SmallBizResource Blog -- Hardware

Taking Printing To New Heights

Posted by Judy Mottl Tuesday, Aug 21, 2007, 10:08 AM ET

In the quest to provide business with every tool it needs to make money, vendors have long been hammering away at making document printing on the road an easy and quick process. We've seen tiny portable printers, and those cute data flash cards and memory sticks that you can plug in wherever you are to print out meeting documents from another user's desktop.

But now HP is taking printing into a new atmosphere though some industry pundits aren't doing cartwheels over the innovation.

According to a Newsfactor Network article HP's "Cloudprint" relies a cell phone and PDF technology to let users print anywhere and everywhere via the Web.

Users upload a doc for printing via the service to an HP server that then issues a code which is then text messaged to the user.

The user then logs on to the Cloudprint site (using a PC connected to a printer), enters their cell number and document code and then gets access to the document in PDF format for printing.

Of course you have to download a virtual printer drive to your own PC before you're able to upload docs.

And yes Cloudprint is free though you do incur text messaging costs.

Now maybe it's because I've never been in a position where I needed to print something and didn't have my laptop with me and access to an office printer. But right now I tend to agree with the analyst interviewed by Newsfactor who pretty much doesn't see any compelling business need at this point.

What do you think? Is this a technology or service you could use today or down the road? How do you handle printing needs away from the office?

Hardware | Networking & Communications