Remember the times when your printer just wouldn’t play nice and complain about problems with drivers or network sharing? We’ve all been a victim of it, but HP seems to have come up with a solution that is about to make our lives a whole lot easier.
Recently, HP introduced the HP ePrint solution – a next generation cloud-based printing system where users can print directly to web-enabled printers via email. Following the announcement of the Google Cloud Print, it is no surprise that HP has sensed the revolution in computing and has started to incorporate online print services into its future strategies. ‘We are once again revolutionizing printing to make web-empowered, cloud-enabled printing the new industry standard,‘ said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. To ease the shift to the new printing system, HP announced that every printer above $99 will be Web-enabled in the future.
What is cloud-based printing and how does it work?
Traditionally when you want to print something, you hook up the printer with your computer and you initiate a command from your desktop to send the print job to the printer. In order for your computer to be able to talk to your printer, a driver software needs to be installed, and this is specific to each printer’s manufacturer/model. So for every new printer that you would like to connect to your printer, you need to install a corresponding driver, and we all know how messy things can get with incompatible drivers/operating systems.
Cloud-based printing is different – with Web-enabled printers, you do not need to connect the printer to any computer as long as the printer has Internet connection. This eliminates the need for drivers, so connecting to one printer is the same as connecting to 10. Sending a print job is done via email – each printer is assigned a unique email address from HP, and when you email a document to this address, the document is sent to the printer via the HP Cloud. Alternatively, you can print directly from the cloud via apps installed into the printer, which can be accessed via the touchscreen panel on the printer.
The HP ePrintCenter
Not only has HP taken printing online, but they also wanted to ease the management of printers via their ePrintCenter so that users can add/remove printers online, as well as controlling who has access to which printer. HP also maintains its own AppStore similar to Apple’s iTunes Store, where people can add different apps to their printers to instantly access printable web content. Via the ePrintCenter, you can also view the status of each printer, see a history of jobs you have printed in the past, meaning you will have full access to your printers whether you are on the run or at home.
What it means to the printing industry
No doubt HP has taken a giant leap in embracing a new model for printing in the new digital era. With the recent boom in mobile technology and the high adoption of mobile computing, cloud-based printing promises to solve one of the biggest problems faced by mobile device users – the ability to print on the run. Now that jobs can be dispatched via email, it makes it ridiculously easy for external software to integrate with print, and great potential lies in the setting up of schedules to automate the process of printing. Traditionally, integrating print into a business’s workflow was reserved for big players using industry-specific software, which was either costly or cumbersome to implement at best. Cloud printing will lower the barrier of entry for small printing businesses to automate printing processes in maximising efficiency and output.
We can also expect a rise in commercial printing businesses integrating their infrastructure and printing operations with the web. Possible scenarios include businesses opening up online portals for customers to directly place orders, and the print jobs will be directly routed to a machine on their premise. Via the online portal, customers can track the status of their job, and pick up goods once they know the job is done. Imagine how much manual labour is saved with this new workflow!
That being said, cloud-based printing is still in infancy, and HP is targeting mainly consumers with its new line of Web-enabled printers. The range of Web-enabled printers on the market today are not yet suitable for the high-volume demands of enterprises. It will be interesting to see the upcoming development of commercial printers before commercial printing businesses can leverage this technology.
Will cloud printing save the printing industry?
Digital technology has had a major impact on the printing industry over the past decades, and the volume of print is nowhere comparable to the peaks of the old days. HP’s main initiative with the introduction cloud-based printing is to drive volume of printing so that they can secure their sales of cartridges, which has long been their primary source of revenue due to high profit margins. Although it offers a lot of promise to the industry in theory, a lot of debate remains on whether it will actually encourage users to print more in their everyday life. Surely printing will become more convenient and accessible, but at the same time, the new generation of people who have grown up in the digital era will only become more and more comfortable with communication within the virtual world. Having exposed their entire lives to the digital technology, they will be less inclined to print, except for perhaps work purposes.
Nevertheless, cloud-based printing is here to stay, and it will be interesting to follow the progress of this technology and the impact it will have on the industry.
