
Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2016. Read them in this 8th Annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Arron Fu, Founder and CTO of UniPrint.net Corp
Looking Forward to Printing
To stay relevant in
today's ever-changing society it is important for all aspects of business to
evolve along with the times of today. The way in which we rely on enterprise
printing solutions has evolved steadily over the years in cohesion with
technological advancements. The journey of evolution varies by different
business sectors, but the continuous loyalty to some form of printing is still
there. The current evolution seems to march the beat of the mobility drum.
Employers are beginning to take advantage of mobile technology and the digital
workspace is becoming embedded into our culture and work-life style. As the new
generation of knowledge workers observe
one industry developing into the mobile workforce, it is only a matter of time
until they are figuring out ways to adapt it to their own business sector.
Enterprise printing solutions have been working to stay relevant by continuing
to evolve and fit in with the developing IT landscape.
1. Mobility is becoming a trend that is forcing nearly all aspects of
business operations, including printing, to follow their lead.
The key to enabling workforce
mobility is the development of an accessible cloud drive consisting of most if
not all work-related materials. The benefit of this is reducing the typical
printing infrastructure that has become the norm as well as simplifying use of
hardware across a network. With one network
cloud drive all user devices including tablets, iPads, smartphones, and
printers can be connected through one database creating a streamlined business.
In this scenario, the mobile worker is enabled to work anywhere and printing is
developing into a new work landscape to benefit all users. Businesses will need to task themselves with
proper steps to ensure they aren't left out of the loop with services that are
both in-situ and mobile-ready. Businesses will need to find the best solution
and apply it to their needs.
2. The print management industry will continue to grow in certain business
sectors where printing is critical.
As mobile workers expand from one industry to the next, they
continue to need access to a streamlined printing structure. Some industries
have noted printing technologies as key to their businesses, particularly
within healthcare, financial, legal and education. Hospitals, banks, law offices, libraries and
universities, among others carry a consistent demand for printing within their
environments. As mobile workers began to grow among companies and organizations
it became apparent that printing would have to transform into something
more. Printing is not only a constant
task, but one that is a vital component to the organizational workflow. The
healthcare and legal sectors each continue to maintain a need for managing
print services in step with system virtualization. Facilities have moved to
integrate the use of tablets across their entire organization to work with
their specialized applications, a direct result of the development of the
mobile movement. At different levels, business professionals andstaff are
incorporating mobile devices into their work routines to not only manage their
workloads and expand their bandwidth, but also to manage sensitive information,
whether it is patient data from a healthcare professional or a client documents
from a law office.
3. Security will be put on the front lines to ensure data protection.
The mobile movement has seen an
increase in the need for security across all systems. As it stands, by the end
of 2015, the worldwide spending on information security will have jumped 4.7
percent from 2015 to $75.4 billion, according to a security leading analysts at
Gartner. In the act
of printing becoming something that can happen remotely to a locally selected
device, it is necessary to ensure that the paper is getting into the right
hands. Secure pull printing will continue to advance and increase over the next
year.
For
over the last 40 years since mainframe and DOS, enterprise printing solutions
have been showing a determination to evolve with technological advancements,
and that trend will certainly continue in 2016.
Printing technology will have to be versatile enough to keep up with
advancements in newer mobile technologies and still be compatible with older
systems in order to meet business goals in the New Year and beyond.
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About the Author
Arron Fu, CTO & Managing Partner, UniPrint.net
Arron Fu is a member of the UniPrint.net leadership team and responsible for all aspects of strategic product development.
Arron
is the creator of the patented and award-winning UniPrint universal
printer driver technology specifically designed for optimizing printing
functionality and simplifying administration in multi-user, server-based
computing environments.
An
IT industry veteran, prior to UniPrint.net Arron spent 15 years in the
field of consulting, system installation/integration, and application
design and development across business functions, processes and
industries. He holds a degree in Computer and Electronic Engineering
from the University of Manitoba as well as a number of industry standard
qualifications.