The biggest challenge facing enterprise IT today? That would be mobile printing. Ever greater numbers of employees expect to conduct more and more of their business—inside as well as outside the office—on smartphones, tablets, laptops and netbooks instead of at fixed workstations. Some organizations are actively encouraging this shift by equipping their workforce with mobile devices. Yet, as IT professionals are usually quick to point out, all that convenience and flexibility comes at a price. Mobile devices introduce new variables into the network environment and call for an evolving infrastructure that will adapt to and support them. Nowhere is that more evident than when it comes to enterprise mobile session printing.
Printing from mobile devices poses obstacles that are all too familiar:
- Client heterogeneity. You might have iPhones and iPads running different versions of iOS. Now factor in the many flavors of Android and models of Android devices by different manufacturers. That leads to thousands of different permutations of mobile device pools, particularly if your organization has a BYOD policy in place. How can any organization confidently support such a free-for-all with mobile device printing?
- Limited software. Most of the operating systems and apps for mobile devices are stripped-down versions of their desktop counterparts. Chromebooks can barely operate without an Internet connection. As such, mobile devices lack the ability to run the drivers that are necessary to print to your existing network printers. How can you ensure compatibility and functionality when printing from mobile devices?
- Stopgap solutions. To accommodate mobile devices, many enterprise IT environments have put temporary solutions in place to give users limited access to features like mobile printing. These solutions are never as scalable, stable or as seamless as they ought to be. How can an organization implement mobile printing without a patchwork, piecemeal approach?
PrinterLogic’s Mobile Printing overcomes all those obstacles and answers all those questions through a single solution. With it, any mobile device can print to any authorized network printer, including legacy devices – and there’s absolutely zero client-side software to install. No matter what kind of device or OS your mobile employees are using, they no longer need to call the service desk to install printers at a new location. When printing from an iOS device, all users need to do is tap the “Share” button, then “Print,” and select a PrinterLogic printer from the available options. Android users hit “print” and select the PrinterLogic printer. That’s it. At the same time, admins can determine precisely who is able to print what to which printer, so you won’t run the risk of rogue users abusing their mobile printing capabilities.
Best of all, Mobile Printing from PrinterLogic caters to BYOD and guest users too. Using proven email-to-print functionality, these users can simply email files to a specific printer address, even if they’re off-network. Worried about them printing documents with massive page counts? Don’t be. Admins can set mobile printing quotas, restrict certain file types and limit printer output options.
Many organizations struggle with implementing enterprise mobile printing in a way that’s versatile and seamless. But yours doesn’t have to. PrinterLogic’s Mobile Printing enables your mobile/BYOD users to print from mobile devices easily and empowers IT with the oversight to carefully monitor the mobile printing environment.