Wi-Fi Enabled Printer Processes Documents E-mailed from Laptops, Handhelds and Smartphones.
Any road warrior will tell you that meeting clients and filing reports in the comfort of their local coffee shop beats FedEx-Kinko’s -- until they need to hit “print.”
Access to a no-hassle high-end color printer is a key differentiator for coffee shops that welcome traveling executives, America’s 14.7 million job seekers, students and realtors who spend their afternoons doing business.
PrinterOn Corp., of Kitchener, Ontario, a global provider of printing solutions for the mobile user at hotel chains, airport clubs, public libraries, universities and corporate offices is now offering its technology to coffee shops, beginning with Williams Coffee Pubs, headquartered in Brantford, Ontario.
This isn’t a Bluetooth, infrared, sneaker-net, thumb-drive, stand-in-line-while-strangers-read-your-output solution. The firm has teamed up with a world-class printer manufacturer, to let you print exactly what you need in more than 100 different file formats. Half of the print volume comes from BlackBerry® and iPhone® users who e-mail documents directly to the shop’s printer without client-side software.
Williams CEO Dean Braund is an early adopter of business-friendly technology within his 45-store Ontario, Canada chain.
“Williams’s customers have long enjoyed our free wireless Internet and our pilot test of wireless printing has been a tremendous success with our customers,” says Braund, who is overseeing the re-branding of the chain to Williams Fresh Café this fall.
“The team at Williams recognizes the growing demographic of road warriors whose offices are mobile,” adds Williams Business Development Director Lisa Adams. “Business clientele have come to rely on Williams as their stop of choice for the morning meeting or working lunch due to the FreeSpot.”
Beginning this fall Williams will include additional healthy options to the menu and upgrade customer service to meet the needs of discerning business guests, she says.
PrinterOn’s system lets customers either e-mail documents or upload via the PrinterOn Web application, which formats it correctly and routes it to the nearest coffee shop where a color printer with an ATM-like key pad awaits. Customers simply enter a confirmation code to print. Shop owners collect 29- to 79-cents per page. If circumstances arise preventing a customer from visiting the shop, their electronic documents are securely trashed within 72 hours.
“This is plug-and-play,” says Ken Noreikis, vice president, sales & marketing for PrinterOn. The software is housed in the Ricoh HotSpot printer. Just connect it to the Internet and it configures in 10 minutes. Hilton Garden Inn, which has installed PrinterOn at more than 400 properties, report guests return again and again to use the service, he says.
If you need to locate a shop with a HotSpot printer, simply query PrinterOn’s Web site for locations and an online application directs potential customers to your shop. Best of all, the printer accepts several different media so that shops can do their own menus, tabletop promotions, fliers and window stickers in-house.