Reliable printing from anywhere is something that Microsoft’s Universal Print aspires to. On the whole, it’s a good printing solution for distributed workforces. In a Universal Print world, there are no on-premises print servers - which I really like. My view is that there should be no on-premises infrastructure - other than network and end-user equipment (inc printers). Everything else is generally better, more secure and more cost effective in the cloud.
Universal Print has many strengths. You can print from anywhere to any printer - even at home to a work printer. Managing access in one place is a breeze and deploying printer drivers automatically to any device removes some of the headaches of new user setup. It’s even baked into Windows 11, which makes adding a new printer even easier. It also has it’s downsides. Both you and your printer need to be connected to the internet - and as such Microsoft don’t recommend it in high availability environments. In addition, Universal Print struggles with advanced print features like stapling on older printers - although there are work arounds for this.
Universal Print works brilliantly with secure print release solutions. We’ve been using Papercut with Universal Print at one of our clients for a while now.
Printing should be simple and is frequently not. Given Universal Print has only been in general release for around 4 months, it is still going through some growing pains. But if you are looking to reduce your on-premises footprint and to make it easy for users (particularly those out of the office) to print, then Universal Print maybe something to consider.
Across the Industry
Read about how the Northern Beaches Council used cloud technology to streamline the merge between three organisations,
How effective is AI at analysing data? Read about the benefits and drawbacks of new digital tools for data analysis
Download a free eBook on strategies for implementing IT transformation
Barwon Health is creating an e-health record built on Salesforce which will be accessible to both clinicians and patients
Read about the University of Melbourne’s use of LoRaWAN and IoT technology to manage COVID on campus
Microsoft News
Telstra and Microsoft sign five-year strategic agreement to accelerate digital growth in Australia
Read about Microsoft’s collaboration with Austrade to increase growth for companies providing software-as-a-service (SaaS)
Local Land Services NSW creates a business evidence and reporting tool (BERT) to streamline data collection and decision making processes
That’s all for this week! Send any topics you would like included in next week’s newsletter to olivia@charlie-mac.com.
