Work from home changing MFP/printer market
Article published CRN Magazine (fka Computer Reseller News)
- “Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic made remote work a staple for many people, consumers andorganizations have increased their expectations around how printers should work at home”; stated Sue Richards, head of home print hardware at HP
- “Enterprises want to ensure the home work environment is as productive as your work environment”
- “printers need to become more reliable and enable better productivity”
- “Now the expectation is it is just there and it just works and it is integrated seamlessly in your environment”
- Regarding security, “There is always going to be more work to do because people do not immediately think of a printer as being a conduit it (for hackers), but we know it is, so I think that is something we will continue to drive”
- “If you look at what historically ratios of printers to employees may have been or deployment strategies, people now are looking at it differently”; stated Chris White, executive director at Lexmark, a division
Ninestar of China - “This is opening new opportunities for vendors and their channel partners to perform assessments and help customers figure out the best way to tackle needs for printing, scanning, copying and faxing in
modern office environments”; stated Bob Burnett, director at Brother.- “assessments can address several facets, including size of workforce, how often they are in the office, how many pages they print on a regular basis and whether there is an increased need for scanning due to a larger emphasis on scanning”
- Regarding security, “surprisingly some organizations have not realized it until you have the conversation with them and then they start to say ‘Oh my god’”
- “It is important for organizations to get printer layouts done correctly to ensure knowledge workers are not spending too much time walking long distances to a printer or trying to find where a printer is located”; stated Elliot Williams, director at Epson.
- “you are paying people a lot of money – do you want them spending time walking around the floor to try to get a paper?”
- “Security it something that you just cannot ignore, whether you are a mom-and-pop all the way up through an enterprise”; stated Tracey Koziol, CPO at Xerox
- “Most enterprises and even small businesses have not necessarily taken a big print (security) policy of managing those devices. And what they have seen is that they have unauthorized devices that could be a security risk”; stated Scott Dabice, VP at Ricoh.