I’m always amazed when I hear an Open Enterprise Server customer hasn’t deployed iPrint in their enterprise.  First of all, it’s a free entitlement for being current with your Open Enterprise Server maintenance.  What’s not to like about free?  And more importantly, it’s incredibly easy to use and saves lots of time for both end-users and IT admins!

Let’s face it—print job and printer management can be difficult for both end-users and IT admins.  Somehow—finding a printer on the network using other interfaces (OK—Yes—I’m talking about Windows here) is almost as difficult as finding Atlantis sometimes.  If you already know the printer’s network name or IP address, you might just be able to print to it.  But what if you don’t?  And let’s face it—end-users don’t often know this type of information unless they are tech-savvy or have a helpful reminder note from the IT department taped to the printer.

However, Micro Focus iPrint does away with complex printing environments. It lets mobile employees, business partners, and customers access printers from a variety of remote locations using existing Internet connections. Whether users are working in an office building, telecommuting from home, or attending a sales meeting in another country, Micro Focus iPrint ensures that they can print documents quickly, easily, and reliably.



One option of displaying printers is through a map.  I love this.  If I’m travelling to another office in another country, I can log into my corporate inner web, select my facility and locate the printer on a building map. Viola! I’m printing—all without any IT support or need to hunt down the printer’s name or IP address.

Leveraging the industry-standard Internet Printing Protocol (IPP), Micro Focus iPrint provides instant global access to all your printing resources via a web browser. In a few mouse clicks you can search for your printer, download the drivers, and just like that, you’re sending documents to the printer from any application on your desktop.  Talk about easy!

In addition to enjoying a broad array of support from printer manufacturers, Micro Focus iPrint supports the Universal Printer Driver (UPD) model, which many printer vendors have moved toward in order to further simplify printer management. Micro Focus iPrint provides a standard print protocol for Windows, Linux and Macintosh platforms. Plus, iPrint is Apple AirPrint Server Certified—so it works with any printer that also works with AirPrint.

Other features of iPrint include:

• • SSL and TLS print data encryption

• • Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) functionality

• • Browser-based healt monitoring of your complete print infrastructure

• • Load-balancing via printer pools

• • Automatic driver and profile updates

• • Print job re-direction

• • Direct printing to the IP address of a printer

And did I mention that it was free with your continued Open Enterprise Server maintenance too? Yes—FREE!  If you’re using OES, you should be using iPrint to manage your printing environment—no matter if you have Linux, Windows, or Macs.  Now that’s true value—just for being an active OES customer.  Bravo!