DISQUS

tsudohnimh · 1 year ago

I looking forward to the sections. I'm not on the forefront of managing large printer organizations on an ongoing basis, however I can add my observations.

(Full Disclosure: I am employed by an HP partner and my opinions are my own and not of my employer.)

I am often asked to design a printing infrastructure as a complement to my network design and recommendations. Our market is mostly SMB's and therefore I rely heavily on networked HP LaserJets to provide TCP/IP printing and then we manage multiple printer from a print server where they are shared to the network. They are workhorses and I love them.

However, many organizations have a skewed idea of the costs of printing in their environment. Many consider an off-the-shelf $35 printer from the local office suppy/retail story a very good deal. Whereas a HP LaserJet 4250 monochrome printer at $1300 be way to much.

This is a common thread we encounter and discuss when recommending any type of technology. We concentrate the client on the following, "What is this technology going to cost you to OWN?". When you consider and calculate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) then our solutions toward value and longterm seems much more sensible. Internally it is said our competition is interested in the product they can sell you, we are interested in the product you can own.

A quick comparison:

A $89 consumer model printer is cheaper to purchase but the ink is overpriced, poorly managed, and poorly reported. (Concerning ink, the printer is normally a loss leader to tie the customer into your line of overprice toner) The ink cartridges can often be wasteful and the software may report cartridges as empty when indeed they are not. Beyond the price of ink you have the price of managing and maintaining this printer. The drivers are usually much larger in size and much more inefficient for consumer models. This combination usually requires IT support to setup. Lastly, the consumer hardware has a life span of about 18 months(if you are lucky). This path leads to multiply consumer printers scattered through offices without standardization of device or drivers. The cost of ink and paper to maintain this system will be sky high. Guaranteed.

However, the $1300, reliable, supported, efficient drivers and good driver development process so that they are standardized across platforms. They can be setup on a network in a matter of minutes and with the addition of a print server the ability to manage tasks and jobs and permissions is a great benefit to controlling cost. I believe that business class laserjets are around 3cents per page where consumer models are in the 30-40 cent per page cost.

How do you manage an envrionment large than a handful of TCP/IP printers via a Print Server? I don't know but I'm looking forward to learning.

Thanks..._--_ Stepping down of soapbox