Seeing the Azure Cloud from the Inside

I had the wonderful opportunity last week to visit one of Microsoft's data centers. Since I am bound by NDA, I won't say where it was, and I won't talk about anything that I can't find discussed in a press release or an article on the web about Microsoft Azure and MSFT's data center footprint.  That still leaves a tremendous amount to talk about, though. And frankly, reading about a place like this is one thing, but actually going and touring it is quite another.  I'll try to give you a feeling for that here.

The company describes the number of global facilities they maintain as "more than 10 and less than 100". You can get a feeling for the global footprint by looking at this Azure Regions site, and also by reading the Azure Wikipedia entry.  Keep in mind that Microsoft hosts over 200 of their own services in their data centers, including Bing, Outlook (formerly Hotmail), the new Office365, Skydrive, Xbox, their robust advertising network, and much more. Matthew Sorvaag's website has some info on where the DCs are, although I think this is a bit out of date.

If you are like one of my many elitist techie Microsoft bashing friends, you'll be sad to know that Apple's iCloud runs on Microsoft Azure, and has since 2011.  Recall that earlier that year, AAPL had a very embarassing outage, and other issues.  Less than a year later, reports from insiders confirmed the service was running at both AMZN and MSFT. Most know that AAPL has their own data centers, too, so what parts of these services are operating on any of these facilities is a bit hard to determine, what with Apple's great penchant for secrecy and the imprudence (and likely contractually limited) of talking about the relationship for either of the Cloud vendors.

Microsoft has produced a terrific video, Windows Azure Data Centers: the 'Long Tour', describing several of their data centers extremely well. The video is a couple of years old, but does justice to the scale and approach. In fact, at least one of the facilities in the video has been substantially upgraded since the video was shot (and the description in the movie is already impressive!)

The Microsoft Quincy, WA DC, is today even bigger than this photo and as described in the movie: it has three big buildings now (new one is in the lower left, where it looks like an open field in this foto. Foto from NYT Kyle Bair/Bair Aerial)

The company is employing state of the art technologies and processes in all areas.  The locations, construction, staffing, networking, server deployment and maintenance, as well as operations are all advanced and world class.  It's worth noting that the DCs described in the video are generation 3 and generation 4.  MSFT now has gen 5 centers, and is looking forward to a day when they occupy generation 6 facilities.  If you aren't familiar with all the lingo around data centers, don't confuse these generations with data center "tiers", which generally describe "redundancy".

• Tier 1 = Non-redundant capacity components (single uplink and servers).
• Tier 2 = Tier 1 + Redundant capacity components.
• Tier 3 = Tier 1 + Tier 2 + Dual-powered equipments and multiple uplinks.
• Tier 4 = Tier 1 + Tier 2 + Tier 3 + all components are fully fault-tolerant including uplinks, storage, chillers, HVAC systems, servers etc. Everything is dual-powered.

These MSFT facilities are all N+2, or in other words: whatever components in place are deemed to be mission critical, there are 2 backups in place.

Generation 4 in full operation now

ITPACs, which are being deployed in the newer MSFT data centers are purpose built, modular containers that resemble shipping containers, they are are power efficient and operationally better. Watch this great ITPAC video, which describes how they efficiently combine compute, power, cooling, and networking in self-contained modules. From an environmental perspective, the ITPACs are a great innovation. On cold days, a portion of the hot exhaust air from the servers is redirected internally through a mixing unit on top of the ITPAC where it mixes and warms the air to a temperature suitable for the servers.  I saw units with HP or Dell equipment installed, as well as storage and networking.  

One interesting statistic to note is that the many tens of thousands of servers in the facility together lose about 300 hard drives a week. In fact, this is one of the very limited number of tasks the operations personnel at the facility do-- replace hard drives.  There are several amazing magical elements to this:  first, no customer or service is impacted by the hard drive failures. Second, the techs perform the drive replacements without any knowledge of what data is stored on the servers. Finally, the hard drives are erased, and then crushed into teeny tiny little pieces.

