Print.IT Reseller - issue 81

Undoubtedly Universal Print will dramatically simplify Windows print queues but it won’t really touch fleet management PRINTITRESELLER.UK 45 VOX POP continued... Jamie McClunie: “The benefits here are similar to what we’ve seen with customers moving from local AD to Azure AD. And it’s the same benefit our customers are seeing already when they move their print management to the cloud, hosting PaperCut MF in their Azure, Google, or AWS environments. “They spend less time building, patching, and maintaining servers. They spend less time designing and supporting resilient, scalable architectures, and way less time dealing with the user and business impacts of downtime, outages, and maintenance windows. “SaaS print infrastructure has been the market direction for years and we’re excited to partner with Microsoft as they join the party. We’ve known cloud-native print infrastructure was the future for a long time, and have been pushing the boundaries of possibility with things like PaperCut Views, Google Cloud Print support, and more recently with Mobility Print and our cutting edge cloud-native PaperCut Pocket and PaperCut Hive solutions. “Microsoft is adding print infrastructure to their powerful portfolio of M365 services, and PaperCut MF is right here, adding powerful print management hand in hand. Cloud services like Universal Print mean customers can do more with less, and the larger their local print infrastructure is today, the more time and money they can save by moving to the cloud.” Christoph Hammer: “Probably not much. Delivering a document from a user’s PC to a printer via the Microsoft Universal Print service has little impact on printer fleet management, consumables, predictability of maintenance, etc. The partner ecosystem of MS Universal Print, however, will be interesting to watch in that regard.” Hugo Marqvorsen: “Until there are UP-enabled devices on the market, and to work with non-UP devices in the field, Microsoft has the UP Connector hosted on a VM in the cloud or on a local Windows machine. As an advanced option, Printix provides customers with direct print via Printix Client, so Universal Print can be used on existing printers without using the Universal Print connector on a local machine and without an expensive server. This also keeps print local to minimise traffic and prevent conversion in the cloud.” Adam Bishop: “I think in the long-term it will lessen the load on IT, but not so much in the short-term as they will need to manage a number of Universal Print connectors as well as native applications. “Undoubtedly Universal Print will dramatically simplify Windows print queues but it won’t really touch fleet management, think meter readings, consumables, predictive maintenance and configuration of firmware on devices, for example. IT leads will still be managing a potentially still complex environment, so whilst removing print servers will free up time, it won’t address all of the other areas that will still need to be managed.” Peter Silcock: “For IT leads, Microsoft Universal Print will definitely bring about several positives. The built-in monitoring services, centralised fleet management capabilities and universal driver all allow for minimal intervention and administration after initial implementation, in both singular and mixed manufacturer print fleets. “A cloud-native print infrastructure established with Universal Print is also scalable, making the process of adding new devices to an existing print fleet far simpler for IT teams.” Liz Benson: “As the technology solutions shift to enable native Universal Print functionality, organisations will be able to realise an even more tightly integrated and seamless user experience. Moreover, the administrative experience improves with greater control, visibility, and improved total cost of ownership with simplified driver rollout and deployment. jobs if no longer needed. HP also currently offers cloud-based solutions allowing users outside of Windows 10 (for example, Mac OS, Android, Chrome) to print to devices connected to an HP cloud. Those devices can also be Microsoft Universal Print-enabled allowing a cloud-native experience from all common user environments.” James Pittick: “Last year, we announced a partnership with Microsoft to support the integration of Universal Print into our products. As a result, we have been working hard to help users transition to the cloud in a holistic and streamlined way. “By combining our uniFLOW Online product and Universal Print, we can offer customers a truly unique proposition. Users can migrate their system to Microsoft’s cloud technology, removing the need for local servers and providing a complete cloud solution. Customers can also benefit from a range of additional capabilities from Canon, such as native cloud scanning applications, which help to digitise document management at every step of a document’s lifecycle. “In terms of hardware, the imageRUNNER ADVANCE DX and third- generation imageRUNNER ADVANCE both support Universal Print. This brings cloud technology to a wider range of users, and the devices can also be registered to uniFLOW Online in bulk, easing administration burdens. Using these cloud-native devices, users can also select supported finishing options such as duplex, hole-punch and multi-position staples, from either the Windows print dialogue or the Canon device panel. “For many manufacturers, a firmware update is required to make their devices Microsoft Universal Print capable. Solutions like uniFLOW Online can help to manage the device connectivity, making it easily compatible with a range of products via the cloud.” PrintIT Reseller: To what extent do you believe Universal Print-compatible hardware/software will simplify IT leads’ printer and fleet management duties? James Pittick Andy Johnson