HP utility supports on-the-go printing
April 29, 2010 by Steve HannafordPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, New Products
Users of smartphones, PDAs and tablet computers now have the power to bring some serious work around without having to carry a laptop. But printing out that work, even when a wireless printer is available, has been problematic.
Hewlett-Packard is stepping into that gap with a new cloud-based software/service called ePrint. It works like this: A user of a mobile device can search to find the closest public ePrint-enabled printer, send the job, enter a security code and pick up the job. The notion is that someone (including FedEx Office) will make such printers easily available in places like hotel lobbies, airports, conference centers, and other locations where travelers can be found.
Another version of the program is for use within the enterprise. It is a way for road warriors to print at any corporate HP printer on the network.
The concept was demonstrated recently, with HP working with FedEx Office, Hilton Worldwide and RIM (the BlackBerry maker).
Eventually HP plans to have the driver on every smart mobile device, and it plans to have the printers generally available worldwide. Where it would have immediate use would be in allowing travelers to print out airline boarding passes, itineraries, maps with directions, email and lists of all kinds. The app allows you print a wide variety of formats: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDFs, image files and more.
The big catches? You have to print to specially connected HP printers. You will be charged per page printed. For now, at least, there are few locations and you can only use BlackBerrys. (No word yet from Apple, which competes with HP, soon in the tablet category.)
Nevertheless, this does sound like an interesting possibility and meets a real need. For more info, and a demo download, look here.
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Tags: BlackBerry, cloud, HP, printing
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