Everyone who is anyone in the Internet has used F5 boxes at one point or another. These boxes are highly regarded. And those of you who know this, also know these devices are very expensive. I was only in one hall in this facility, and, along with many, many other of the usual suspects in Internetworking gear, I saw tens of millions of dollars in F5 gear ALONE.  Pretty impressive.

Another example is the number of generators in place at this facility, just astonishing.  I got to step inside one of the generator housings, and they aren't the cute little CATs shown in the movie above... instead they are monstrous 20 cylinder engines painted gray with fuel feed pipes as big as wide as a manhole cover.  While inside, I was praying to God that the generator didn't start because it would have been very, very scary and loud.

I was also in an electrical room with a similarly scary amount of electricity being fed through it.  This room was one of 6... remember that the facility is "larger than 10 football fields" in size. Let's face, when you've seen row after row of the same server and storage boxes, it sort of becomes mind numbing. So when you go visit the power distribution, it's a little exciting.  For example, the circuit breakers in the Siemens distribution equipment have their own cranes on the top of the rack, because they are so heavy, it takes more than one very strong person to pick them up.

Crazy giant Siemens Circuit Breaker that comes with its own little crane.

One debate I've had with many colleagues in both IT and in Printing over the years regards whether it is prudent to operate your own data center, or to outsource.  Cloud aside, when you visit a facility like this, you understand that an operation like this, with billions of dollars of investment, and run like a top secret military facility, you realize this is something that most companies cannot do.

When you then add in the economics of the Cloud, assuming you can determine that it makes sense for your business, it is hard not to come to the stark realization that you are getting capabilities that truly will provide an enormous competitive advantage for your company. There are numerous choices, and they need to be examined very thoroughly but it is pretty clear that these services are game changers. We must embrace them for as much of our IT infrastructure as we possibly can.

QR Codes- Why, Why, Why?

Although the printing industry (or perhaps slightly more accurately, its consultants and journalists) seems to have latched onto QR codes in a pretty dramatic way, parallels can be drawn to the initial hype of VDP PURLs (Personalized URLs) that took place in the early 2000s. If you pick piece from a printing trade journal written seven or so years ago about VDP and PURLs, you could replace the acronym “PURL” with “QR Code”, and the piece would likely still have the same meaning; tell the same story.

In overview, the goal of QR codes is to enhance the user’s (i.e., reader or consumer) seemingly dull print piece with access to new, rich media experiences that complement the print piece. The flip side is the notion that the print piece is driving customers to the rich media experience waiting for them to view, to help “close the deal”. These are both worthy goals, but have encountered some challenges along the road to adoption.

For printers who have implemented VDP, QR Codes are technically just like implementing a PURL (Personal Response URL) on a printed piece—the benefit is that the recipient doesn’t have to type it in. This should increase the likelihood that the prospect will engage and see the additional content. That additional content to be provided via the QR Code’s link is often a mobile website these days, but can take other forms, like playing a video or showing a map. Like PURLS and other VDP applications, QR Codes can be “one to many”, where the same QR Code could be scanned by thousands of prospects, and they are all taken to the same unique content, or they can be 1:1, where each user gets their own personalized QR code, that takes them to some content that is personalized just for them. Printing QR codes is easy, and can technically be done by any Print Service Provider, using inexpensive and even free software.

One of today’s QR Code applications, readily seen, is on signs and graphics. The consumer at the point of purchase, or in the aisle of a retail store, is enticed by offer text and graphics on a printed piece; or the merchant wants to make a special offer on a particular product or add-on item.

QR Codes have appeared in many different shapes and sizes of printed products in addition to signage and display graphics. These include magazines and newspapers, brochures and datasheets, and even stationery including business cards. The results are mixed because of some obvious limitations of QR Codes.

