Print Audit Builds a Better Mouse Trap with the Introduction of Print Audit Secure

John Macinnes

Wouldn’t it be nice if unclaimed print jobs weren’t such a waste of paper? Industry data suggests that the average user prints six wasted pages per day, which works out to a significant 1,410 pages a year. Multiply that by the number of employees in a company who print and the final figure is in the stratosphere, especially in a large enterprise.

A new print management service from Print Audit, Print Audit Secure, eliminates much of that waste while also adding an element of security to the mix. A vendor neutral pull-printing solution, Print Audit Secure uses an Intelligent Print Routing System which is not dependent on print servers, print queues or port monitoring. As a result installation is easy and the solution is scalable to any size organization.

“We know people have been waiting for this for quite awhile from us,” says John MacInnes, president and CEO of Print Audit. “There are other products that are similar in the marketplace, but it’s a natural fit with our other products.”

Apparently visitors to Print Audit’s message boards and Linked In connections have been asking for a product like this from Print Audit for three years now. What took them so long?

“We wanted to build a better mouse trap,” responds MacInnes.

They also wanted to make sure they corrected some of the issues that people didn’t like about similar products already on the market whether they were from one of the hardware manufacturers or a third-party software company. One of the major issues that Print Audit addressed was installation.  

“This is a big thing for end user customers because they’re tough to install, especially when you get into really large enterprises, which is where Print Audit plays,” says MacInnes. “When you install other person’s products you have to change a lot of how printing happens on the network, the workflows, and you need different print queues and different print queue monitoring and these are tough to set up. We wanted to come up with a way, and it almost broke us trying to get it done, that there would be no change to the end user customer’s network and printing environment.”

With Print Audit Secure end users don’t have to print to different secure queues. As soon as they print a job it’s secured. It is client based and because it resides on the workstation it captures every job that needs to be secured.

The way the system works is that it takes the document and sends it to the secure print server which is housed at the customer site. It’s not a cloud-based system, and Print Audit can encrypt it and the job is held securely until it’s released at the device. There are no delays. As soon as the user presses release, the job is already packaged on the server and it moves it right through the port to that device.

“We also wanted to make it Web-based and remove the need for expensive release stations,” says MacInnes.

An end user can walk up to the device, put in the printer they’re standing at, which is a secure code that sits on the device, then view on their smartphone all their print jobs and then release that job through the smartphone. Other independent systems on the market require expensive and proprietary release stations that are manufactured by the companies providing the secure print solution.

 “We’ve essentially eliminated the need for proprietary release stations,” says MacInnes. “You can use any computer or smartphone to release jobs. The other cool thing is you can send the job to Printer A but release it at Printer B,” adds MacInnes. That’s a huge benefit and one he feels will resonate with many customers and dealers.

Organizations are now looking at Android browser devices for $100 that they can bolt on next to the copier. Print Audit has also built a Ricoh-embedded system because Ricoh is their biggest partner. Print Audit will be building embedded releases for all the manufacturers as quick as they can. “The embedded isn’t needed but if it’s closer to the copier it’s always an easier sell for us and our dealers,” says MacInnes.

Another advantage to the system is that it is vendor neutral and works across every possible printer platform. “The software captures printing at the core of the operating system and the device it eventually prints on doesn’t make any difference to us,” says MacInnes.

The system was created for office equipment dealers and IT VARs and can be easily integrated into their service and MPS contracts. Dealers ought to like the new pricing structure too. It’s a dollar per imaging device per month, making it a perfect fit for the average MPS contract and the least expensive solution of its kind on the market. On a typical MPS contract MacInnes says it would be less than a hundredth of a mill.

“We’ve talked to some of our dealer and VAR partners and they plan to charge their customers for this in addition to their contract,” notes MacInnes.

Other dealers simply include it in the deal at no cost to the customer. Either way, it’s something the dealer owns at the end of the contract and helps them remain more ‘sticky’ with the customer.

It’s interesting to hear why customers are interested in Print Audit Secure.

“You’d think security would be the number one reason they’d buy this, but the one thing they hate more than anything wasn’t security but these stacks of unclaimed print jobs left on printers,” reports MacInnes. “With Print Audit Secure we’ve eliminated that problem because the jobs don’t release until you’re standing at that printer and releasing them. The environmental impact of this is going to be massive and we’re excited about that and the cost impact for the customer is going to be huge.”

Still, in an era where document security is at the forefront of so many discussions, this system dramatically increases document security.

“The reason that’s so valuable is one, it’s not that documents aren’t being printed securely right now, it’s usually they’re being printed to desktop printers which flies in the face of MPS which is rightsizing and making you more efficient as a company,” states MacInnes.

That makes sense since the number one objection for getting rid of personal printers is that the individual prints financials or confidential documents and isn’t comfortable printing them to a workgroup or network printing device.

“This eliminates that objection as well,” says MacInnes.

Where did the concept for Print Audit Secure originate?

“Like most of our products we’re not overly original,” acknowledges MacInnes. “We wait for our customers to ask because then we know we could probably sell it. Really it came from other people wanting us to have this type of functionality as part of Print Audit.”

Other companies, including the OEMs, offer similar products, but MacInnes explains you must drill down four levels into their driver and have the printer release the job via a secure code while you’re at the device.

In the meantime, Print Audit is encouraging dealers to place it in their demo rooms. For dealers interested in doing that, Print Audit offers a free NFR (Not for Resale) license.  

With Print Audit Secure out of the way, there’s no rest for the weary and the company is already looking to do a full revamp of Print Audit 6 to make it look more like Print Audit Secure.

“We’ll  be adding Print Audit 6 components to Secure and we’ll be moving Print Audit 6 to a per-device-per-month charge instead of the perpetual license we have now where the customer buys it from the dealer and owns it forever,” concludes MacInnes.