BYOD Doesn't Have To Complicate Printing

By Randy Sparks, director of solutions, Lexmark International Inc.

There’s no denying that the “bring your own device,” or BYOD, trend is here and, with Aberdeen Group reporting that 75% of organizations allow employees to use their own mobile devices for work, it’s not going anywhere.

While most agree that mobile devices provide many benefits, printing from tablets and smartphones still presents a challenge for many business users. Now, with so many businesses formally adopting BYOD policies, it has become critically important that they provide employees with a consistent printing experience across all platforms.

Initially companies were insistent on employees using a corporate-sponsored mobile device — making mobile printing a relatively easy problem to solve because emailing a document to the printer was an acceptable solution. With the intelligence and diversity of today’s mobile devices, providing support for printing has grown a bit more complicated and user expectations are higher. The biggest challenges that IT departments face when trying to enable printing capabilities through a mobile device can be broken down into three areas.