The biggest obstacle is software that can read the code, which is relatively cumbersome to obtain today. This limits the audience for the code to tech-savvy consumers. While at this writing some 88% of smartphones have cameras, apparently only about 13% have software installed to allow them to read QR Codes. This special reader software must be installed on a smart phone to scan the code, and it is not included with Google’s Android smartphone software nor on the Apple iPhone and iPad devices. Until Apple and Google include native QR Code applications that automatically work with smartphones built-in cameras, QR codes will remain a curiosity that will only be used by technical and “bleeding-edge” users.

Another problem with QR codes is their size and appearance on the printed piece. To make them easier to scan, they are general fairly large on the printed piece. Making them bigger also makes them obvious to the user, because it’s a double edge sword—they are seen, but they are ugly (a bunch of square dots inside a larger square), as well as meaningless and unfamiliar to most consumers. All while taking up print “real estate”.

So although the QR Code is being touted by consultants and pundits in the printing industry, it has not achieved enough traction or “ubiquity” to justify the amount of attention it has received. Does it make print complement mobile? It technically can, but today the consumer has to be quite motivated (presumably by an enormously valuable offer) to act. While it could be said that this may be the problem, not the technology itself—i.e., the creativity and motivation of advertisers to actually use this new mechanism in campaigns— it’s kind of a chicken and egg thing, and if advertisers really saw the value in doing this versus alternatives, perhaps we would all be scanning QR codes multiple times a day.

There are other ways to achieve the same results that QR Codes are promising. A company called DigiMarc, based in Beaverton, Oregon (www.digimarc.com) has been creating what they call Digital Watermarks for many years. Their software accomplishes the same end goal as QR Codes, but without the visible barcode-style manifestation. The August 2012 edition of Seventeen Magazine makes extensive use of the technology. Similar to QR Codes, the company’s solution requires reader software to be installed on the consumer’s smartphone to activate the rich media experience (in this case, software that is proprietary to DigiMarc), leaving that hurdle for the consumer to overcome. Seventeen Magazine’s young readership may be a good test, because it “seems” likely they would engage and want to see rich media associated with the “fun” content in the printed magazine. We will stay tuned and look forward to seeing the results.

Image recognition technology is likely to become much more powerful in smartphones as their processor speeds and memory capacity increases. This will allow the phones to recognize images, and retrieve offers based on the actual image itself, without a code. Google has been working on such technologies for several years, and is likely to make this available as an adjunct to their Ad Words offerings in the future.

Voice Recognition software in phones is only in its infancy now with technologies like Apple’s Siri, but will very likely be used for advertising applications. Instead of having to scan a poster, for example, you could simply speak particular text from the poster (i.e., keywords) to Siri, and she would retrieve an offer for you on your IOS-based smartphone. Apple is making gigantic investments in mobile advertising technology, so we can expect this to happen sooner rather than later.

This is an excerpt from the paper entitled, "Does Print Complement Mobile Computing", by Chuck Gehman and David Uyytendaele, published in the TAGA 2012 Proceedings.

The Era of the Hard Drive in the Sky has Begun!

Yesterday, Google announced Google Drive, a cloud storage system that is among the most anticipated features of any software system, ever. Industry analysts, pundits and gadflies have been predicting the eventuality of this capability for years. In it's initial launch incarnation, Google drive is simple to install and easy to use, and as far as I'm concerned, totally lives up to the expectations built-up around it! Out of the gate, anyone who signs up gets 5GB of online storage for free. Upgrade to 20gb, 100gb or even a terabyte for very affordable incremental fees. It makes storing files to the cloud and syncing them among multiple devices seamless (PCs, Macintosh and Android Smartphones today, Apple iOS and other OS/devices later). Google Drive acts just like another drive on Windows or the Mac. You can copy or move files to it, and even create new files and folders in it. I installed it on my Macintosh first, and when I logged in, I just saw all my Google Docs files in a native OS window on my MacBook Air. It could not have been simpler.

