01732 759725 46 Organisations want to grow without rebuilding infrastructure every few years. The cloud is scalable, and our cloudagnostic development strategy, which includes S3-compatible integrations, lets customers choose their preferred platform without vendor lock-in. Plus, print jobs don’t have to leave the local network, customers can store data locally to meet governance requirements. Q: How do you see the print and IT reseller sector evolving over the next five years – any disruptors or opportunities on your radar? A: Windows Protected Print will be a catalyst. It will accelerate the retirement of legacy print servers and push customers toward modern, secure architectures. We’ve already seen huge cloud adoption, but now there’s more demand for hybrid cloud. Customers want to move to cloud at their own pace, whether that’s department by department or country by country. That’s why we built Cloud Enabler, which allows Printix to work with any on-premise solution using a single print queue, making it easier for customers to transition to full cloud at their own pace. MSPs will play a bigger role. Print is now part of the broader IT services conversation around security, compliance and cloud migration. MSPs will simply build print into their user-based licensing models. AI-driven print transformation is key. AI can be used to predict usage patterns, flag anomalies and optimise workflows. And sustainability will become measurable. Customers will expect real data on print reduction, energy usage and carbon impact, not just policy statements. Q: What advice would you give a young person starting a career in the industry? A: Stay curious and keep learning. Think beyond devices - the future is about workflows and data. Build relationships and stay adaptable. Q: What excites you most about the future? A: The potential of AI. We’re moving from experimentation to operational impact. For example, within Printix, customers and partners can build out a tenant using AI with simple commands. It will make life so much easier. means it can be deployed serverless or clientless, there’s no need to put anything onto the MFP, everything is managed in the cloud. We also manage print queues natively. So, if you’re working with HP or Xerox, you get HP or Xerox drivers, which gives users full functionality that universal drivers often don’t support. Importantly, our cloud-native approach enables organisations to manage unmanaged print – A4 devices, label printers and especially home devices. It’s a big productivity improvement and also brings unmanaged print in line with the customer’s overall security posture. Q: What role do partnerships and collaboration play in driving innovation and growth in your sector? A: A customer-centric approach is essential. Collaborating with partners ensures solutions are tailored to specific customer needs, from document management to secure print workflows. We have deep integration with Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 which ensures automation flows into everyday business processes, not around them. In terms of enterprise workflow integration, seamless inter-operability with platforms like SAP for example, allows print and document workflows to become part of mission-critical operations. Q: What do you see as the key challenges or pain points businesses are facing in today’s hybrid working model and how can you help your partners/customers to address these? A: Hybrid work exposed a gap; office workers have enterprise-grade tools, remote workers don’t. Security and compliance blind spots are also a challenge, sensitive documents printed remotely create audit and regulatory risk. Secure, cloud-based print management extends visibility and control beyond the corporate network, closing the home printing gap with reporting, policy enforcement, and authentication. We’ve also introduced content-aware, which interrogates the content of a document based on rules and decides whether it’s printable or reportable. Printix can stop or block printing, as well as trigger alerts to security teams. Scalability is also a pressure. Q: What’s currently having the greatest impact on your business? A: Firstly, digital transformation acceleration; organisations are redesigning workflows around automation, cloud‑first strategies and data accessibility. This changes how customers think about print, document security and workflow orchestration. Second, rising compliance and integration requirements. Print is one of the last unprotected data exit points, and unsecured print practices especially around work-related home printing, create vulnerabilities. In addition, Windows Protected Print isn’t a small update; it’s a structural shift. It forces organisations to rethink drivers, legacy print servers and their overall security posture. For many, this will become the trigger to modernise print management altogether. Q: What’s one strategic decision your business made recently that you believe will pay off long-term? A: A refocus on Printix, specifically around infrastructure. We host Printix within an Azure cloud environment, and that means all of the same security credentials wrapped around email or Teams, can be wrapped around print, which often remains ignored from a security perspective. We’ve also separated out what we call our Go client, or secure release, from the main product. Separating secure release Alan Medcalf, VP Sales EMEA, Tungsten Automation Industry insight ONE-TO-ONE Alan Medcalf
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