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PRINT.IT
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LASER PRINTERS
We don’t
think the
customer
wants to pay
extra for a
machine that
does things
like stapling
Brother is attacking the fastest
growing – actually, the only
growing – part of the mono laser
market (46ppm+) with its fastest
ever laser printers and MFPs, the
L6000 series. With print speeds of
50 pages per minute (ppm), these
new devices are 10ppm faster than
the existing HL5000 and HL6000
series and take Brother into the
enterprise workgroup segment of
the market for the first time.
Speed is not their only selling
point. Reflecting the concerns of
enterprise customers, the printers/
MFPs feature new authentication and
security features and compatibility
with market-leading print management
solutions. They have large input and
output paper capacities, high yield
toner cartridges and Brother’s lowest
cost per page – all features that will
appeal to managed print services
(MPS) providers.
Migration from A3 to A4
Andy Johnson, Brother UK head
of product management, says the
new models will enable Brother to
address changing market dynamics
and extend its market leadership
into the enterprise segment. In this
context, he says a key trend is the
migration from large A3 MFPs to
distributed A4 printing.
“People are shifting away from
centralised A3 devices because
they don’t print enough A3,” he
said. “Creating a cluster of four or
five of these A4 devices will give
you the volume you get from one
A3 MFP, but with the convenience
of a local workgroup printer. And,
because you don’t have one point of
failure, as you do with an A3 device,
you won’t experience downtime if
one of the devices goes down.”
A number of other manufacturers
have developed productive
A4 devices as alternatives to
departmental A3 MFPs, notably
KYOCERA Document Solutions
(see page 17). A key selling point
of KYOCERA’s devices are their
sophisticated finishing capabilities.
Johnson says that Brother is
after a different type of customer.
“The L6000 series doesn’t
have anything like the
finishing capabilities of an A3
device. We aren’t targeting that part
of the market. We are giving the
customer a different proposition;
we are saying ‘If you don’t need
finishing, you no longer have to pay
for it’. What we do have is a mailbox
on the printer, so you can expand
the paper output capacity, and you
can have up to 2,650 pages input
with the tower tray, making it a real
workgroup printer or MFP.”
Giuseppe Iafulli, product
manager imaging, added: “We
don’t think the customer wants to
pay extra for a machine that does
things like stapling. With our new
machines we are trying to give
customers only those features they
need and are going to use.”
Security built-in
Increasingly, what enterprise
customers say they need is security,
and on its new models Brother
provides a variety of tools to protect
print data and printed output.
“There are three areas we focus
on,”explained Johnson. “We have
authentication security features,
which include Active Directory
integration and a built-in NFC card
reader so you can authenticate
using an NFC card if you want.
We also have enterprise level
encryption – TLS and SSL and IP-
Sec. And, because we are getting
more and more demand for
multifunction security features,
we have included things like
scan to FTPS or SSTP. You
can also scan to secure PDF to
password protect a document. All
straight from the device.”
He added: “We are really
focusing on security features,
because customers tell us
that they face more and more
cyber security threats and they
want to know, at least, that
the printer on their network
is secure. And they want
authentication on the
device. If you work in HR,
you don’t want to print
Brother UK has entered the enterprise print market with
its fastest, most secure mono laser devices to date.
Moving up a gear
documents that people can see.
Instead, you can use an NFC card
to pull the print job from the server
when you are ready.”
Integrated print management
Brother has traditionally offered
pull printing through its own b-guard
print management solution. With
the L6000 range, users have
the option to embed the popular
Papercut, Ringdale Follow Me
and Ubiquitech enterprise print
management solutions on their
devices. This allows users to
interact with the software at the
device itself and authenticate using
a PIN number or NFC card without
the need for additional hardware.
Integration with such solutions
strengthens Brother’s MPS
proposition, as do the devices’
high yield toner cartridges, long-life
drums and Brother’s lowest ever
cost per page (for a mono laser) of
1p, falling to 0.7p for users of high
yield cartridges.
“With this device, we are offering
a 12,000-page in-box toner and an
ultra-high 20,000-page toner, so
they are much more suited to an
MPS environment than previous
machines,” explained Johnson.
“This means resellers are able
to target a different customer –
one who is ready for MPS. We
are taking these machines to
market knowing we have an MPS
in the background, we have print
management software, we have
high level security and we have
workflow features. It ticks all the
right boxes for this type of product.”
Examples of workflow solutions
include the ability to scan direct to
Sharepoint or to Dropbox, Google
Drive or OneDrive for Business.
Users can also print directly from
iOS, Android and Windows devices,
using solutions like Google Cloud
Print, AirPrint, MOPRIA and Brother’s
own iPrint & Scan solution, and
integrate other software solutions
using the open standards Brother
Solutions Interface (BSI).
Summing up, Johnson said:
“We are not coming to market with
features that people are not going
to use. We are trying to answer
customer pain points, and at the
moment these are all around
security, integration into workflow
systems, productivity and
reliability.”
Andy Johnson,
Head of Product
Management,
Brother UK
