PRINT.IT
27
PRINTERS
After the unveiling of Dell’s new
H-Series and S-Series MFPs,
PrintIT
emerged from a morning of
presentations none the wiser about
the devices’ print speeds, paper
capacity or recommended monthly
print volumes.
Speeds and feeds, to use the
industry jargon, used to be how
printers were judged and compared.
Nowadays they barely get a mention.
The efficiency of modern devices
has reached such a level that people
assume they will do the job, which
today involves much more than just
putting dots on a page.
Instead, all the talk at Dell’s
launch was about the user experience
– ease of use, ease of installation and
ease of management.
“At Dell, we try to make it easier
for our customers,” explained Dell
Imaging EMEA product marketing
director Dave McNally. “We look
at how customers interact with a
device. How easy is it for them to use
the device? How easy is it for them
to manage the device? How easy is
it for them to own the device? This is
where we put a lot of resources and
a lot of effort.”
For Dell, this makes perfect
sense: it doesn’t make its own
devices and is therefore less able to
differentiate itself through hardware,
but it does add value through
software, services and integration.
In an era of mobility, digitisation
and cloud connectivity, this is where
vendors can make a difference.
This approach is evident in Dell’s
five new printer launches, including
three H-series devices for small
businesses, remote offices and other
unmanaged IT environments – the
H825cdw colour cloud MFP (£309),
the H625cdw colour cloud MFP
(£259) and the H815dw mono cloud
MFP (£259); and two smart S-series
models for managed IT environments
– the Dell S2815dn mono smart
MFP (£229) and the Dell S2825cdn
colour smart MFP (£289).
Dell Document Hub
The introduction of three new
H-series devices, two with cloud
connectivity built-in, is a major
development for Dell, as it increases
the number of devices embedded
with Dell Document Hub, a key
differentiator for the company.
Launched a year and a half ago
and previously only available on one
device, Dell Document Hub makes
it easy for employees to upload,
retrieve, print and share documents
in the cloud. It acts as gateway
to seven cloud service providers
(so far), including Box, Dropbox,
Microsoft OneDrive, Evernote,
SharePoint Online, Salesforce.com
and Google Drive, and enables users
to scan and convert documents into
editable formats.
What makes Dell Document Hub
so useful to end users in unmanaged
IT environments is a) access to all
seven cloud providers via a single,
secure sign-on; and b) aggregated
search across all seven services
for quick and easy retrieval of
documents.
For McNally, these features have
big productivity benefits for users of
New Dell printers come with
extended connectivity for
mobile, cloud-connected SMEs
The Hub of the matter
Continued
...
cloud services. “Instead of having to
remember different passwords for all
your cloud services, having that one
sign on and aggregated search is
very powerful. What we have seen in
the early adoption of cloud is that a
lot of individuals will sign up to a free
cloud service, fill that up and move
on to the next one. The ability to find
a document becomes a problem
because you have to sign in to each
of the cloud services,” he said.
New and improved
As well as increasing the number
of devices with Dell Document Hub
embedded, Dell has added useful
new features. These include:
Greater availability:
Users can
access the Dell Document Hub from
a button on the printer control panel,
via Dell Printer Hub on a PC (see
below) or via a free iOS/Android app,
which provides mobile printing and
scanning functionality. You don’t
even need to be a Dell customer to
enjoy it; anyone can use the app for
single sign-on and aggregated search
across supported cloud services.
OCR in the cloud:
a new addition to
the Dell Document Hub, free cloud-
based optical character recognition
(OCR) lets users, including Android/
iOS/Windows smartphone or tablet
users, convert scanned documents
into editable Microsoft Office files or
save them as searchable PDFs.
Salesforce.com integration:
the addition of a Salesforce.
com connector enables users to
save time and reduce errors by
scanning contracts, tenders and
other documents directly into
Salesforce.com Accounts, Contacts,
Opportunities and Documents
folders from an MFP or mobile device
using predefined workflows. Users
also benefit from the Dell Document
Hub’s superior rendering engine
when printing from the CRM solution.
Action Favourites:
one-button
customised workflows for common
scanning jobs remove the need to
apply attributes such as destination,
resolution etc. every time you scan a
document;
Camera Capture:
this new feature
lets users take a photo with a tablet/
smartphone and print it instantly
Dave McNally,
EMEA product
marketing director,
Dell Imaging
What we
have seen
in the early
adoption of
cloud is a lot
of individuals
will sign
up to a
free cloud
service, fill
that up and
move on to
the next one.
