Posted by Andrew Miller

As you might have read in our earlier posts (see Are We Too Big to Eliminate Print Servers?, Eliminating Print Servers in Distributed Offices, and Eliminating Print Servers in Less Than 5 Days), eliminating print servers can benefit your enterprise printing environment in both obvious and unexpected ways—like rapid deployment, vastly simplified multi-site printer management, easy automation and granular auditing.

But we realize that the idea of investing in a new enterprise printer management solution can be daunting. How can you justify the migration to a new system when your existing one, however flawed and expensive to maintain, is so deeply embedded in your IT infrastructure? Do the claims about PrinterLogic printer management software’s ROI really stand up in real-world implementation? And how long do you have to wait to see this fabled ROI?

According to a recent TechValidate survey of hundreds of PrinterLogic customers, half saw ROI in less than six months, with almost 20% seeing ROI in less than three months and 75% of these enterprises broke even or saw ROI in less than one year. A mere 9% took 18 months or more to see ROI.

What’s more, it’s not as if you see ROI and then it ends. The efficiencies of PrinterLogic continue to pay off in the long term because those efficiencies are an integral part of the solution. They keep generating cost savings indefinitely. The reduced number of calls to the service desk, the ability to save on consumables, the one-click driver updates, the lack of upfront hardware costs—all those things continue as long as you continue using PrinterLogic as your enterprise printer management solution.

One of the biggest contributors to this rapid ROI is the speed with which PrinterLogic can be deployed across an entire organization. And that goes for small organizations as well as large ones. For example, one Fortune 500 insurance company with more than 1,000 printers saw ROI of more than 200% after just six months—and part of that was because they were able to fully install PrinterLogic as their enterprise printer management solution within just ten days. A smaller K-12 school district realized ROI of more than 100% in less than three months. It took them just one day to install PrinterLogic.

As for that tiny fraction of companies that took 18 months to see ROI? Well, one of them was a security-conscious federal government agency with more than 5,000 network printers, over 100 sites, and more than 100 print servers. And you can be sure the payback was worth that relatively short wait. They saw ROI of more than 400% after that time, thanks in part to a 50% drop in consumables and a 70% reduction in service desk calls.

In the next blog post on this topic, we’ll look at a breakdown of the percentage of ROI organizations experienced by eliminating print servers and using PrinterLogic as their enterprise printer management solution.

Posted by Andrew Miller

Let me guess—even though your complicated printer environment is the source of constant headaches, the thought of deploying a new solution enterprise-wide sounds even more painful.

But what if I told you that a recent TechValidate survey of PrinterLogic’s customer base revealed that 68% of our customers were able to fully deploy our solution in under five days? And that a whopping 90% of them were able to deploy in under 20 days?

Taking into consideration the size of our clients’ organizations (see Are We Too Big to Eliminate Print Servers? and Eliminating Print Servers in Distributed Offices), this might seem like a monumental feat. But with PrinterLogic’s enterprise printer management solution, rapid deployment is just business as usual.

How so? Let’s start with the install itself.

During the initial setup process, PrinterLogic automatically installs the IIS role, PrinterLogic web application, and database on Windows Server 2008 R2 (or newer) at your organization’s data center or HQ. After that, all your existing printer drivers, port settings, device settings, and preferences are copied from your print servers into PrinterLogic—with zero changes. Finally, you’ll deploy the tiny (3MB) PrinterLogic client silently to all workstations. This takes care of the hard work, automatically and seamlessly converting existing printers on print servers to direct-IP printers that print directly to the physical printer.

Oh, and I should probably mention that all your printer settings—like defaults and paper tray preferences—will carry over automatically. All those hours you’ve invested in customization won’t be wasted.

Then comes the truly rewarding part: Unplug your print servers across your organization and carry on printing just like before. Only now you’ll notice that the folks on the service desk suddenly have a lot more time on their hands.

With such straightforward steps, it’s no wonder that more than two-thirds of our customers are able to eliminate print servers altogether and migrate to PrinterLogic in under five days—or that 20% of them can get it done in just one!

But rapid deployment doesn’t stop after you’ve managed to get PrinterLogic up and running in record time. In day-to-day operations, PrinterLogic allows you to dynamically deploy printers by OU membership, container, computer, user, AD group or IP address range—and without cumbersome GPOs or scripts. And the automation is discreet: printer installation happens after logon, which avoids slow logon processes. You can even have nearby printers automatically installed through proximity printing. Support for virtual technologies like Citrix and VMware goes without saying.

