More Than Just Copies - How The Printer Is Staying Relevent

Bring Your Own Device, or “BYOD” is the new acronym that the busy professionals love, they can get all their work information on their personal mobile device or tablet so they can work virtually wherever and whenever.  The Aberdeen Group even reports that 70% of businesses now allow their employees to use their mobile devices for work.  However, the solutions for printing within this mobile working environment is still a developing process, because most mobile devices just simply weren’t designed with printing in mind.  But with 50% of companies still reporting that printing is still a vital part of their business, printer solutions are needed to ensure the two ends can connect.

Printer manufacturers like Cannon and Xerox are now working rapidly to find some solutions to the mobile print problem. Many of the more advanced printing devices are now including features like Google Cloudprint or Apple AirPrint, which means there’s no installation of a driver required. If Cloudprint or AirPrint is enabled on a printer, you can then just tap the print button, select the enabled device and simply wait for your document to print.

With security being an increasing concern among companies in these BYOD environments, some printing companies are also looking for other services that can provide extra protection to their printing environments.  So software, like Xerox’s ConnectKey, are offering a solution.  ConnectKey uses protection from McAfee, but also has an extra layer of security to protect the data paths using Cisco’s TrustSec.

“ConnectKey was designed for one purpose: to simplify how work gets done in a secure, ‘always on’ world,” said Douraid Zaghouani, president, Channel Partner Operations, Xerox.

Although still in its early stages, mobile printing solutions will likely become a major focus of businesses and printer manufacturers over the next several years.  The Global market intelligence firm, IDC Corp., estimates that the mobile printing market will be worth about $1 billion by 2015.