Any time, any place. That could very well be the mantra of the mobile workforce. As growing numbers of businesses embrace mobility and the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend, this is having an impact across the office technology landscape, from the R&D centers of the OEMs to the sales and service operations of office technology dealers.
We recently spoke with representatives from six OEMs to find out how the mobile workforce and the BYOD movement is affecting their product development and what this trend means to the dealer channel.
As more workers embrace smart phones and tablets like the iPad, OEMs such as Sharp Imaging and Information Company are looking to recreate that same navigation experience on traditional office devices.
“It’s clearly impacted how we’ve designed our touch interfaces,” reports Mike Marusic, senior vice president, Marketing & Business Solutions Group for Sharp. “Everybody in the industry is looking at how we can make it more user-friendly. People are using their mobile devices more often and we want to adjust to what that look and feel is because it will be more natural for people. They’re used to using a portable device that’s icon based and only takes two touches to get to where they want to be; that’s driving what we’re doing on the R&D side.”
Sharp, like many other manufacturers, is also ensuring that service and support information for their products is now available on mobile devices, placing that information in easy reach of dealer service techs in the field. Plus they now have a mobile version of their Website, which allows for better viewing on smart phones.
In November Sharp will unveil MICAS (Machine Intelligence Call Avoidance System), a mobile servicing system that reads data off the MFP on a cloud-based system and provides specific information on machine status, including predictive maintenance, all of it communicated through a mobile device. The system will also provide translations of error codes and information on how to repair the device, including how-to videos. “The goal is to improve efficiency,” says Marusic.
Another recent introduction is SharpDesk Mobile Version 3.1, a mobile version of SharpDesk, its desktop-based, personal document management application. SharpDesk Mobile will also support some new technology that will be introduced at Sharp’s dealer meeting in November.
As more dealers rely on tablets for presentations, manufacturers are moving beyond the traditional printed product brochures and more into digital media. “That’s kind of phasing out and people are doing it in a more intimate setting with a tablet,” states Marusic.
At Sharp the entire sales organization is equipped with a Sharp-provided iPad. “That allows us to overcome some of the concerns with security and access to information because we’re the provider of the device and we have more control,” says Marusic, who adds that these days he’s more prone to respond to e-mails on his phone rather than his computer.
At a recent Canon press event, Sam Yoshida, vice president and general manager, Marketing & Business Imaging Solutions, Canon U.S.A., presented an overview of Canon’s core strategies for the future, noting that mobile and cloud are key within the office side of the business.
“Five years ago we wouldn’t have said that,” says Dennis Amorosano, senior director, Solutions Marketing, Canon U.S.A. “In a very short time period the rapid expansion of utilization of mobile technology has driven a significant amount of change in how we’re driving R&D activities and that’s true whether it’s ensuring our hardware technology and software is capable of supporting mobile use, or depending on the applications, extending those applications so that they can be leveraged on traditional PC-based platforms or leveraged via tablet or smart phone. The speed of the impact is what’s even more startling; it’s forced us to step on the accelerator pedal in terms of our development activities.”
Canon has an extensive portfolio of technologies with connectivity or mobile use capability associated with them. “If we look at mobile print or mobile document capture for example, we have everything from basic peer-to-peer applications that you would use on a smart phone up to our uniFlow technology that is more enterprise in scope and has mobile print and capture abilities,” says Amorosano. “They’re all having some effect in the channels.”
Like other OEMs, he notes that it’s hard to find a situation where they’re dealing with a customer of any size where mobile or mobile use doesn’t become part of the conversation. “Everybody wants to provide their users with mobile print and others who want to go beyond and do mobile capture and then monitor and secure those activities as well.”
The growing demand for mobile printing is driving a lot of Muratec’s current R&D efforts. “That’s the first piece for a lot of our dealers, enabling print from their mobile devices,” states Lou Stricklin, director of marketing. “We have some solutions on the market for that and for connecting our machines into the cloud for scanning and document sharing.
Two years ago Muratec’s parent company in Japan acquired Silex Technology, a wireless company based in Kyoto, with the intention of incorporating Silex’s wireless technology and patents across the company’s divisions in order to better play in the mobile environment. “There’s a lot of R&D being done not only to enable our machines to print in mobile environments, but for adjusting our equipment to meet the needs of users as they get more embedded with mobile applications,” says Stricklin.
One example is the ability of Muratec’s new MFP series to connect and scan into Evernote with Evernote functioning as a document repository and basic workflow solution. By scanning to the cloud from the Muratec device, users can access those documents from their smart phone, laptop, iPad or traditional PC wherever they may be.
Toshiba has been focusing on how its MFPs can be adapted to some of the mobile technology on the market. “We’ve allocated more resources to some of the applications we can incorporate in our MFPs to meet some of the customer needs we’re hearing from dealers and the sales team,” states Tony Venice, manager of strategic product development.
Toshiba recently introduced a mobile scan and print application and Venice reports that the company will continue to add to that and enhance that application. Additionally, the company is placing greater importance on cloud storage and scanning into cloud storage services such as Googledocs, Dropbox, and Box.com.
Doug Frazier, who manages the solutions team at Lexmark, says the mobile trend is significantly affecting what Lexmark is doing from an R&D perspective. As well it should.
