On September 4, Hewlett-Packard announced a bevy of new security services and solutions at an analyst event in New York City. Branded HP JetAdvantage, the offerings are designed to help customers simplify deploying and monitoring printers and MFPs securely while protecting confidential information as well as the entire network. Included in HP’s newly expanded secure printing portfolio are new solutions for mobile printing and print security along with workflow and printer management tools designed to streamline business processes, reduce costs, enhance employee productivity while protecting against any security breach.
Ed Wingate, HP Vice President of Solutions for the LaserJet and Enterprise Solutions group says that customers are saying they need more security, and HP printers and MFPs can deliver a new level of protection. He explains that it used to be that with a printer you could print or with an MFP you could copy, scan, or fax. Now, says Wingate, with HP’s machines, “You can protect.”
In addition to the new HP JetAdvantage security offering, HP rolled out a replacement for the HP LaserJet Enterprise M4555 MFP family. The new LaserJet Enterprise Flow multifunction printer (MFP) M630 series is based on a tweaked version of the older machine and ships with various security and workflow solutions. HP also unveiled a couple of entry-level devices at the event including the LaserJet Pro M201 printer series and the LaserJet M225/M226 series.
The Case for Printer Security
“You invest in security measures for your PCs, why aren’t you doing the same for network printers?” asks Michael Howard, Worldwide Security Practice Lead for LaserJet and Enterprise Solutions. He insists that printing hardware should be “equal citizens on the network.” To mitigate the risk of a breach, Howard explains that security must be maintained across the network from the data center to desktop devices to printers and beyond. He presented some compelling data that underscores the potential damage a breach can do. The average cost of a data breach is $5.4 million, says Howard, and 65% percent of all breaches are the result of internal negligence or business-process failures.
The HP execs contend that while IT groups continue to spend more annually on protecting their networks, little is being done to protect printers. There are a number of reasons why printers and MFPs have been left essentially unprotected. Initially, the devices were not capable of storing much data so the risks associated with them were minimal. However, today’s machines have robust computing power as well as the capacity to store a lot of data. All of the information processed by printers and MFPs must be protected because, as Wingate puts it, “Hackers follow the path of least resistance,” and often printers offer the least resistance to a breach.
According to Wingate, until the introduction of the HP JetAdvantage tools, it has not been easy to effectively protect a fleet of machines because each manufacturer handles functionality, such as networking, differently. With the security software and solutions included in the HP JetAdvantage suite, IT managers will be able to better lock-down printing devices on their networks without adding much IT overhead.
The JetAdvantage Offerings
There are a total of five new solutions and services that will be sold under the new HP JetAdvantage brand. The HP Imaging and Printing Security Center (IPSC) 2.1 provides IT managers with a policy-based approach to securing HP printing and imaging devices. It provides an automated solution that monitors the fleet and delivers risk-based reporting. IPSC features HP Instant-On Security to lock-down devices as soon as they are added to the network. It also automatically deploys and updates identity certificates to both strengthen security and reduce administrative overhead.
HP Print Security Advisory Services provide clients with insights from a security advisory that works directly with security teams to review and evaluate the client’s printing infrastructure. As part of the service, a security workshop is conducted that brings together the system’s various key stakeholders and educates them about the risks it presents as well as building consensus around developing new secure printing strategies. Using IPSC and other tools such as Web JetAdmin, the analyst also evaluates the client’s current printing landscape in terms of regulatory compliance and overall best practices.
HP has also released a new tool based on its Autonomy technology. HP Secure Content Management and Monitoring protects against security breaches at the device level. It expands HP Autonomy Information Governance tools so they can monitor and audit data flowing through HP multifunction devices. The HP Secure Content Management and Monitoring solution enables early detection of document security breaches and safeguards a machine’s print, scan, copy and fax functions. In addition to the new secure content management tool, HP extended the monitoring capability of its ArcSight enterprise security technology so it can collect, analyze, and correlate print-device logs and alert users to risks in the ArcSight dashboard.
The new HP JetAdvantage Pull Print functionality completes the list of new security offerings. It protects users of certain LaserJet and Officejet devices from unauthorized access to confidential documents and print jobs. HP JetAdvantage Pull Print features AES 256-bit encryption to store print jobs in the cloud. Users can then access their job and pull it down to a compatible HP inkjet or laser device. The print job remains in the cloud for three days before it is deleted. HP claims its JetAdvantage Pull Print service, which is offered without a fee, is simple to set-up and manage so it takes “the complexity out of pull print for enterprises and SMBs.”
New Hardware Too
In addition to the new JetAdvantage tools and services, at the NYC event HP launched the new LaserJet Enterprise Flow multifunction printer (MFP) M630 series, which replaces the HP LaserJet Enterprise M4555 MFP family that was introduced in 2011. According to HP, the units in the new A4 monochrome MFP line are designed for workgroups with 10 or more users and offer a suite of more than 200 embedded security features as well as document workflows. The machines ship with the HP Trusted Platform Module Accessory, which HP says can “help protect customers ‘out of the box.’” Machines in the M630 series are capable of printing up to 57 A4 pages per minute and are equipped with a 100-page automatic document feeder. They also come with standard automatic duplexing.
