HP has announced new and enhanced print solutions tailored to the needs of both remote workers and employees returning to reopened offices.
Introduced on the same day that HP unveiled an all-new global partner program, the various offerings are designed to help channel pros keep customers impacted by the coronavirus pandemic both safe and productive, while generating incremental services-led revenue for themselves.
Partners can use a new remote management solution called HP Advance, for example, to oversee a fleet of HP and non-HP printers without visiting the offices where those devices are used. The system provides access through a centralized console to four HP solutions: HP Access Control Print, which provides a variety of options for preventing unauthorized persons from viewing or performing print jobs; HP Access Control Scan, which lets users digitize documents and route them to an email message or network folder; HP Mobile Connector, which helps organizations securely print documents from tablets and smartphones; and HP Direct Print, which simplifies print driver management.
Users can run those applications individually, mix and match them in customized combinations, or purchase them in standardized, pre-assembled bundles. A variety of additional modules are available, including systems designed to simplify printing from virtual desktops and for users of both ERP software from SAP and healthcare software from Epic and Cerner.
HP has also updated its Command Center product, which helps organizations deploy and manage cloud applications on multifunction printers, to support multi-MFP onboarding. Administrators had to add devices to the platform individually before.
Command Center is the primary administration tool for HP Workpath, a workflow automation platform unveiled last October that lets users execute customized business processes via smartphone-like apps from HP itself and third-party developers. A new revenue sharing model for Workpath also announced today now lets those developers sell and deploy their software from within Command Center. HP expects that service to attract more apps to the platform, giving resellers and their clients a wider range of products to choose from. There are currently over 100 Workpath apps available.
To help workers returning to the office print documents without touching potentially contaminated surfaces, HP has launched a 90-day free promotion for its mobile release app, which lets users print files to the network and “release” them from the printer of their choice using their phone, rather than the device’s control panel.
HP’s Roam service, which provides similar functionality for a wider range of printers, now supports HP LaserJet Pro devices for the first time. HP’s SecurePrint solution, which helps businesses release documents for printing only to authorized users, now runs on firewall-protected networks as well as serverless print environments.
Remote workers, HP noted today, can also use the company’s popular Instant Ink service to keep printers continuously ready for use. “This is a subscription service where your printer senses that it’s getting low on ink, automatically orders the ink, and it’s delivered to you at home,” notes Dave Prezzano, global head of print services and solutions for HP. There are some 7 million Instant Ink subscribers at present worldwide.
Partners, Prezzano adds, can use all of the upgrades and new products introduced today to help their clients adapt to a “new normal” brought about by the coronavirus in which printing and scanning increasingly happen outside of traditional workplaces. Indeed, businesses worldwide expect 25% of their employees, on average, to remain offsite even after the COVID-19 crisis is over, according to research published today by network and application performance management vendor Riverbed. Supporting those remote employees, HP believes, is a promising new revenue source for channel pros.
“Many of our commercial partners have really focused naturally on the office,” Prezzano says. “Now with the sort of blending of office environment and home work environment, it’s an opportunity for our partners to start a new conversation with their customers.”
