What does the cloud have to do with your office printer? And why should you consider this technology for your business?
If your business is after productivity, secure printing and working from anywhere at any time of the day, cloud printing should be at the top of your To Do list, says Morgan Bleasdale, solutions specialist at Samsung distributor Taropa Technologies.
With 16 years' experience in the printer industry, Bleasdale recently sat down with ITWeb to share his insights into advanced office automation tools and the benefits to cloud-connected printers.
"The cloud is becoming the repository of enterprise data and communications, and is therefore becoming of high importance in today's digital world," he says.
The increasingly mobile workforce, Morgan says, has brought with it the need for employees to access and print information from their phones irrespective of where they are. "Imagine you are a salesman sitting at the airport waiting to catch a flight, when you receive an important e-mail with a purchase order from a customer. In a cloud environment, you can save the e-mail to your cloud folder from your phone. Back at the office, anybody can now access this information from the copier, print the mail and process the order. Meanwhile, the data remains secure in the cloud.
"Remote and mobile workers connect to the cloud routinely throughout the work day, making use of their personal G Drives or Dropbox accounts to store data, while companies are also increasing their use of cloud storage cabinets.
"Most users already synchronise to these cloud storage options on their phones, laptops and tablets. So why not access all this information directly from the copier as well? The technology exists to print and scan to the cloud, print from the cloud and share folders between different devices," Morgan says.
"With the Samsung multifunction printers, for example, it is so easy to connect to the Samsung mobile application and print, scan and fax directly from you device," he continues.
Bleasdale believes the future lies in high quality scanning devices that can handle volume and scan directly to different cloud services.
"The possibilities are endless: saving your data directly to the cloud and being able to create easy search index information; being able to optical character read (OCR) your data and create your own workflow paper trail; or having access to all your important company info directly from your mobile phone or computer whenever you want."
"While some companies appear reluctant to harness cloud storage and document archiving solutions, many are realising the advantage of cloud-connected printers, and are reaping the benefits," Bleasdale concludes.
Share