Uniflow vs. Equitrac

Hey Monte, hopefully Vince McHugh will read this, I know he is an expert with Uniflow.  Maybe try sending him a PM through the site?  Also, if anyone else could please help Monte.

Hey Monte, your Canon DSM probably has a spreadsheet or marketing material of some kind with this info. Do you have access to a solutions specialist at Canon?

I could be wrong on this, but I believe UniFlow's greatest feature is that it re-routes jobs automatically to the most cost-efficient device. You are also working with hardware and software that is designed to fit with each other -- sort of like Apple hardware and software, versus HP laptop and Microsoft software. When you are working with 3rd party software, you have one more company to work with for maintenance and support which can be a burden.

That being said, UniFLOW (or uniBROW as we call it here) is absolutely brutal in my opinion. It's so freaking expensive and nobody at Canon seems to be able to support it.

A much more cost-efficient alternative is to use PaperCut or AA-Print.

AA-Print is a serverless follow-me printing solution exclusively for Canon iR ADVANCE devices. Although you need a license per copier, each license is very affordable and best of all you don't require a server to run it. Because it is a serverless solution, obviously you cannot run AA-Print across multiple locations and networks. However, it still gives you the primary functionality (and same remote user interface) that UniFlow offers: user tracking, print limits, secure printing, follow-me printing, automated spreadsheets, etc.

I would be suspicious as to why Ricoh is pitching Equitrac instead of PaperCut... Does the customer currently have a a specific workflow or customization that would be difficult to transfer to a different print management software?

Good luck!