I’ve blogged on how our market-leading print management software, HP Web Jetadmin, has reached an important milestone in celebrating its anniversary of 10 years in the market. That posting included noting the unveiling of HP Web Jetadmin 10.0, as the newest iteration of HP Web Jetadmin. HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 is available as of today, Wednesday, June 20th, and I think you’ll find it a considerable improvement over earlier versions. As I blow out the birthday candles on my virtual birthday cake, I want to comment on the new capability and features of this new software.
If your organization has more than a few Imaging & Printing (I&P) devices, you may have previously looked into printer management software solutions. If your environment has fewer than 30 devices and limited IT management resources, you might consider hp’s Easy Printer Care solution. If you have more devices than this and have dedicated IT management resources, you likely found that HP Web Jetadmin sets the “industry standard.” for managing devices on a network. As you’ll find in this HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 “sneak peek” from Industry Analysts, others recognize the value that “WebJet” delivers as well.
One of the biggest updates from HP Web Jetadmin 8.1 is that “WebJet 10” makes use of SQL Server, which has made the installation process even smoother. There’s also a Version 8.1 to 10.0 migration tool (so you don’t lose your settings, if you’ve already standardized on 8.1)! HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 also has been tested extensively with Microsoft Vista, which should help centrally-manage some of the printing challenges faced when deploying this OS.
The WebJet 10 installation process is completely automated--I&P device discovery on your network is really quite fast. WebJet 10 also automatically finds I&P devices that are connected directly to PCs on your network, whereas this used to require a plug-in. Other integral functionality that used to require plug-ins include: enhanced Report Generation, HP device Storage Manager, Authentication Manager and HP Driver Pre-configuration.
You can use the Report Generation tool to gain a handle on how many pages are being printed on which devices. This will be very important when the copier vendors show up, promising low cost per page when you print an absurdly high page count. You’ll likely find that, if you actually reached the high page counts the copier reps suggested, that it would make more sense to outsource those volumes, while keeping the rest of the print volume with networked, printer-based MFPs and single function printers deployed, in a distributed way, within your work teams.
If you’ve used Web Jetadmin previously, or are familiar with Microsoft Outlook, the new user interface (UI) will be quite intuitive. Screens are also customizable, as is the generation of ad hoc reports. We’ve also improved the administration capabilities of WebJet 10, taking user and group permissions from Windows’ Active Directory Services and LDAP—saving you lots of time if you’ve already set-up authentication and groups.
As Industry Analysts suggests, “if you’re already a Version 8.1 user, you will want to upgrade quickly to this new version." If you’re new to Web Jetadmin (or print management software entirely), you might want to download it for testing. Either way, I think you’ll find that print management has come a long way in the last decade.
I think you are going to like Web JetAdmin 10.0 and I would love to hear from you on ways we can improve our printer management solutions in the future . . .
Posted
06-19-2007 5:01 PM
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Anonymous