Enterprise software specialist Novell announced a slew of updates to its mobile portfolio, including the launch of iPrint 1.1, an enterprise-level print solution designed to simplify mobile printing while leveraging existing security and data governance measures.
The iPrint server is a virtual appliance that runs under virtual environments including VMware ESXi 5.x, ESXi 4.x, ESX 4.x or higher, VMware Workstation 9.x and 10.x, XEN on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP3, Citrix XENServer 6.x and Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows 2008 R2/Windows 2012 R2.
The iPrint mobile client supports the four major mobile device platforms: Apple iOS 6.x and 7.x (the iPhone and the iPad), Google Android 2.3, 4.x, BlackBerry 10 and Microsoft Windows Phone 8.x.
“We believe that today’s employees should be productive on their own terms, and that mobile devices are simply the means to that end,” Sam Morris, director of product marketing for Novell, told eWEEK. “At a moment’s notice, all employees should have secure access to their documents, printers and applications on any device, in any location, at any time. Mobility is the wrong focus. Today it’s about productivity. Tomorrow it will be about productivity.”
iPrint 1.1 further simplifies IT work by enabling self-service printer provisioning to a solution that handles a range of user devices from desktop to laptop to mobile.
“Many iPrint competitive solutions require sending work through the cloud, which is significantly less secure, weakens your control over your data and could possibly make you non-compliant with certain regulations,” Morris said. ” iPrint does not send data through the cloud, allowing organizations to maintain better control over their security and comply with privacy regulations and corporate policies.”
Morris explained he recently had the chance to connect with Mark Fitzgerald, the director of customer care of Boise State University, who told him Boise State students and faculty printed more than 148,250 pages on more than 87,000 sheets of paper in the first week of classes alone.
“Print needs to go away, but somehow that is just not happening. We did 52,000 sheets of paper in our student labs last week,” Fitzgerald told him.
Morris said this suggests printing is still a big budget item—about $60,000 annually in this case.
“Printers certainly aren’t going anywhere; but how consumers print is evolving. Regardless of the organization—school, business or non-profit —printing remains an important task,” Morris said. “Kids are using technology at younger ages than ever before and some school districts are starting to provide classes sets of tablet computers, but that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped printing. The printing habit won’t die out with an older generation of workers.”
Novell also announced the impending release of Filr 1.1, designed to make mobile file access easier, with performance, sharing and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) improvements that enhance capabilities for users and IT management.