And that, we think, is the great thing about PrinterLogic. The remarkable speed and ease of enterprise-wide deployment in as little as one business day isn’t a fleeting pleasure. It’s more like a blissful prelude of everything to come.

Posted by Andrew Miller

One of the huge advantages of implementing PrinterLogic is the way it streamlines and centralizes distributed print environments. Over the past ten years, PrinterLogic has helped more than 1,500 enterprise clients in a variety of fields do just that.

As a matter of fact, multi-site applications are where our enterprise printer management solution excels. A recent TechValidate survey of our customer base revealed that a massive 93% of our customers have more than one office or geographic site. Of that group, nearly half have more than 25 sites, and more than 20% have over 100 sites. When traditional print servers are in place, each one of those additional sites adds an extra—and in our opinion, unnecessary—layer of cost and complexity.

By using PrinterLogic to eliminate print servers
in your distributed print environment, you and your organization stand to benefit in three important ways.

• Get rid of upfront hardware costs: Print servers cost money. Eliminate them and that expense is eliminated too—not to mention the future costs of support and upgrades. When it comes to diverse workstations and the printers themselves, PrinterLogic overcomes many of the limitations of traditional print server architectures. That means you’re not stuck with particular drivers and conflict-avoidance hardware configurations, which widens the choices available to you when shopping for cost-effective IT solutions.
• Reduce printer-related service desk calls from remote offices: A user with no IT experience wants to print somewhere within your organization for the first time. That user simply clicks on an icon or a hyperlink, which launches a local portal. One more click installs the nearest printer. No exasperated calls to the service desk, no time spent on painstaking step-by-steps over the phone. Sounds like bliss, no? It’s actually an average day with PrinterLogic. It empowers your end users to handle routine tasks themselves—plus it simplifies and consolidates printer management so you can administer permissions, update drivers and keep an eye on queues system-wide via the PrinterLogic Portal before problems arise.
• Eliminate Print-related WAN traffic: Network printing eats up tons of bandwidth, especially for organizations with multiple geographic locations and a consolidated server environment. PrinterLogic retains many of the benefits of a local print server, such as local spooling. By printing directly from end-point devices, you don’t have print jobs clogging the WAN, and everything—including print times—speeds up as a result. In addition, by caching drivers at multiple sites, PrinterLogic tames the data demands of driver installation and doesn’t put a strain on sites with limited WAN connections.

While delivering all these practical benefits, PrinterLogic takes dozens or even hundreds of geographic sites and unifies them virtually through a single, seamless portal that’s as intuitive to the end user as it is robust for the IT department. That integration of deployment, installation, admin and monitoring saves time, money and manpower. And from a technological standpoint, it might even bring a greater sense of cohesion to your organization.

Ready for that performance bonus?

Posted by Kyle Yardley

Look what the wind blew in! We were at HIMSS 2015 to talk to the show’s more than 38,000 attendees about how we Eliminate Print Servers. Doing so empowers IT to manage their entire print environment from a single pane of glass and enables end users to install printers with one click through our Self-Installation Portal.

From our perspective, printing from mobile devices was top of mind with attendees. They were excited to hear about our Mobile Printing solution that allows mobile, guest and BYOD users to print from any device and release their print job to any network printer—whether they are on network or off.

In addition, they wanted to better enable doctors, nurses and the staff to more easily print as they move from floor to floor. Because we centrally manage direct IP printing, IT is able to install and remove printer drivers by subnet. So if hospital personnel move from one floor to another, the drivers they need to print can be installed and removed automatically as they move from one subnet to the other.

Another hot topic was with printing with Epic. Most of the customers we spoke with had to edit, delete or add printers manually on each of their Epic Print Servers. We solve this problem by centrally managing the printer environment, giving IT the ability to edit, delete or add printers from a single web-based administrator portal and automatically make changes across all Epic Print Servers, saving time and reducing human error.

From coast to coast and around the world, there is nothing better than spreading the word about eliminating print servers. It was great to see our friends and customers in the healthcare industry this year at HIMSS15. We look forward to continuing the lively discussions we had.

Interested in learning more about Eliminating Print Servers, centrally managing direct IP printing, empowering end-users to install their own printers with a single click or printing with Epic? Click here to set up a time to discuss your challenges with one of our engineers.