The timing of the Google announcement may have been planned to steal the thunder of a Microsoft announcement only two days earlier-- of a similar solution, the new version of SkyDrive, which gives MSFT a competitive offering in the cloud storage arena. Notable in the announcement are new storage applications, new support for devices running Mac OS X Lion and iOS, as well as support for Windows phones. SkyDrive automatically synchronizes the devices to which it is connected. Files and folders are organized in SkyDrive in the same manner to which we've all become accustomed on our local devices.

While Google and Microsoft are well-known as rivals to one another, they are both equally wary of startups who might come along and eat their lunch. In this case, those companies are Dropbox and to a lesser extent Box (formerly box.net). Dropbox was founded in 2007, and has a good head start on both of the (in the case of MSFT relatively) new competitors. Dropbox has more than 25 million people using the service, which works on Windows, Mac and Linux computers, as well as with mobile apps on iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Drew Houston, Dropbox's Co-Founder and CEO, upon hearing the announcement of Google Drive, tweeted, "In other news, @Dropbox is launching a search engine." I'm not sure if this response is hubris or real fear. Prior to the announcement, Dropbox's private company valuation was speculated to be about $4 Billion. It remains to be seen if it can maintain that sky high valuation in light of the fact that two of the biggest tech companies in the world just came out with respective "features" that come close to duplicating Dropbox's entire business. That is sort of the key: for MSFT and Google, this is a feature among many thousands of other features, not the whole company or even the most important part. On the flip side, though, Dropbox has been expecting this kind of competition for a long, long time. Now its here and it is formidable. For example, Google Drive's pricing is roughly 1/4 of Dropbox's pricing today. That could dramatically change the game, in terms of acquisition of customers for Google, and loss of revenue for Dropbox. Furthermore, the integration between Google Drive and Google Apps, though a bit minimalistic today, is already very useful for companies like my own who have been using Google Apps almost exclusively for the last couple of years.

For consumers of this technology, it's going to be exciting to watch this competition between industry giants. In addition to simple storage and backup in the cloud, these services offer great collaboration and sharing possibilities-- both intracompany and between companies. It's hard to believe that in this day and age high-tech companies would still be using technologies like FTP to share files, but they are. Replacing such primitive services with these new technologies is good for everyone-- the creator, the user, the printer, the IT guys, everyone. With the large files we consume daily in the graphic arts industry, these services offer a really affordable and easy to use alternative to old fashioned, error-prone methods that our customers don't want to understand and shouldn't have to!

State of Print and the Cloud

Looking forward in 2012, there will be exciting developments in Cloud printing. We will assuredly see advances in all the topic areas and from all the technology companies we've covered here, including Apple, Google, HP, and the graphic arts industry suppliers.

Beyond the constantly forward-looking technology components, the business of print in general continues its transition. Business models are blurring. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and commercial Print Service Providers (PSPs) are competing for the same work in many cases. MSPs want to gain share at the expense of PSPs, and vice versa. In speaking to many document owners in large corporations, even at companies that own their own production operations, I hear people looking for additional, better options.

I've said for some time that customers impatience is growing. This is manifested by their restlessness with the status quo of how printing operations do business. Digital media, and Web2.0 applications, have hurt how print is perceived. People expect the same sort of experience working with print manufacturing operations online that they get from everything else in their digital sphere. Instead, in many cases, doing business with printing companies is like going back to the 1970s, not in a fun and nostalgic way, but instead in a complicated, frustrated, primitive and time consuming way.

