CDW White Paper Sample

Some of the biggest challenges that workers face with office printers are handling shared documents, printing content from the web, and — from an IT perspective — managing “printer creep.” “We do see a big shift on where information is,” says Tom Codd, director of marketing for HP’s LaserJet Business. “In the past, people created content — [Microsoft] Word documents, PowerPoint or spreadsheets. “Now the content is coming from the web or from shared documents on corporate intranets. Now our big push is how do we make printing from the web and over the network just as much as a positive experience as it was when people were printing with office applications?”

What’s more, printing from the web is not as clean as printing from an office application, Codd explains. “The Internet was not designed to print; it was designed for viewing. Plus, web pages are in color, and businesses want color printouts.”

IT managers also constantly wrangle with printers that creep into offices. “A lot of people just go out and buy printers and put them in their office, and they’re all different brands,” Codd says. “That’s an expensive proposition from a company perspective because of all the supplies you have to track. It’s hard to manage those devices.”