“The statistics around the growth of mobile technology is staggering,” states Frazier. “Couple that with what we’re working towards anyway, if you look at Lexmark’s overall solutions platform, and how we help customers capture and print and share data across the board, it’s a core component of every solution we provide.”
One example of Lexmark’s offerings in the mobile realm is its Mobile Capture solution that allows users to use the capabilities on a mobile device to initiate mobile capture and intelligent routing. More recently, Lexmark introduced a hosted print release solution called Lexmark Print Management that offers an extended platform for clients to print from any mobile device and retrieve from anywhere, not just on a corporate network.
“If you were to look at what we’re offering across the entire dealer channel, we have to answer the dealer’s needs from the simple network-type capability to something more comprehensive,” adds Phil Boatman, manager of business development, North American Business Channels for Lexmark.
Lexmark also offers AirPrint support across their entire lineup with out-of-the box functionality and no special drivers needed. Outside of the output environment, Lexmark has a mobile print app that runs across both platforms and allows users to print not only within a local environment but a business-oriented network as well. That mobile print app ties into the Lexmark Print Management solution for users who need to print outside the corporate firewall.
“The demand for mobile, I don’t want to say it’s every customer, but it’s certainly a part of most conversations,” adds Sam Errigo, senior vice president, Business Intelligence Services, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc.
Konica Minolta has been involved in the mobile world for some time with its PageScope Mobile, an app that allows users to connect their mobile device to Konica Minolta MFPs. “Where we continue to invest time, energy and effort is around the enterprise, coming up with applications that allow mobility regardless of device,” explains Errigo. “That’s the key; the ability to print to Konica Minolta only devices is half the equation, you need an open architecture and have universal technology to print to all devices. That’s just becoming table stakes.”
The second development he sees driving R&D efforts is the expectation that the handheld device or tablet must do more than just print. “We’re looking towards applications that allow you to communicate effectively with devices so if you’re scanning they can also scan back to the handheld device,” notes Errigo. “If you’re going to print in MS Word or Excel they have to be able to print directly from handheld devices. That expectation is growing. From an R&D standpoint it’s building in that level of compatibility so that a mobile professional can work as seamlessly as possible almost as if they’re at a connected device.”
When it comes to concerns, Toshiba’s Venice contends it depends on whom you’re speaking with. “If it’s someone from the IT side of the house, security is usually part of the conversation. The question usually focuses on how do I control all of my devices and access to my wireless network? When talking to someone outside of IT the security question doesn’t come up initially; usually they want ease of use and don’t want a lot of software installed on the device.”
“We’re developing ways dealers can address the security piece of the equation when it comes to utilizing mobile devices and accessing sensitive business documents remotely,” reveals Muratec’s Stricklin. “That’s something we’re currently working on and will have a big impact on the dealer channel.”
Amorosano sees huge implications in terms of what’s happening from a cloud perspective. “Even today there are many customers in the marketplace, and depending on the application, who have a preference for deploying that application within a cloud infrastructure just given some of the economies it provides and the lack of administrative requirements. Those trends are going to continue and will have major implications for mobility as well. As a manufacturer we need to make sure whether it’s our hardware or our software that we can effectively live within those ecosystems and provide users of mobile technology with the same level of effective access to the tools they need to conduct business whether they’re tethered to a desktop PC or accessing content off an iPhone.”
Lexmark’s Frazier is aware of all those concerns while also noting that initial mobile technology and mobile platforms haven’t been as robust in terms of security as traditional desktop platforms although he sees that changing.
“There is development undergoing from an AirPrint standpoint as well as future Wi-Fi technologies that will go a long way towards addressing some of that,” he says.
Beyond those challenges, one that’s arguably of utmost importance for the dealer channel is monetizing mobility. Indeed, going mobile presents a new set of challenges to the OEMs and the dealer channel primarily because of its impact on the printed document. Documents can now be accessed on mobile devices and with the advent of iPad-like devices why bother to print when you can view the document on your device?
“The big challenge for dealers is how to get access to that revenue stream and how do you do the integrations, work with your customers to not only make it from a printed document to a stored document to a mobile document and how do you put your dealership in the middle of that workflow?” says Marusic. “As all of us in the industry talk more about cloud services and storage, in the end a lot of those cloud services best apply to a mobile device.”
“In cases where you’re providing a free utility that the user can put on their smart phone or tablet, the dealer is offering the services to in effect integrate into the device and configure the appropriate settings both at a user and device level to ensure those operate as intended,” says Canon’s Amorosano. “There’s some revenue opportunity there. Security is another opportunity where dealers have an opportunity to provide additional value-added services.”
Toshiba’s Venice doesn’t foresee the trend toward mobility generating a huge amount of revenue for the dealer channel. “Where we see the opportunity is maintaining the installed base and providing some differentiation from our competitors for the hardware sale. That’s the view today and I’m not sure if that will change anytime soon. Like our competitors we’re giving away a basic application for free and then there’s an up sell to add more capabilities and functionality at a minimal cost to the end user.”
But Lexmark’s Frazier isn’t ready to concede traditional prints to mobile devices. He references IDC research that shows a correlation between overall page growth when mobile technologies are in play. “Pages associated with mobility, contrary to what one might think are growing and IDC expects double-digit growth through 2016,” he notes. “I think there’s an opportunity there as dealers try to incorporate more mobile technologies in their MPS arrangements in the solutions that they’re selling, they’re serving themselves well in terms of capturing those pages.”