Another thing that has happened lately is that some what were "hottest" technologies for print have become obsolete without ever achieving critical mass. One big example that is becoming more apparent every day is 1:1 personalization in print, a technology and application that has struggled along for many years, now appears to be all but dead. Many things led to this death, for example, people realized that the worst time to sell something to someone is when they are reading a bill (causing the death of TransPromo). But the main things killing off 1:1 VDP are Google and Facebook. Print personalization never had access to platforms like these, rich with the data necessary to effectively target users with personalization-- and now never will. And even if we somehow obtain access now, the speed at which we can deliver the message is so slow, it's likely to be at worst completely irrelevant when it gets to its recipient, and at best, old news. Another example in "big iron" is the direct, on press imaging, or "DI" presses. There are just few applications for these niche technologies, you've got to ask yourself, is it worth it?

An example of how fast things are changing in the hardcopy world can be found in the everyday lives of those of who spend a lot of time on airplanes. One of the main drivers behind development of early Cloud Printing platforms, like EFI PrintMe was airline boarding passes. How ironic is it that at virtually the exact moment in time when most hotels now have free access to workstations and printers for you to print your boarding pass, you no longer need a physical boarding pass because you can use your smartphone.

We have a big year ahead of us. A series of upcoming events will shed great light on what our industry is going to look like in our near future. First, PODi, in January-- what will they talk about, now that 1:1 is dead? We shall see. I'm guessing "becoming a Marketing Service Provider (MSP)" will be a key topic. The Automated Solutions Network of the Printing Industries of America will feature a tour of Mimeo's Automated Document Factory in Memphis and a once-in-a-lifetime visit to the Fedex global hub, on January 31st. Automation needs to be a mantra in this industry, especially at a time when communicators in corporate America can go online and get their message out almost for free, in a split second. Vision 3 Summit, in February, where there is bound to much hand wringing regarding the number of business closures and "unforeseen" mergers going on in the business. I bet some deals will be done there! V3 will also no doubt see pundits telling the audience members to become Marketing Service Providers (MSPs)-- all you printers out there, let's cheer them on and while they are busy trying to compete with Facebook, Google and Groupon, we'll print all the stuff their customers used to print with them!

Moving on to more positive territory, the 64th Annual TAGA Conference will be held in Jacksonville in the middle of March, showcasing the industry's future through it's student competition, along with the industry's best and brightest scientists and academics. Immediately following that same week, DSCOOP7 will be held in Washington, DC, and is certain to be one of the most exciting events of the year. Drupa, the international trade fair in Germany, begins on May 3rd, and I think this year the most interesting stuff will be everything that is NOT a printing press(which is not to say there won't be exciting printing presses there.)

Then it's time to come home and execute on everything we've all learned. Stay tuned for more developments as these trends unfold.

Facebook is a Publisher

There has been a lot of press around the recent acquisition by Facebook of Push Pop Press, an iPad book creator founded by two former Apple employees, Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris. They are best known for publishing Al Gore's recent Our Choice, a book about climate change. I was actually surprised to hear about this particular acquisition. The company is very young, and while the technology looks cool, I wasn't totally blown away by it when I first looked.

But I haven't looked at the book that closely, and the fact that they won the prestigious Apple 2011 Design Award at the WWDC in June says something very significant about what they have accomplished.

Facebook is characterizing the acquisition as a talent and technology play, which does make a lot of sense. So now they are known in the tech world as people who are smart enough for Mark Zuckerberg to hire them!

From the statement:

"We're thrilled to confirm that we've acquired Push Pop Press, a startup whose groundbreaking software challenges the way people publish and consume digital content," Facebook said in a statement.

"We can't wait for co-founders Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris to get started and for some of the technology, ideas and inspiration behind Push Pop Press to become part of how millions of people connect and share with each other on Facebook."

The statement goes on to say that "Facebook isn’t planning to get into the digital book business..."

The fact is, Facebook is already significant publisher, with a huge audience. The way I read this acquisition, Push Pop is a different kind of book and Facebook is a different kind of publisher. Facebook has a global audience of 700+ million people (at this writing) to which it can push content of many forms. Facebook is, as an example, the defacto "publisher" of Zynga's games, if you look at the way their agreement is structured and where the game company's revenue comes from (this is now all over the web due to Zynga's planned IPO).

