Hello Everyone,
We are in the process of implementing printing solution for a medium sized
company. The choice of hardware/software is still to be finalized. Would be
thankful if someone can provide any insights so that we are in a better
position to make our buying decisions.
1. The company in question is a publishing house.
(brochures/leaflets/magazines/web)
2. Hardware requirements include
a) 1 Inkjet MFD
b) 1 Mono Laser printer
c) 1 Color laser printer
We estimate very high print usage of all of the above mentioned printers.
(The mono laser will be used much more then the Inkjet and the color laser
though)
A major problem that we are facing is not with buying the hardware but
getting it to work in our organization. While we could easily buy those
run-off-the-mill printers and share them over the network or buy printers
that can connect to the network directly, there are considerable
pitfalls/drawbacks in that strategy.
Printer traditionally are not able to show the following information.
1. Total number of pages printed (though many models show this)
2. Who prints how many pages
3. Who printed what document and how many copies (the possibility to see the
actual document as well since we feel sometimes the infrastructure is abused
leading to high cost of consumables)
4. Access control (who is provided permission to print to what printer)
5. Logs of who printed what and when.
We would like to have have a strategy in place so that we are in a better
position to make the required buying decisions in terms of hardware and
software. Also it would be preferable of the software solutions were low
cost/open source.
Could anyone provide me any hints / links / experiences (if anyone has
already implemented this) etc.
Thanks in advance
Kunal.