Posted by Andrew Miller

At the enterprise level, size often means complexity. Sure, the idea of streamlining your print environment sounds fantastic—but then you think of all those hundreds or even thousands of print servers deployed throughout your organization, each one tailored to its own micro-environment using GPOs and scripts. Suddenly it seems like less hassle to stick with the devil you know. It may seem like you’re simply too big to simplify.

Well, eliminating print servers really can be as straightforward as it sounds—no matter how many printers or print servers you have. A recent TechValidate survey of PrinterLogic customers revealed that 42% manage more than 500 printers. Over one-quarter of them manage more than 1,000 printers, and 10% have more than 2,500 printers. And despite the size of these organizations, they’ve eliminated print servers and centrally manage their printers with PrinterLogic—a single, infinitely scalable solution that makes print servers look like ancient history.

In fact, the more printers you have, the more compelling a solution PrinterLogic becomes. Here are just a few reasons why:

• 
  Cost savings:
  
  Wake Forest Baptist Health—which deploys more than 6,400 printers to 30,000 end users—says the ROI “has been incredible” with PrinterLogic. Why? When you eliminate print servers, you’re saving money on hardware as well as all the man-hours spent troubleshooting, managing and developing custom code. The cumulative savings (an ROI of over 300% in some cases) is impressive, and it naturally grows with each print server you eliminate.
• 
  Automation:
  
  Whether you have one print server or one thousand, PrinterLogic takes care of all the hard work. GPOs and discrete scripts? No longer necessary. The intuitive web-based admin portal allows you to deploy printers by group, container, IP range or a host of other criteria. And, of course, there’s seamless support for Citrix, VMware, and other virtual technologies.
• 
  Management en masse:
  
  With PrinterLogic, you can create or modify five, five hundred or five thousand printers in one fell swoop. The find-and-replace function allows you to change a number of attributes such as assignments, drivers, ports and comments efficiently. Or maybe you just want to hone in on a single office printer in the Walla Walla branch? A simple device tree lets you target individual printers with a few clicks.
• 
  Auditing:
  
  You could definitely file this one under “cost savings” as well, but its advantages are worthy of a separate highlight. The at-a-glance reporting of PrinterLogic makes it easy to determine which printers are used most heavily. Data points like date, time, printer, user, computer, color and document name are all readily available, enabling you to track usage throughout your entire organization in an incredibly granular way.

So maybe it’s true that size equals complexity—as long as you’re still using print servers. As our surveys and case studies have clearly shown, the larger your organization, the more complexity you stand to shed by implementing the PrinterLogic enterprise printer management solution.

Check out our comprehensive white paper that goes into much more detail about the advantages of PrinterLogic and the ease with which you can eliminate print servers throughout your entire organization.

posted by Kyle Yardley

 

Things are always electric and exciting when you visit Las Vegas. The same was true with my experience at HDI 2015 last month. With more than 2,400 elite professionals coming together for the most comprehensive service desk related training conference in the industry, you can’t get enough of the wealth of knowledge that was available. Things were buzzing with excitement around the PrinterLogic booth. Top of mind with the people we spoke with was our Self-Service Printer Installation Portal, enabling centrally managed direct IP printing and—of course—Eliminating Print Servers!

Empowering end users is a strategic imperative for the Service Desk. An area that takes up a lot of their time is printer installation. They were relieved to learn that through our Self-Installation Portalemployees could find and install printers with one click based on an intuitive floor plan map. You could almost see their minds race with thoughts of what they could do with all the time saved not having to deal with printer-related service desk calls.

We all know the Vegas catchphrase: “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.” While that may be true for some of the other vendors at the show, I can tell you that what happened at the PrinterLogic booth is not staying in Vegas. We are taking our message to the masses.

Every show I attend, I love seeing the response I get when I talk to them about eliminating print servers and enabling centrally managed direct IP printing. It starts off as disbelief, then moves to relief and then to empowerment as they realize all the benefits that come from our solution.

Want to talk to us or set up a demo? click here to get more information.

Posted by Kyle Yardley

There’s just something about the sunshine and getting to talk about PrinterLogic that makes me happy. This week, I was in Fort Lauderdale for ITEX 2015. ITEX brings together dealers, resellers, distributors, VARs, MSPs, vendors, OEMs and associations to learn about new products that increase capabilities and reduce costs for the end user.

Power Up was the theme at this year’s show. Nothing “Powers Up” an organization like empowering them to do something they did not think was even possible. The partners we spoke with were intrigued with our groundbreaking approach to eliminating print servers. Many did not know this was possible, and when they learned how simple and cost effective we have made it, they looked forward to sharing our solution with their customers.

