Industry Mopria alliance looks to boost mobile print adoption

Louella Fernandes, Associate Director, Print Services and Solutions

Quocirca Comment
The proliferation of smartphones and tablets in the workplace, driven by broader adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), has led to renewed predictions that mobility will usher in the paperless era. Yet, paper remains omnipresent in most businesses, with Quocircas research showing that almost 70% still depend on printing to support business processes. Whilst various industry estimates claim that mobility increase productivity by anywhere up to 40%, printing is often a forgotten part of the equation, and many today still need and want to print. Even if overall volumes may be on the decline, the opportunity to print higher quality colour documents from a smartphone or tablet is one the printer industry has been working hard to capture. Whether its a consumer need for printing boarding passes or a business need to print a complex business colour document, most mobile print solutions available today only partly address the printing needs of the user. So far, the ease of printing from mobile devices has been anything but simple the diversity of mobile operating systems combined with the mix of printers and copiers, all with their own proprietary standards, means that mobile print adoption has been slow. Many vendors have come up with their own mobile print applications some are simple apps, some print by sending the document to a private cloud as an email attachment which can be printed at any device and some offer direct printing to new devices only. And in many cases printer driver features may be limited to standard default settings, meaning that advanced features such as duplex or booklet printing may not be supported. There may also be a cost premium to implement mobile printing, which is in contrast to the desktop printing approach which simply requires download of a free printer driver. This has created some confusion and complexity in the market, somewhat hindering adoption. In Quocircas recent study of enterprises, around 15% have adopted mobile print solutions, whilst around although 30% investigating or planning to adopt some form of mobile printing. The lack of a standardised platform for mobile printing represents a lost opportunity for printer manufacturers to capture pages as they shift from the desktop environment. The good news is that a new standards alliances looks set to address these challenges and provide a seamless printing experience for mobile users. The Mobile Printing Alliance (Mopria) is working to create a new mobile printing standard and encourage mobile application developers to include print functionality within their applications. Each mobile operating system, such as Android, iOS and Windows Phone will need to include the Mopria subsystem and there are already Android-based mobile devices in certification testing. The Alliance is launching with Canon, HP, Samsung and Xerox as founding members and these vendors are already working to certify their products which will carry the Mopria brand mark. From Quocircas perspective, this is a welcome initiative, given the lack of standards and complexity in the market which has served to inhibit mobile printing adoption. The key to success will be ensuring legacy printers are also supported and certified to enable businesses to leverage existing investments rather than needing to purchase new hardware. Meanwhile, the growing use of mobile devices in the workplace also brings security risks, and businesses will need to ensure that any mobile printing that is implemented is secure and managed as part of any wider managed print environment.

Industry Mopria alliance looks to boost mobile print adoption

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2013 Quocirca Ltd

To read more on mobile printing trends please visit http://www.quocirca.com/reports/653/themobile-print-enterprise http://www.quocirca.com/reports/835/managedprint-services-landscape-2013 This article first http://www.zonese7en.com appeared on

Industry Mopria alliance looks to boost mobile print adoption

http://www.quocirca.com

2013 Quocirca Ltd

About Quocirca
Quocirca is a primary research and analysis company specialising in the business impact of information technology and communications (ITC). With world-wide, native language reach, Quocirca provides in-depth insights into the views of buyers and influencers in large, mid-sized and small organisations. Its analyst team is made up of realworld practitioners with first-hand experience of ITC delivery who continuously research and track the industry and its real usage in the markets. Through researching perceptions, Quocirca uncovers the real hurdles to technology adoption the personal and political aspects of an organisations environment and the pressures of the need for demonstrable business value in any implementation. This capability to uncover and report back on the end-user perceptions in the market enables Quocirca to advise on the realities of technology adoption, not the promises. Quocirca research is always pragmatic, business orientated and conducted in the context of the bigger picture. ITC has the ability to transform businesses and the processes that drive them, but often fails to do so. Quocircas mission is to help organisations improve their success rate in process enablement through better levels of understanding and the adoption of the correct technologies at the correct time. Quocirca has a pro-active primary research programme, regularly surveying users, purchasers and resellers of ITC products and services on emerging, evolving and maturing technologies. Over time, Quocirca has built a picture of long term investment trends, providing invaluable information for the whole of the ITC community. Quocirca works with global and local providers of ITC products and services to help them deliver on the promise that ITC holds for business. Quocircas clients include Oracle, IBM, CA, O2, T-Mobile, HP, Xerox, Ricoh and Symantec, along with other large and medium sized vendors, service providers and more specialist firms.

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Industry Mopria alliance looks to boost mobile print adoption

http://www.quocirca.com

2013 Quocirca Ltd