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PRINT.IT
01732 759725
VOX POP
A school may have a mixture of
devices they need to print from,
including wireless products
from Google, Apple, Microsoft
or Blackberry. How do you make
sure that people who need to print
can do so, especially as printing
on tablet devices or low-cost
HP Stream laptops or Google
Chromebooks often seems to be an
afterthought?
One of the school districts we
work with in the US acquired about
1,000 Chromebooks. They already
had Ringdale’s FollowMe solution
in place for administration staff and
teachers’ printing and immediately
went back to the channel partner
and said ‘We have Chromebooks
and want to connect them to our
IT systems, but we don’t know
what to do about printing because
Chromebooks don’t use the standard
office printing methods’.
Chromebooks provide Google
Cloud Print as a solution but the
customer wasn’t ready to send
information out to the cloud to print.
So, now we work with schools and
channel partners to make sure they
understand how simple it is with
FollowMe to print from any device – a
Chromebook, Android tablet or Apple
device.
The solution we have makes
printing easy. If you are printing from
an Apple device, the FollowMe server
shows up as an AirPrint printer, so
anyone connected to the network
can submit a file to print just like they
do at home with their home printer.
They can then go to any printer within
the school and release that print job
to be printed.
In a mixed fleet of mobile devices,
you can also print documents by
emailing them to mobileprint@
school.com and releasing them
at any available printer. You don’t
have to install and manage apps on
people’s PCs, laptops or tablets, and
our solution supports 12 different
OEM vendors and has a consistent
interface across all products.
Eric Crump, Ringdale Director of Strategic Alliances, explains how FollowMe simplifies mobile printing and enables
schools to track and monitor printing from wireless devices as well as desktop PCs.
No app, no problem
...continued
Equitrac’s Secure Follow-You Printing
ensures that print jobs are only
released when a student presents
themselves at a printer. Unreleased
documents can be deleted after a
specified time-frame. While these
may seem like small measures,
cumulatively they contribute to
an appreciable reduction in print
volumes – and related costs.
Michelle Nicholas, European
Customer Marketing Manager,
Canon
One big development in the
education sector is mobility. Students
who bring their smartphones and
tablets into classrooms, access,
manage and share documents and
information through these devices,
reducing the need for prints.
That said, print services are
still hugely valuable in schools.
Coursework and projects are still
required to be submitted in hard copy
format and certain classes need to
be supported by specialised print.
The increasing use of personal
technology in schools is putting
pressure on organisations to offer
more services that provide value
Moreover, when a file gets to our
server we can compress it by as much
as 90%, so that when we send it
across to the printer it is significantly
smaller. Our solution simplifies
printing for IT people by removing
the need to manage and support
apps and by reducing the amount of
network traffic related to print.
With mobile printing, you also
need to consider how the process
is controlled from an IT and cost
perspective and FollowMe helps here
too.
IT staff can analyse stats and see
who’s mobile printing; they can put in
place policies to make printing from
mobile devices more cost-effective –
e.g. no email printing or no printing of
colour photos; and they can produce
weekly, monthly or termly reports to
make sure printing is under control.
They might also look at quotas for
students and administrative staff
and route documents to the most
appropriate device, e.g. to a centralised
print room for large print jobs.”
to the fee-paying student base and
enrich their mobile experience.
For example, to complement
print volumes that are substituted
by digital content, print rooms
increasingly offer relevant digital
document management services,
such as e-publications, interactive
PDFs or support in storing and
retrieving documents online. Many
print rooms have also invested in
Large Format Printers to provide print
products that cannot be replicated
with an online virtual document.
The integration of mobile
devices into existing systems can
be challenging. In order to deliver
a great mobile user experience,
schools need to align all of their
services to a mobile audience. This
includes mobile-ready websites
and student portals, a reliable WiFi
signal in classrooms to cope with the
increased amount of mobile traffic,
and dedicated mobile apps that help
students to navigate on campus, and
look up and print information.
Andrew Hall, Marketing Manager,
OKI Systems (UK) Ltd
Colour increases students’ learning
by as much as 78% and their
willingness to participate by 80%,
according to Gap Intelligence.
So paper is still important in the
education sector. Despite all the
new technology about, there is still a
need to print hard copy documents
that students can read through,
understand and interact with.
Schools still need to manage their
printer costs, and we are seeing a
huge increase in enquiries about our
managed print opportunities. Lots
of schools have a host of different
products from different suppliers and
are spending a lot of time managing
these devices, which can be costly.
When the benefits of managed print
services, such as reduced print
costs and improved efficiency, are
explained, schools show willingness
to invest in new print technology
and solutions to control print, like
PaperCut.
In addition, we have a school
communication pack – a file of
pre-created banners that schools
can print on demand and put up in
classrooms, including things like the
periodic table, world events and a
map of the human body.
Michelle Nicholas,
European Customer
Marketing Manager,
Canon
Andrew Hall,
Marketing Manager,
OKI Systems (UK)
Ltd
Eric Crump,
Director of Strategic
Alliances,
Ringdale