There are many moving parts in the publishing supply chain. I've been reading numerous analysis pieces lately about the changing role of the publisher, and how their ability to move books has been diminished by a variety of forces in the marketplace and technology. Clearly, "traditional" publishers are working very hard to re-invent themselves. One example that makes it quite clear here in New York is to look at what software developers are working on. Two years ago, developers in New York media engagements were working on the web. Today, they are working on iPad and mobile.

Back in early 2009 when David and I started this blog, one of the big trends we saw emerging was the idea that content increasingly originates on the web, then may or may not be printed. This acquisition is very much an example of that trend, and it's starting to accelerate. This kind of paradigm shift is a big reason why traditional publishers are freaking -- their employees mindsets, their workflows and their technology all target print intrinsically and first. I will look for some additional examples of this and do another post in the near future.

Facebook is clearly a lot more than a publisher porting their content to new technology platforms. Do they need to make "ebooks"? Why should they, when they can re-invent "publishing" by pushing rich content to a gigantic audience in a new, exciting and interactive way? This acquisition of Push Pop Press is only the beginning.

EFI Direct Mobile Printing

Today, EFI is in the news announcing that Canon is now supporting EFI's direct mobile print technology in their imageRUNNER ADVANCE lineup of color and black & white office systems utilizing Fiery-based imagePASS and ColorPASS controllers.

EFI's direct mobile print technology enables printing directly from Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod touch devices. Read the entire release regarding the Canon partnership on Whattheythink.

Apparently, software has also been available for a few months to support this with some Xerox devices, including the Color 550/560.

I didn't see an official announcement of this, but when I searched the web for this technology, I also found it referenced in an EFI datasheet about a product called EFI PrintMe Server, which apparently is a privately accessible version of PrintMe, or some kind of end-point for output of PrintMe-submitted jobs. The datasheet is a little unclear as to who the target market is-- it talks about "Your Customers", almost making it sound like "you" are a print for pay establishment, and your customers are going to mobile print to your "company". But the photo is of a MFP, so maybe you are a hotel (one of the core markets for the PrintMe service), and your customers are actually "guests." I guess I'm going to have to get someone at EFI to explain it to me!

Back to the point, though, this PrintMe Server apparently also includes Direct Mobile Printing to Xerox EIP-enabled MFPs without a mobile device application and without using the PrintMe Cloud. Xerox EIP MFPs are automatically discovered by the PrintMe Server software and presented as an available printer from within the user’s mobile application. See prior RichInternetPrinting blog posts for more discussion of mobile printing and Xerox EIP.

EFI PrintMe Emerges From Obscurity

Those of you who read this blog on a fairly regular basis may know that David and I have written a bit on the subject of mobile printing, notably from Smart Phones and Tablets. Our colleague Kin Lane, who is Mimeo's API Evangelist, joined forces with us this past winter to write a paper for TAGA, the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts, that provides an inventory of Cloud Printing technologies. The paper is primarily focused on Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print and HP ePrint, which are clearly the leaders in this area. That "semi-academic" treatise will be published in the TAGA 63rd Annual Technical Conference Proceedings, which will come out later in the summer. You can contact TAGA if you want a copy of it.

In addition to the things the "big three" are developing in this area, there are quite a few other smaller companies developing Cloud Printing technology and capabilities, and one we felt we had to at least mention in our paper was EFI. Unlike the three companies mentioned, EFI is not known for doing much in the mobile arena. But EFI actually invented the idea that has become the mobile component of "Cloud Printing", way back during the "dot com" era. They didn't use the term Cloud, because it hadn't been coined yet. Instead, they gave it a "fun dotcom" name, PrintMe. I'd venture to say that most people who ever knew about PrintMe don't know that it has continued to exist over the years since it's announcement in October 2001.



