 2018, organizations will start focusing even more on print security and considering ways to implement effective, user-friendly secure printing functionality, such as pull printing, through their print management software.
PrinterLogic
Well before these trends established themselves, PrinterLogic was revolutionizing print management software with its next-generation on-premises enterprise print management solution, which is now complemented by a powerful cloud-based SaaS solution, PrinterLogic SaaS (formerly PrinterCloud). Each solution integrates quickly and seamlessly with your organization’s existing environment (including Citrix and VMware), enabling you to eliminate print servers completely while enjoying direct IP printing uniquely coupled with centralized management.
In addition to making the process of managing printers incredibly easy through the elimination of GPOs and scripts, PrinterLogic provides your organization with advanced native functionality such as Mobile Printing and Pull Printing to satisfy even the most challenging BYOD and secure printing requirements. Unfettered from the limitations of traditional print management software, PrinterLogic also gives macro- and micro-level insight into your print environment through comprehensive Print Auditing functionality.
As more organizations discover the no-compromise advantages of our low-footprint, cost-effective approach to enterprise print management, augmented by the choice we now offer of an on-premises or cloud-based deployment, it’s possible that migrating to PrinterLogic could become the defining print management trend of 2018. And beyond.