Cloud Printing: A Response to CIOReview
Cloud printing should serve your business needs
I came across an article from Chad Leverenz in CIOReview in which he discusses his vision of a cloud-only future based on Microsoft Azure. He writes among other things that companies establishing and following a cloud-only strategy will free themselves from responsibility for physical devices (except basic wifi network equipment) which will free up resources, increase flexibility and improve security. All the data, the business logic, the analytics and processes will be in the cloud and web browsers and the internet will provide access.
I could argue about some of the details like BYOD not being an overhyped concept that is on its way out or losing cloud-gained agility immediately by tying everything to a single vendor ecosystem, but, in general, I agree.
My Recommendation: Cloud First strategy instead of Cloud-only
Cloud Services can provide tremendous savings and increase in organizational agility. However, a cloud-only strategy can quickly become a straightjacket. Instead, I am proposing a Cloud-First strategy. An organization should not pick a service because it is hosted in the cloud but because it provides the best way to overcome the obstacles it faces.
Stay involved with your printers
As Chad writes, when it comes to printing, Cloud Printing is the winning ticket. Everything from delivery compatibility, usability and uptime improves almost instantaneously. I, however, would like to stay involved with my printers. Here is the reason. If printing is light in my organization, I don’t need to care much about it and handing it off to Acme Print Co is a no brainer for me. Unfortunately, if printing is light, Acme Print Co is not really interested in providing me with that service because they will lose money on it. If printing is heavy in my organization, it apparently is important to my organization. The printer Acme Print Co will provide will be optimized for THEIR cost to revenue ratio, and not for my business needs e.g. regarding speed, quality or feature set.
The business savvy solution would be to buy printers for low-frequency areas and lease the ones that will be used heavily. If users are going to pay for printing, like we see with our customers in housing management or higher education, let a cloud service take care of the billing, charging and monitoring, let a Managed Print Service Provider take care of supplies and maintenance and put the new income stream to good use.
If you want to try ezeep, our solution for fully managed cloud printing for PC, Mac, Android, iOS, Chrome & More you can set up a free 30-day, 10-user trial for your organization.
