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There are four current trends in enterprise printing that aren’t just changing the way we print. They’re also transforming the modern workplace for IT and end users alike.
BYOD and mobile printing
Advanced reporting
Print security
Infrastructure reduction
We’re going to take a brief look at each of these trends below. We’ll also see which enterprise printing solution allows you to capitalize on them.
Now that there’s a smartphone in almost every hand, end users naturally want to print from them. And while three-quarters of companies have said that mobile devices are essential to their employees and their workflows, they also acknowledge that mobile printing in the enterprise hasn’t been easy.
For starters, it’s been tough for them to give smartphones and tablets—especially user-sourced BYOD devices—desktop-class enterprise printing capabilities. The other hurdle is mobility itself. When users are regularly moving from location to location, how can you be sure that they’re able to print to the right printers?
Despite the challenges around mobile printing, it’s a trend that is only getting stronger. In many organizations, mobile printing is already vital to their productivity.
One result of BYOD/mobile printing is that it introduces lots of new devices into the print environment. That creates a corresponding need for IT professionals: more insight into the state of enterprise printing as a whole. Basically, if a user wants to print, IT has to know about it and be able to monitor their print activity.
That’s why the adoption of advanced reporting has followed hot on the heels of mobile printing. A feature like this gives transparency to the print environment without requiring constant IT supervision.
But advanced reporting can do more than increase visibility. It allows IT to identify printer malfunctions with more speed and accuracy. It helps identify excessive print usage with a view to reducing costs. And the added oversight increases security.
On that note, companies are acutely aware of how important security is to their enterprise printing. They also know that their current print infrastructures aren’t up to snuff. Already they’ve begun taking active steps to beef up their secure printing efforts. That’s only going to intensify in 2020.
You’ll soon start to see increased uptake of features like secure release printing. This adds an authentication step to the printing process, ensuring that confidential print jobs stay in the hands of the users who printed them. Multifactor authentication and cloud identity providers (IdPs) will be a big part of the secure printing equation too.
This also means that you could start seeing a move away from print servers toward new forms of direct IP printing. Print servers are an attractive target for malicious actors because they channel print traffic from all over the organization. Direct IP printing, on the other hand, keeps print jobs on the local network.
Another benefit of direct IP printing is infrastructure reduction. When clients are able to print straight to printers without that connection being negotiated by a print server, those print servers can be eliminated. Along with all their hassle and costs.
Of course, streamlining is nothing new. Organizations have sought to shrink the hardware and software footprint of their enterprise printing for ages. Cloud migration is just the latest wave of that streamlining push, although it’s certainly helped to accelerate it.
Direct IP printing has been around for a long time too. But recent leaps in technology have resulted in a new generation of direct IP printing that enables organizations to jettison legacy infrastructure without sacrificing functionality.
Your organization can start taking advantage of all these trends within a matter of days. PrinterLogic is a serverless printing infrastructure that combines next-gen direct IP printing with centralized management, giving you control over your entire print environment from a single pane of glass.
With PrinterLogic, features like advanced reporting, mobile printing and secure release printing don’t need to be layered on. They’re actually optional extensions of PrinterLogic’s core functionality. That makes them easy to implement, easy to manage and easy to use.
On the strength of PrinterLogic’s direct IP printing architecture, an organization like the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) was able to eliminate print servers and introduce more secure printing alongside higher print availability. Read the case study here.
Many organizations of equal size and complexity have migrated from print servers to PrinterLogic in under a week. Instead of following the trends in enterprise printing, they’re easily staying ahead of them. And saving time and money in the process.