PrintMe was literally 10 years ahead of its time. It partnered EFI with leading companies like Adobe, who actually provided a button in Acrobat reader that connected to PrintMe, Sir Speedy, Xerox, and Yahoo, as well as early hotel Internet provider STSN (now iBAHN), and even Mimeo.com. For several reasons, including timing, the service never became as ubiquitous as would have befitted its innovative nature.

Perhaps in another post, we'll talk about all the reasons why PrintMe didn't achieve world domination the first time out, but let's focus on today and the future here. With the new excitement around the Cloud, and the emerging need for printing on mobile devices, it makes sense that EFI would restart marketing and make new investments in the development of this platform.

Originally, Printme was brought to market by a separate "Enterprise" team at EFI, with its own GM, etc. Today, according to a recent update from Cary Sherburne at Whattheythink.com, the technology is part of the Fiery group, led by Senior Vice President Toby Weiss. This should mean it will garner more resources, and be able to leverage EFI's world-leading technology, more than in the past 10 years.

In a press release from the original launch, PrintMe was described as “the first complete Internet printing solution that enables remote printing without requiring print drivers, cables or complex setup.” The company further described the solution as enabling "users to print documents from their personal computers, personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, two-way pagers and even cell phones by simply “dialing” in to any printer on the PrintMe Network.”

EFI has always been very forward-looking, and PrintMe is no exception. It was launched literally a decade ahead of its time. The message in that press release from so long ago is pretty much exactly what Google and HP are talking about in their Cloud Printing initiatives today. EFI could re-launch the service and pretty much just copy and paste the original press release into PR Newswire, with few edits!

PrintMe now appears to be poised to fulfill its original promise. A user sends their "print job" to PrintMe Cloud, and obtains a code which allows them to retrieve their output on a PrintMe enabled printer. This is similar to how other technologies are doing this now, although the need for a user to have a unique "code" that identifies their job, and requiring them to remember and enter that code somewhere is absent from other developer's implementations.

A unique feature of PrintMe is that it has a hardware component for the output device. EFI today says that "terminals" can be purchased for almost any copier/printer and can also be embedded in Fiery controllers. According to EFI, this makes the service brand agnostic, and allows it to work with any output device. Frankly I was surprised to read that this "feature" of the original service is still being offered today. In a world where every device is Internet-connected, and Printers have web browsers and touch screens, it seems a bit unnecessary and expensive to have additional hardware attached to a printer. Google Cloud Print, for example, offers similar support for legacy printers and can be supported with a tiny piece of software that can be embedded into any printer, as well. That same code snippet extends Google Cloud Print to other applications, as well, including opening it up to commercial printing applications-- something else EFI dabbled with back in the early days.

PrintMe is an enduringly cool idea and I am really looking forward to EFI's progress in this area. I hope they make the appropriate level of investment to get this adopted broadly because it is a huge opportunity. They invented this, and they deserve to capitalize on it. There is much more competition now from big companies who are similarly extremely innovative like EFI, so the bar has been raised.

EFI has proven over the years they are a tough competitor, so it's going to be interesting to see what they do!

Samsung and Mobile Printing

I must say that Samsung is not the first name I think of when it comes to printing. From my point of view, they have a pretty generic line of relatively low cost monochrome and color laser printers, for individual and workgroup applications. Nothing to get too worked up about in general. I do love their LCD screens, though, owning several of them.

And recently, they've made quite a splash with their Android phones and the Galaxy Tab. These have been well received, albeit not to the same degree as the iPhone and iPad, but that's at least partially because they don't have Steve Jobs whipping up the fan boys into a frenzy.

At CES (the Consumer Electronics Show), held in Las Vegas last week, Samsung introduced wireless mobile printing for Android, ala Apple's AirPrint. Apparently, this is not the first announcement of this kind for Android, with Motorola pre-announcing something called "Motoprint" at the CTIA (the cell phone industry's big confab) last October. This does not seem to be available yet, so we will stay tuned for that.

