New York, NY -- Within the last week, PC World released their predictions for what can be expected from printers in 2012. First and foremost in 2012, they feel that users can expect both cloud printing and mobile printing over wireless to a local device to both experience growth in the year ahead.
As we have noted before in this space, the increasingly mobile workforce as well as more mobile people in general have been the impetus behind the move towards mobile printing. During 2011, users were greeted by a slew of new HP eAIO devices, Apple’s AirPrint, SmartSolutions from Lexmark, and many more. As the year moved along, various manufacturers (Canon, Epson, and Kodak) joined in with HP and Lexmark and produced their own “Cloud Ready” printers. Brother has printers which can wireless print photos via an app, but no documents to this point. If you have an older printer, you can still get Google Cloud Print to work, but your computer must be on with Chrome running and signed into your Google account so that may or may not be too much trouble for users at this point.
Canon’s solution to look out for in current and future printers is called Pixma Cloud Link. It allows users to print Google Docs as well as Gmail attachments from a mobile device. What’s nice about this is that it does not rely on a particular OS to do it. Epson users need to have devices powered by iOS or Android for their iPrint to work. Last but not least, Kodak has upped their game a bit by including the ability to use their Email Print to send jobs to Kodak printers. PC World says that Kodak’s solution, similar to HP’s, is trying to compete by allowing larger email messages and attachments.
We will be curious to see what else develops this year. If 2011 was any indication, however, not many OEMs have made their apps available for Blackberry OS, except Kodak’s Pic Flick, which is only for photos. Android and iOS devices are dominating the market cell phone market, so the lack of compatible units makes sense somewhat. If you do own a Blackberry, there are third-party solutions like Cortado Desktop, and you can always email jobs, too. It is clear, though, that more solutions and printers are coming, and the competition will be fierce.
