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UniPrint, a division of ACCEO
Solutions Inc., is a printing
virtualisation specialist and provider
of a PDF-based universal printer
driver that enables ‘any platform, any
device’ printing from all makes and
model of networked
or locally attached
printer. Installed on
the application server,
the driver provides
a single virtual print
queue and compresses
data by up to 90%
to reduce bandwidth
requirements and speed
up application access.
Since introducing its universal
print driver, UniPrint has brought
out additional functionality so that
the UniPrint Infinity solution now
offers Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Printing, Citrix/Microsoft RDS printing,
mobile/BYOD printing,
cloud printing and
secure pull printing.
Together, these
capabilities enable
customers to speed
up printing – a major
selling point for users
in remote locations –
improve data security
and reduce print costs
by 35%.
As UniPrint launches the latest version of its managed print solution, sales &
marketing director David Fung tells
PrintIT
why more and more customers are
attracted to UniPrint Infinity.
Infinity expands
Quebec-based Partner Solutions is an
application solution services provider for
medium and large insurance brokerages
in Canada.
It hosts specialised applications, such
as brokerage management systems, on a
Citrix server and distributes the services
to customers via VDI. Partner Solutions
customers range from one-man bands
to corporations with more than 1,000
employees. In total, it serves more than
3,000 users across 200 locations.
Its customers use a wide variety of print
devices from multiple manufacturers. In
addition to normal office printing tasks, they
all have a requirement to print from Partner
Solutions applications.
Reliable, accurate, on-demand printing
is essential, as high quality output is often
mission-critical. For example, in Canada,
insurance brokers have a requirement
to print Motor Vehicle Liability Insurance
Cards, known as ‘pink cards’, which drivers
must carry to show proof of car insurance.
Pink cards require an especially high-quality
print job as the card is considered invalid
if alignment is out by even a couple of
millimetres.
Previously, Partner Solutions installed all
customers’ printers and drivers directly on
its servers. The large number of connected
printers, and their drivers, created server
stability issues, which led to frequent server
crashes and frustration for users.
Joshua, Technical Team Lead,
Infrastructure at Partner Solutions, said:
“We’ve had people in Alberta log into an
unstable printer that crashes and takes the
whole server down.”
In 2007, Partner Solutions installed
UniPrint, upgrading to Infinity in 2012.
UniPrint’s vendor-agnostic PDF-based
Universal Print Driver provides numerous
benefits:
n
it negates the need to install
multiple manufacturer printer drivers
on the application server, eliminating
incompatibility issues;
n
it ensures administrators only have to
manage one UniPrint print driver from a
centralised location;
n
it supports all printers connected to the
Partner Solutions network; and
n
it makes it easy to add new users – the
administrator just has to install UniPrint
Client software on user machines, including
mobile and tablet devices, and they are
ready to print.
Joshua said: “Printing is definitely
important to our customers, and UniPrint
has eliminated the printing issues we had
before, so much so that ease of printing is
one of our major selling points.”
Bulletproof printing
UK expansion
In 2012, UniPrint opened a technical
sales office in Cardiff to drive
expansion in the UK and provide
pre- and post-sales support. In the
UK, it currently has a distribution
agreement with Prianto, about a
dozen active resellers and, according
to UniPrint sales and marketing
director David Fung, hundreds of
customers.
Fung says the company’s strategy
is to increase sales by targeting
specific industries. “We want to
replicate our success in North
America in the UK. So, over the last
18 to 24 months, we have been
focusing on verticals,” he said.
One such is banking & finance.
Standard Bank Offshore, for example,
is using UniPrint Infinity to provide
more reliable, quicker printing for
users of thick and thin clients in its
Jersey and Isle of Man offices (200
and 110 employees respectively),
as well as operations in London,
Johannesburg and Mauritius with
headcounts of 15, 25 and 35.
UniPrint Infinity, implemented
to coincide with the bank’s move
to a new XenApp 6.5 environment,
has speeded up print throughput,
improved print quality and cut
costs. Previously, output was slow
and printed documents were often
missing pages. Eliminating this
problem alone has helped the bank
save money. Standard Bank is also
trialling secure printing in a number
of locations.
Good for healthcare
Another vertical sector of importance
to UniPrint is healthcare. Following
successful projects in Canada and
the USA, it is now targeting NHS
organisations, a number of which
have shown an interest in Infinity,
especially for its ability to provide
secure mobile printing to doctors and
nurses using tablets/smartphones to
access electronic medical records as
they move around a site.
David Fung,
sales &
marketing
director,
UniPrint
Continued...