We also gave them a sneak peak of our Mobile/BYOD Printing solution. While I can’t go into details until our official launch in a few weeks, I can say that we received an overwhelmingly positive response. They especially liked that it’s simple for IT to administer and makes it easy to print from any mobile device that has a browser, including guests and contractors. Leave a comment below if you’d like to learn more about our Mobile Printing solution.

In addition, many of their customers are preparing to move from Windows Server 2003 before the July 14 End of Support deadline from Microsoft. Migrating print services to a new server is more complex than many believe and the print server upgrade costs are considerable, especially if you have multiple print servers. With PrinterLogic, customers are able to easily migrate their print services to the new server, while eliminating the need for print servers and enabling centralized management of their printer environment.

As always, we look forward to sharing the power of what we do. I have been doing this for more than three years and the response we get never ceases to amaze me. We’ll be at HDI this week to show our help our Help Desk/Service Desk friends how to empower end users to install their own printers, eliminating costly service desk calls and freeing them to work on projects that will move the organization forward.

Posted by Kyle Yardley

Missouri is commonly known as the “Show-Me-State.” This week I attended METC 2015 in St. Charles, and it was all about showing off technology-based products that help improve schools and classrooms throughout the Midwest. I was fortunate enough to share our printer management solution that eliminates print servers and enables centrally managed direct IP printing.

IT personnel from many of the districts I spoke with were in the midst of implementing their 1:1 initiative. They shared their concerns about the difficulty students, faculty and staff have printing from a myriad of devices. They were happy to learn that our solution makes it easy to print from popular devices, including iPads, Androids, Chromebooks and more. Also popular was our self-installation portal that empowers users to install their own printers from an intuitive floor plan map without the need to call IT for help—a particular concern for teachers.

It was clear that the District and IT leaders I spoke with were very interested in finding the technologies that will be used to empower their students. We are proud to be part of that equation.

If you haven’t already, let us give you a demo so you can see for yourself how we are working with major education customers to eliminate print servers, empower IT and teachers, cut costs and enhance the learning environment.

Posted by Kyle Yardley

They say everything is bigger in Texas. With over 450 vendors and more than 8,000 attendees, TCEA in Austin proved to be just that. Teachers, administrators and IT managers were on hand to learn about new ideas and products they could take back to their schools. I think its safe to say that PrinterLogic was a shining star for those looking to empower the end user by giving them a better printing experience.

The technology specialists we spoke with talked a lot about rolling out mobile devices, such as iPads and Chromebooks, as part of their 1:1 initiatives, but not being able to effectively manage printing for these devices. Their eyes lit up when we explained that PrinterLogic solves their iPads and Chromebook printing problems. The excitement increased as we told them at the same time they could eliminate their pesky print servers.

Also at the show were many current customers. It was great to hear how happy they were with PrinterLogic. Several school districts that stopped by were in trial and looking forward to rolling the solution out to all of their schools. Talking to them about how easy it is to push out printers to end users and offer them a way to self install their own printers using our Self-Installation Portal with floor plan maps.

This show gets bigger and better every year. It was great to be a part of it. Texas is a proud state. Managing printing is a major problem for our customers. We are proud to solve that problem by eliminating print servers and providing centrally managed direct IP printing while reducing printer-related help desk calls and empowering users to install their own printers.

Posted by Kyle Yardley

The sun was shining and the weather was wonderful in Orlando for the Florida Education Technology Conference (FETC). Energy was high and attendees were excited to see the new technologies that promised to improve teaching and learning success.

I personally met with hundreds of IT leaders who were looking for innovative ways to enable teachers and students. It is safe to say that PrinterLogic was a hit. Being able to print to any printer you have access to on the network from any device was not only well received, but came as a relief to the non-technical people I spoke to.

Many of the schools and districts we talked to are implementing their 1:1 initiatives. One of the biggest road blocks they face is printing from iPads and Chromebooks. That is, until we told them their prayers had been answered.

Our web-based app gives them the ability to quickly and easily print from Chromebooks with or without the use of Google Cloud Print. And if you’re looking for added security and control of your print environment, our Release Printing Module enables Chromebooks (or any device for that matter) to be used to select and release stored print jobs. This method does not require any additional hardware to be placed at the printers.

Overall FETC was a great success. We are so thankful to the teachers and those who take on the challenge of managing education-related IT environments. It’s a great feeling knowing that we are able to help them solve many of their printing pains.