PaperCut inspires channel partners to capitalise on modern print management opportunities
The PaperCut Partner Summit delivered an extensive and detailed vision for its ‘Shaping the Future’ strategy, outlining its vision for modern print management to over 5,000 global partners.
The event commenced with a comprehensive overview of the market landscape, followed by a detailed overview of PaperCut’s product roadmap. Quocirca’s market insights highlighted specific opportunities around cloud transformation and areas such as ARM device support, driverless printing and print queue management. The summit concluded with updates on go-to-market strategies and the development of instrumental tools designed to address evolving customer requirements.
Responding to a transformative era
Quocirca CEO Louella Fernandes set the scene for the partner summit, highlighting five interconnected trends of: AI-fuelled technology refreshes; rising cloud adoption; the growing threat landscape; accelerating digitisation; and environmental concerns. She emphasised the need for rapid business change in the print sector in response to the software-defined print industry era, moving to predictive and proactive business models.
Louella shared Quocirca research data showing that print management is still a significant pain point for customers, who suffer a lack of visibility and control, plus high costs and security risks. Businesses that can solve this problem, while also demonstrating how intelligent print management can reduce risk, lower environmental impact, and reduce cost, will be pushing at an open door.
Product roadmap update
Acknowledging the shifting landscape, including the rise in the deployment of ARM devices and the influence of security and sustainability on decision-making, Matt Coad noted the symbiotic relationship between on-premise solution PaperCut MF and cloud-native PaperCut Hive.
MF25 will launch soon, featuring enhancements specifically designed to support scan workflows, allowing customers to capture critical information at the point of the scan. The scanning address book will be simplified, and authentication and ID enhanced with support for OKTA and Ping Identity. In a market where scan volumes are expected to increase by 8% (Quocirca research) in the coming year, this is a strong move.
Describing PaperCut MF as the “Swiss army knife of print management”, Willem Groenewald reminded the audience that support for Windows Protected Print was added in 2024, and that ARM64-based devices are also supported, giving partners the opportunity to solve problems for early adopters who find that traditional printer drivers are not compatible.
Keith O’Brien Head of Cloud Software introduced updates to PaperCut Hive that are designed to meet industry demands for zero trust security, sustainability, and automation, helping partners win in target customer verticals such as education. Additional features include:
- Print quotas: enabling administrators to easily manage budgets, with automated tracking and scheduled reporting.
- Single Sign On for Chromebooks: popular in education, this feature enables straightforward deployment for Chromebook users.
- Cloud print deployment: PaperCut Hive can be deployed directly with find-me queues detected from the cloud, meaning the right print queue lands on the right device for the right user at the right time. For partners, this means they don’t need to wait for hardware refreshes to start the conversation about PaperCut Hive.
Later in the year, PaperCut will launch bulk queue management, IPP end-to-end with finishing, plus advanced options for Chromebook.
The transitional opportunity for PaperCut partners
CEO Chris Dance and Principal Product Manager Willem Groenewald shared how PaperCut partners can capitalise on industry shifts.
They noted that while the shift to driverless print is accelerating with Microsoft Universal Print, PaperCut estimates that 30% of printers are not ready and cannot offer advanced features like hole punching and stapling over IPP. Nor are new ARM devices compatible with traditional drivers.
PaperCut believes it is perfectly positioned to help the industry by providing support for modern printers, but also backwards-compatibility with non-WPP-ready devices. It also points to the security challenges inherent in operating multi-generational print fleets and difficulties in implementing zero trust, and how PaperCut seeks to bring its products to older devices without compromising security.
The print queue deployment opportunity
Pointing to Quocirca’s research figures revealing IT decision-maker pain points around driver management, print queue deployment and the risks of outdated drivers, PaperCut believes there is a huge partner opportunity in helping customers eliminate the administration, cost, and risk associated with manual print queue deployment through its Print Deploy solution . This is available in both MF and Hive , helping customers no matter where they are on their cloud journey.
As such, PaperCut partners can open the door to broader conversations about its full suite of capabilities.
Go-to-market models: Unified subscription
PaperCut gave partners an update on adoption of its unified subscription model, underlining the price parity between MF and Hive options which means customers can decide what is right for them without price being a factors. This is a long term strategy – PaperCut is backing the cloud shift, but understands that some customers are not there yet.
With Unified Subscription partners benefit from higher lifetime value, a predictable sales cycle and simplified renewals, as well as an easier product sale because they can meet customers where they are, but provide options for cloud in future.
The summit concluded with a look at channel enablement programmes and where AI is being deployed to assist partners in building and leveraging PaperCut expertise.
Quocirca opinion
PaperCut demonstrated a thorough understanding of its market, customer base, and partner ecosystem at this summit, which was designed to motivate partners to capitalise on identified opportunities. Each opportunity presented was clearly aligned with PaperCut’s capabilities in addressing current market challenges, and the underlying message emphasised the timeliness of partner engagement.
PaperCut’s strategy regarding the transition to cloud-based and evolving print technologies appears pragmatic. The company acknowledges that customer readiness for cloud adoption or significant technology shifts varies. Consequently, PaperCut has positioned its offerings to support customers at their current stage of digital maturity while providing a clear roadmap for their future technological progression.
