A top insurance company in India garnered the wrath of its consumers as the policies it had printed faded out in time. As complaints started pouring in, the company discovered that the printer it was using had a software problem that randomly changed the print quality to economy and normal and vice versa. Elsewhere, a nationalized bank was using an outdated printer for passbook printing. Due to alignment problems, often the passbook entries had to be done manually by the staff. These real cases highlight how organizations tend to ignore peripheral applications. To improve customer satisfaction and user ease, enterprises have to give utmost priority to peripheral devices like printers, scanners; media drives and power back-up appliances.

Printers play a crucial part in every enterprise. Hence, buying decisions should be made based on the single-day average use of printers. Once print volumes are ascertained, the CIO has to decide on the right kind of printer technology for the individual user, project teams, and departments. The challenge here is managing the multiplicity of user requirements.

For mass printing applications like passbooks, bills, labels etc, a dot matrix printer (DMP) is the preferred option as the acquisition as well as operating TCO is very less. Meanwhile, inkjet printers are effective for small work groups and individual users where usage is limited. Operating costs of inkjets will shoot up when the number of users’ increases, as inkjet cartridges bring in recurring expenses. For any enterprise, when the number of pages printed per day exceeds 100 pages, it is then advisable to go in for a laser printer, despite higher acquisition costs as compared to inkjets, laser printers deliver better return on investment through reduced operational costs and high print quality.

In any buying decision related to printers, three things have to be factored in—speed, print quality, and price. An enterprise dealing with a large number of people transactions like banks, government departments should prioritize speed as the primary requisite. Because the number of pages printed per minute with reasonable quality is the main deciding factor. While print quality is mandatory for all print jobs, in some sectors it becomes a very critical factor for business. Here, buying decisions should be based on an application aware approach. For instance, organizations like advertising agencies, which deal on a regular basis with high visual content, should go in for inkjet technology. The inherent advantage of inkjets is their ability to convert digital imagery into photo quality output. Meanwhile, for text-intensive outputs, monochrome laser printers are the best choice. However, no enterprise can survive by one form of printing technology, rather it has to judiciously use all the technologies available to achieve best results.

Imaging appliances: The resolution edge
Organizations dealing in digital outputs depend on scanners and off late digital cameras are being used. These are the two key static image capturing technologies available today. Here resolution is the main factor. For instance today 2400 dpi (dots per inch) scanners are default. Certain things that have to be reviewed while buying a scanner are—optical resolution, color depth, scalability (for instance, to scan transparent images like film or slides, a user needs to integrate a transparency adapter with the scanner); document feeder capabilities (scanning long pages) and interface (USB enabled or not).

Meanwhile, before buying a digital camera, buyers need to confirm the mega pixel rating of the cameras. Higher mega pixel rating brings in higher resolution. For instance a two-mega pixel camera can produce image quality of up to 1600 by 1200 pixels. A three-mega pixel camera will give around 2048 by 1536 pixel images. The users should also go for a higher memory card, which ensures good storage space within the camera.

Empower your enterprise: Power back-ups
There are many power backup solutions for enterprises. A buying decision should be made only after thoroughly studying the down time costs incurred due to power failures. If an organization is running mission critical applications then it should opt for an online back up unit, which runs 24/7. Standby Line interactive UPS’ are more suited for standalone PCs. Once the type of the UPS technology is determined, the next stage is ascertaining the actual power backup time required. The general rule here is one should always buy an UPS that has a capacity of 25% more than the connected device. Deciding on technology and power requirements is not enough; a power back-up architecture has to be evolved. The most common architecture is a centralized back up device that powers multiple PCs. This is the most cost-effective method that brings equitable distribution of back up in the event of power blackouts.

Shrikanth G