PrintFleet Debuts MPS Breakthrough in Samsung MFPs

Oct 14, 2015 12:22:28 PM

By Jamie Bsales

There was plenty of news that came out of the Samsung National Dealer Meeting, but one of our favorite items on the show floor was something you couldn’t see. Lurking inside select Samsung A3 and A4 XOA-equipped MFPs is a fully functional data collection agent (DCA)—the utility at the heart of all MPS systems that communicates meter counts, device-status information, consumables levels and other pertinent information from the client site back to the dealer.

“This is a game-changer for dealers in how they track clicks.” –Eddie Castillo, Marketing Director of Printing Solutions for Samsung Business

An On-Board Data Collection Agent Means No Separate Utility Required
Typically, any such remote monitoring system requires the dealer to install a standalone utility on a PC or server on the customer’s network. But thanks to some wizardry by the developers at PrintFleet (a leading MPS platform provider), working in conjunction with Samsung engineers, that utility can now reside on a networked MFP. And the DCA doesn’t just report meter counts and other information for the MFP where it resides, it acts as the DCA for the client’s entire fleet—Samsung and third-party devices alike. That means placing just a single Samsung MFP at a client site gives a dealer a ready-to-go DCA that reports fleet usage to the dealer’s Samsung Print Plus Managed Print Services portal.

“This is a game-changer for dealers in how they track clicks,” said Eddie Castillo, marketing director of printing solutions for Samsung Business. Indeed, having a built-in DCA not only makes it easier to get up-and-running with an MPS client, it also eliminates the objection some customer IT administrators might have about loading a utility on a server or PC that then needs to remain on most of the time.

At the Samsung show, PrintFleet noted that the embedded DCA collects and reports meter and other data from both the public and private MIB (Management Information Base) of more than 25,000 output devices currently in the company’s database. Moreover, the embedded DCA acts just like PrintFleet’s PC/server-resident utility, delivering features such as granular meter collection, error reporting, automated toner replenishment (with estimates to when toner will be depleted based on historic usage patterns) and more. Plus, there’s an added bonus: Dealers now have a DCA that works in Apple OS X Server environments (most DCAs, including PrintFleet’s, need to run on a Windows machine).

PrintFleet may eventually roll out an embedded DCA on other OEM’s devices (the company was understandably reticent on that point at the Samsung show). But for now, this breakthrough convenience is available exclusively on Samsung hardware.