Evaluating Software for Printer Management

Posted by Devin Anderson

There are plenty of printer management software solutions out there promising to bring an end to your printer management woes. Even print servers, which don’t exactly have the most stellar track record, are always claiming to offer one or two features in each new version that address their long-standing shortcomings. And that claim might very well be true, but it doesn’t necessarily make them the best print management software solution for your needs.

So how do you go about evaluating these competing and sometimes very different solutions to determine which printer management software is right for your organization? Taking into account the incredible variety of print environments, there are some universal factors that you’ll want to consider.

  • Rock-solid stability: Printing is absolutely vital for your organization’s end users. Can your network printer management software withstand the rigorous demands of day-to-day printing as well as unusual high-load situations? All too often, we think of server crashes as an inevitability when it comes to our printer management software. But outages should be so rare that they are almost unheard of, not a matter of course.
  • Unlimited scalability: How well does your printer management solution accommodate growth? Does the addition of a new pool of users or expansion to a new location require more hardware, more infrastructure, more cost, more oversight? Will growth tax the capabilities of the existing system and require more from the admins who are responsible for maintaining it? The ideal network printer management software should scale up quickly, easily and almost infinitely.
  • Ease of use: Good printer management software gives you the tools to accomplish what you need to do. The best print management software makes those tools easily accessible, intuitive and efficient. For example, does your network printer management software allow you to make changes to multiple printer configurations or update drivers enterprise-wide with just a few clicks?
  • End-user empowerment: Ease of use isn’t just something that benefits admins. The ideal printer management solution ought to be transparent and accessible to your organization’s end users as well. They should have the possibility to perform basic functions like identifying and installing nearby printers themselves—without complexity, without risk.
  • Advanced functionality: The workplace has changed dramatically over the past decade. Mobile devices are proliferating, and security is the watchword. The best print management software is already ahead of the trends, allowing you to implement features like BYOD and guest printing and secure printing across the enterprise with seamless integration and minimal fuss.
  • Total oversight: What good is printer management software that doesn’t illuminate all the corners of your print environment? The right enterprise printing solution is one that gives you both a macro- and micro-level window into your entire organization, highlighting longitudinal printer management trends while providing detailed device- or user-specific activity.

That might read more like a wishlist than a checklist, but then, you must not yet be familiar with PrinterLogic. Our next-generation network printer management software provides your organization with all those benefits and much, much more, including powerful centralized management, seamless support for virtual solutions like Citrix and VMware, effortless and accurate deployments without GPOs and scripts, and the ability to eliminate print servers completely. PrinterLogic will completely change what you expect from your printer management solution and how you evaluate printer management software now and in the future.

In fact, we’re so confident that you’ll find PrinterLogic to be the best print management software bar none that we offer a free, full-featured, 30-day trial. Because the most thorough and accurate evaluation is the real-world test.