Earlier this month, Gartner predicted that 2014 will see nearly 1.9 billion mobile phone shipments, furthering the need for such services as mobile printing. As we move into February, advancements in mobile printing are keeping up with the fast pace of the New Year, starting with our own announcements in the space. This week, we are pleased to announce key enhancements to PrintMe Cloud and the M500 Self-Serve Copy and Print Station.

Last year, we saw the number of active, unique users of EFI PrintMe Cloud triple. We are meeting this strong demand with the global expansion of our cloud printing solution, including new apps and drivers, more locations to print and additional language support, making it even easier for users to print on-the-go.

More mobile devices mean more users requiring access to photos and documents anywhere, anytime. But how can they bring these virtual documents into the physical realm? PrintMe Cloud provides people with the flexibility and convenience to easily print from their mobile devices at hotels, convention centers, airports, college campuses, office superstores and other retail and business locations. Now, users have more ways to locate a public printer from an expanding list, including approximately 500 U.S. Staples stores. In addition, we have extended language support for PrintMe to accommodate users in nine languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese and Japanese. PrintMe users can also take advantage of additional mobile printing enhancements, such as:

• New iPhone/iPad and Android applications allow mobile users to print documents, photos or web pages from their mobile device. They can also access and print documents stored on various popular cloud tools, such as Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive), SugarSync and 4shared.
• Windows and Mac laptop or desktop users can install one convenient print driver in order to send documents or web pages to PrintMe Cloud.
• Users of any mobile device can also email a document to print@printme.com or upload to the PrintMe.com website.
• A new locator service on the mobile application uses GPS or a search function to find the nearest print location presented on a map or in a list. The PrintMe.com website has a location-based search feature with both a map and a list of locations.

We have also made improvements to our M500 Self-Serve Copy and Print Station – the industry’s only self-serve and payment system that allows printing from mobile phones, iPads, USB drives and cloud accounts at a variety of locations, including retail print and office supply stores, hotels, libraries, college campuses and government offices. The introduction of EFI Self-Serve AdminCentral, makes it is even easier to configure and manage the M500 system. This new cloud-based management system enables administrators to securely set up and manage each individual M500 station or all stations at once online. Configuring devices, adding services and setting prices and tax rates are just a few features that can be easily controlled with EFI Self-Serve AdminCentral. Administrators can also generate detailed sales and usage reports, monitor real-time device status and update device software online.

The momentum of mobile device demands and the need to properly manage these demands fueled our recent product enhancements. PrintMe Cloud updates and the new EFI Self-Serve AdminCentral mark two solutions which support the ever-changing mobile printing landscape.

Are you interested in deploying a mobile printing solution in your enterprise? Check out EFI’s PrintMe Mobile to learn how mobile printing can help your business.