What are the benefits of cloud printing?

Cloud adoption is on the increase as higher levels of availability and lower cost of resourcing provides easier access to the benefits of centrally managed services.

Cloud based print is one of the later services to be adopted, partly due to the legacy of print systems and partly due to the solutions not providing a smooth, low touch experience that matches the expectation of a cloud service.

Technology has caught up and now, with Universal Print, the cloud experience for print management is every bit as good as you expect it to be.

What is Cloud Printing for businesses?

Before we look at the benefits it’s worth establishing what cloud print is for most businesses. Cloud printing is essentially the moving of the traditional, on-premise print server to a hosted environment that allows users to connect with print devices on your network via the internet, wherever they are and without the need for complex driver installation on users devices.

What are the benefits of cloud printing?

Here are 5 of the key benefits of moving from an on premise print server to a cloud environment.

Reduction of cost

Consuming cloud services on a subscription model removes the need for up-front, capital expenditure on servers, so you have a single, predictable monthly charge. It also reduces operating costs for maintenance of the server and on energy costs for running your on-prem devices.

Free up time for your IT Team

Time spent having to install print drivers on machines and manage the print server infrastructure takes time away from focusing on the value-add tasks that your IT team should be undertaking.

Flexibility

Speed of change is key to business flexibility. As the needs of your business change your technology needs to change with it. Scaling up and down or adding new functionality and services can be implemented far more quickly in a cloud environment.

Secure Printing

With Universal Print your print management is in the same environment as your Active Directory so your user access is easily managed by the same rules and security that you apply to your Azure AD.

Ease of use

For your users it becomes a breeze. Your workforce is no longer in a single place and ensuring that they have access to printers whichever location they are in is much more easily undertaken when using a cloud service. Location based rules can connect the user to the nearest printer automatically.

So the benefits are clear and with Microsoft’s universal print it’s never been easier to move to a cloud printing environment than now. Read more on Universal Print or get in touch with one of our specialists today.