Samsung's MobilePrint app, as they call it, is available for both Android and iOS mobile devices to connect and print to Samsung wireless printers.

The press release, dated January 5th, 2011, claims that the apps will be free, and will be "built-in" to the Galaxy Tab beginning in 2011. The company claims the application will be compatible with all existing and new Samsung wireless and network printers.

I don't have much in the way of technical details, but the two things that set this announcement apart are the claimed backward compatibility (which is interesting but may also mean the actual printing functionality could be limited) and the availability of the app on both the Google and Apple platforms. Read the press release here.

iPad is... Printing (via AirPrint)

I must say I was pretty blown away when I first saw the Apple "iPad is Amazing" commercial, although since I've seen it about 1,000 times now, I find the music a little annoying. What impressed me about it initially is the fact that it starts out with an "iPad is..." premise, and the first thing it proclaims the iPad to be is, printing! I never doubted that Apple knew the lack of printing was a big gap at launch, but it's still nice to see them promoting it in a big way in a major TV commercial that has now been seen by millions and millions of people. And putting it before the other "amazing" things about the iPad, in fact, is kind of amazing. If you haven't seen the commercial, check it out on YouTube, here.

So let's talk for a moment about what makes this possible on the iPad, which is the technology called AirPrint, requiring Apple IOS 4.2 or later, and an HP ePrint-compatible printer. Today, AirPrint itself only works with HP printers that support ePrint (more on this later.)

According to HP, ePrint evolved from CloudPrint, an innovative technology created by HP Labs, the company's central research and development group. Apple AirPrint on an IOS 4.2 and later device (like an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad) finds printers on WiFi networks and then allows printing text, photos and graphics to them without the need to install drivers or special software.

iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users running IOS 4.2 and later will find a new print function within apps on their device. They can simply tap the "action" icon, then tap the "Print" button, configure printing options, then tap "Print".

A printer must be specifically ePrint enabled. Printing to a device attached to another computer is not possible with AirPrint. There are now several HP printers that support ePrint, and HP maintains a growing list of such devices. The latest one to catch my eye at this writing is the Laserjet Pro CM1415FNW, which is an amazing color laser desktop MFP, at a very attractive price, with an incredible feature set. I believe this is the first Laserjet to support ePrint, the other printers being inkjets. Get the datasheet here.

HP Web Print Roadshow Hits Hong Kong

Reuters and several other news agencies are covering the arrival of the HP Cloud Printing/Web Print roadshow in Hong Kong. I found a good interview with VJ by Yun-Hee Kim on the Wall Street Journal Blogs (read it here)and Reuters reported that HP plans an App Store focused on printing apps. The only thing I would take issue with is the characterization in the WSJ piece about this initiative being a "gamble" for HP, maybe it's just a language thing but I would say that these printers and even more important the ecosystem HP is creating, are a sure thing.

HP APP STORE (Clip from Reuters, their whole Reuters piece can be found here).

Like peers Nokia and Apple, Palo Alto- headquartered HP will launch its own version of an app store designed to work with its printers, enabling customers to print directly from the app.

The company will take 30 percent of the revenue gained from the store, with 70 percent going to the software developer.

"If we try to develop all the software from the U.S., it's going to take years," said Joshi, who has been with HP since 1980. "Because we are making it open, there'll be some smart young kid in college who'll figure out what is the best thing for printers."

PRINT IS GREEN!

Joshi also rubbished talk that the printer was on its way out as more people begin depending on computers for their communication and learning needs, and amid concern that increased use of paper was causing deforestation.

"Do you think this computer is more green than that?" he said, as he waved a piece of paper. "It is not. People are missing the whole point. This (paper) is more green than anything else."

-- End Reuters clip

I can tell you that my company, Mimeo, is very likely to put some exciting applications into that HP App Store over the next year.