PRINT.IT
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IT SERVICES
This product
is about a
horizontal
strategy hub,
but ultimately
you can see a
world where
it is vertically
segmented,
sensitive
to the
challenges
of each
particular
market
segment
but just one.
“The second part is that we offer
services around this. We offer to
provide services for everything or
just certain items – the customer
can pick and mix. At the moment,
we are offering back-up and security
management, server management,
WiFi management, repair services,
copy and printing services, IT
helpdesk services, and we will add
more services in the future,” he
said.
Easy collaboration
The third element of the Workplace
Hub is Teamspaces, an HTML 5
application that Konica Minolta
has developed to remove the
things people still find difficult
about collaboration, which
range from connectivity issues
to the complexity of dealing
with companies with different
collaboration platforms and
different file-sharing platforms, and
even the difficulty of standardising
collaboration within an organisation.
“Every company we encountered
complained about how difficult
collaboration is, which was
interesting for us because at
that stage we weren’t talking
about collaboration but only IT
and infrastructure. We thought
everything to do with collaboration
was solved, but people said there is
still a lot that is wrong,” explained
Zastrow.
“So we came up with the idea of
Teamspaces and putting everything
to do with collaboration – text
messaging, video calls, voice
calls, file sharing etc. – under one
dashboard. We are not offering all
these services, but are connecting
the tools that a company already
uses. We can connect to Lync, we
can connect to Sharepoint, we can
connect to Webex, we can connect
to Google Cloud, we can connect
to Dropbox and so on. This makes
it far easier for non-hardcore users
of these systems, while hardcore
users still get full usage, because
it’s just a connector, a different
view.”
This application underlines one
of the attractions of Workplace Hub
for small businesses, which is the
potential to change applications and
services at a pace that suits them.
“There will always be legacy
systems, and smaller companies
don’t like to be limited to one
vendor,” explained Zastrow. “The
only thing we do is replace the
hardware so you don’t have legacy
and old equipment. And you don’t
need to purchase it – you just rent
it per month per user from us, so
there is no upfront investment. On
the software side, you can keep
using what you already use.”
A square metre of datacentre
It is this easy user experience that
most excites another of Konica
Minolta’s partners, Canonical
creator of the Ubuntu operating
system used by the Workplace
Hub to connect the hardware and
software and so create the user
experience.
John Zannos, vice president
Alliances/Business Development
at Canonical, describes the
Workplace Hub as ‘a square
metre of datacentre in every small
company in the world where they
have a printer’ – an entry point for
data coming into that company and
being distributed to employees and
for those employees to be able to
make use of an application and
push information out to the cloud.
He is looking forward to working
with Konica Minolta to build a
broader ecosystem of partners
and applications, incorporating
developing technologies like AI and
machine learning to make the user
experience even richer.
“I foresee a time when this
device can be somewhat self-
aware. Say, I am in a hospital,
what are the applications that
matter for a hospital? What are the
functions and services the average
employee in a hospital needs to
use? At launch, this product is
about a horizontal strategy hub,
but ultimately you can see a world
where it is vertically segmented,
sensitive to the challenges of each
particular market segment,” he
said.
For Zannos, its ability to make
complex technology accessible to
everyone is what really sets the
Workplace Hub apart.
“Back in the day, there was
somebody that rode a horse, who
said ‘I am always going to ride
a horse’. Then the train came
and they said ‘That’s really noisy,
expensive, never on time; I’m going
to continue to ride my horse’. After
some time, the train was all of a
sudden convenient, inexpensive,
always accessible and always on
time, and that person for all their
historical bias stops riding the
horse. What Konica Minolta have
created is that moment. They are
trying to package technology so it’s
easily accessible for anybody to
use, and that will drive adoption,”
he said.
