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Ricoh Americas Corporation, a provider of digital office equipment and document management solutions and services, announced the launch of the Ricoh HotSpot Printing application for BlackBerry smartphones. With this app, users will have a print option inside their BlackBerry e-mail client allowing the ability to search for and print to publicly available Ricoh HotSpot-enabled printers powered by PrinterOn.
Ricoh HotSpot printers allow the forwarding of documents via e-mail or upload from a URL to a HotSpot printing device. There are no drivers to download. Users just need a Web-enabled laptop or smartphone to print to a Ricoh HotSpot printer. The company said enhancements to the Ricoh HotSpot technology would come later this year with the availability of HotSpot functionality for MFPs (multifunction products).
“Business professionals never travel without their BlackBerry smartphones. Having the added convenience and functionality of the Ricoh HotSpot printer app for BlackBerry smartphones, puts printing right at their fingertips,” said Matt Sakauchi, vice president of Ricoh’s office printer business group.
The company also introduced @Remote Green Reports, the latest enhancement to Ricoh’s @Remote Product Suite. @Remote Green Reports allow businesses to monitor, assess and report imaging fleet performance and employee printing trends in support of internal sustainability and/or cost reduction goals. With @Remote Green Reports, users can track month-to-month trends in energy and paper consumption of their Managed Ricoh @Remote Compatible document output devices, allowing them to monitor fleet performance and the possible environmental impact device usage operations have on such areas as CO2 emissions or conservation of forests.
This tool collects data from Ricoh networked MFPs and transmits the information to a Ricoh data center. The data is then processed into green reports that are made available to users via a password-protected Website. The tool also calculates and trends approximate CO2 emissions, paper and power consumption, as well as tracks approximate device paper and utility costs, for month-to-month comparison. Reports can be customized with local data to estimate more accurately what the business saves on paper and device utility costs. Additional graphs and charts aid in tracking environmental performance of the fleet over time.
“@Remote Green Reports are a key enhancement to Ricoh’s Total Green Office Solution – our approach to helping customers personalize their document management solutions for the goal of reducing their environmental impact,” said Shun Sato, senior vice president of Ricoh Americas corporate marketing. “The ability to manage resources efficiently – balancing environmental responsibility with productivity – is essential to organizations today. With @Remote Green Reports, decisions and policies on energy and paper reduction can be made based on actual usage trends, and not mere speculation.”