The line is made up of four different models. The HP LaserJet Enterprise MFP M630dn is the base unit and it comes with a 100-sheet multi purpose tray and a 500-sheet tray. Like the other units, the “dn” model is based on an 800 MHz processor, however it offers only an 8 GB hard drive. The M630h machine is identical to the “dn” device except it has a 320 GB secure high-performance hard drive. HP markets optional fax units for the “dn” and “h” models and they can accommodate an additional 500-sheet tray option as well. Moving up the line, the M630f is configured with the fax and additional tray as standard accessories along with the other features found on the lower end machines. The M630z sits at the top of the line and it offers all of the features found on the “f” model along with a 900-sheet, 3-bin stapling mailbox accessory, and a heavy-duty scanner that supports single-pass duplex scanning. It also provides various workflow tools such as embedded OCR and the ability to send to SharePoint.
HP released two new replacement toner cartridges for its M630 machines. The new 81A (CF281A) is the standard yield cartridge that the machines ship with, and it yields 10,500 pages. HP also markets a high-yield SKU for the machines. The 81X (CF281X) delivers 25,000 pages. Consumables pricing was not available as of this writing nor was pricing for the hardware.
HP also released a couple of lower-end monochrome families based on the same 26-ppm print engine although they use different supplies. The new LaserJet Pro M201 printer series is made up of two single-function 26-ppm devices that are designed to support between 1 and 5 users. The M201n is the base model and it does not support automatic duplexing like the higher-end M201dw printer. Both units offer a USB 2.0 interface along with Ethernet 10/100 connectivity. The “dw” also provides a standard WiFi 802.11b/g/n interface. The new LaserJet Pro M201 printer series replaces the LaserJet Pro P1566 and P1606dn, and street pricing will start around $179.
The latest entry-level monochrome MFP families from HP include the LaserJet Pro M225 and M226 series, which are four-function devices (print, copy, scan, and fax). Like the low-end print-only family, there are two units in both the M225 and M226 series. All four of the machines are Mopria-certified and come with HP ePrint, and Apple AirPrint. They also support HP JetAdvantage Pull Print functionality. The machines all feature a 35-sheet ADF and 256 MB of memory. The M225dn and M226dn ship with standard 10/100 Ethernet connectivity and the M225dw and M226dw add a WiFi 802.11b/g/n interface. The new M225/M226 units replace the LaserJet Pro M1536.
The low-end units employ new cartridges. The new printers can accommodate two replacements SKUs. They ship with the 1,500-page, standard yield 83A (CF283A) cartridge and HP also markets a high-yield 83X (CF283X) SKU for the machines that delivers 2,200 pages. HP released only one cartridge for the new MFPs. Like the 83A, the new HP 88A (CC388A) toner cartridge has a rated yield of approximately 1,500 pages.
Sparking New Interest
I think that many of HP’s new JetAdvantage solutions will be welcome by businesses and they will presumably help drive hardware sales. That will be good news to HP stakeholders, given the performance of HP’s printer business of late. At various points in the year, HP’s president and CEO Meg Whitman has allowed that shipments of her firm’s LaserJet units have been falling and the installed base is eroding. Although Whitman suggested that the declines should be expected as HP focuses on placing more units in environments with higher print volumes, the consequences have been disconcerting. With fewer LaserJet machines operating in the field, toner cartridge sales have dropped this year. HP recently forecasted that LaserJet supplies will continue to be down into 2015.
The machines that HP introduced in New York indicate that components of the new JetAdvantage initiative can be incorporated into a range of devices from the bottom to the top of HP’s portfolio. The OEM’s latest entry-level MFPs, for example, support the HP JetAdvantage Pull Print service as do the devices in the new LaserJet Enterprise Flow MFP M630 series, which sit at the high-end of HP’s product offerings. And, the JetAdvantage components are not exclusive to HP’s LaserJet machines. As noted earlier, the firm’s business-class inkjet machines including those in its Officejet Pro and Officejet Enterprise lines also support the newly-branded tools and solutions.
One new service HP released in NYC that I think will be particularly popular is HP JetAdvantage Pull Print. There are currently a variety of fee-based pull-print services, but the JetAdvantage will allow business to utilize a high-value asset like secure, remote printing at no cost. The JetAdvantage service should grab the attention of many in the SMB community, especially smaller firms that might have lacked the time, money, or motivation to implement a pull print system but would really value the service if it were easy to access…and free!
Regardless of any bullish notions I have, the response from the overall industry to the JetAdvantage news has been fairly underwhelming. At least so far. Poking around online after the event, I didn’t see much discussion or interest on industry websites or in the IT press about JetAdvantage other than what HP had put out. Of course, printers aren’t that sexy anymore and these are the early days for JetAdvantage. We’ll have to wait a while before we can judge if JetAdvantage has been a success. A key indicator will be if HP can start to correct its flagging LaserJet business and sell more toner cartridges.
