Kofax has built a comprehensive solutions offering to help organisations digitally transform content-intensive workflows, centred around its Intelligent Automation platform. Now, with the launch of its industry-first integrated print and capture solution Printix 2.0, the company is poised to help channel partners capitalise on the massive opportunity available in cloud. In this Q&A, Matt Hill, Vice President, Sales – UK, Ireland & Nordics explains how the company has continued to strengthen its cloud portfolio and shares more details about Printix 2.0 the latest edition of its cloud print management SaaS offering.
PrintIT Reseller (PITR): Kofax has earned a strong reputation as a credible automation platform. In the past couple of years, you have significantly strengthened your cloud portfolio, adding content management software and solutions as well as cloud-based print management capabilities. Cloud adoption has obviously grown exponentially as a result of the pandemic, is this where the business’ focus lies?
Matt Hill (MH): Kofax has a long heritage in capture, digital workflow transformation and in cloud. We identified the opportunity in cloud quite some time ago, almost four years ago we launched TotalAgility Cloud, a SaaS version of our market-leading capture and automation solution which provides a unified interface to manage business processes end-to-end through a cloudnative platform. The acquisition of Printix in 2021 added cloud-based print management capabilities to the Kofax Intelligent Automation platform and significantly increased the potential for our partner ecosystem to support their customers as they migrate legacy on-premise infrastructure to the cloud. The cloud continues to empower Kofax document automation and security solutions, creating new flexible services that reduce the typical backoffice burden that comes with running an on-premise infrastructure.
PITR: In today’s mobile-first world, businesses have fast-tracked their digital transformation to meet the changing needs of a distributed workforce. Is modernising print now a key priority for cloud-first organisations? How do you manage the security of cloud-first model?
MH: There has been a definite surge in cloud adoption as a result of the pandemic; resistance to change took a back seat as companies worldwide rapidly moved core applications to the cloud to achieve the scalability, agility and flexibility they needed to conduct business as usual in the most unusual of circumstances. The cloud is an important enabling technology that underpins an organisation’s digital transformation journey and there is no doubt that cloud-based print infrastructure is the future for modern organisations.
With Printix 2.0 Kofax is delivering everything an organisation needs to modernise print and document management in today’s digital-driven environment. Printix enables businesses to easily deploy, automate and maintain the print and capture piece of their digital transformation, to save both time and money, and that’s a real business value-add. Kofax document automation and security helps automate the process of all your printing needs while keeping your data secure. Printix delivers the cloud security by protecting the data in scanned and printed documents from accidental or deliberate exposure using authentication, encryption, auditable history and industry-specific compliance requirements.
Whereas integrating content-aware print and capture technology through Controlsuite helps our customers transform the flow and understanding of captured and printed information and documents. And security is only one of the advantages of combining Printix and Controlsuite. Not all customers are in a position to move to cloud print management today, however they want to start their transition mid-contract and by incurring minimal cost. Our Modern Agile Print (MAP) Strategy allows customers to transition naturally to cloud providing a hybrid step where they realise the best of both worlds. Timing is in their control, in line with their innovation needs and ongoing requirements.
PITR: Kofax pledged to continue to market, develop, support and increase investments in the Printix business when it announced the acquisition in 2021. The launch of Printix 2.0 delivers on this promise, tell us a bit more about that.
MH: Printix is a true cloud-native print management service which provides customers with an easy path to migrate to a hybrid or full cloud environment. The platform enables office users to print from any device to any network printer whenever they want, with minimal or no entry barriers. Offering customers flexibility and scalability between home and office. We have invested heavily in developing the platform since the acquisition and the launch of this latest edition which features a number of new enhancements, including new capabilities that take us beyond print into capture, is the culmination of that effort.
PITR: What are the highlights of the new release?
MH: Printix 2.0 not only eliminates print servers from network infrastructure and replaces them with a secure, cloudmanaged print infrastructure, but it also delivers next-generation integrated capture, which is a real differentiator. The latest release supports single sign-on (SSO) with Microsoft Azure Active Directory and can be deployed with Microsoft Endpoint Manager. The product is scalable by design and can handle any number of users, printers and multifunction devices, for flexible direct, secure printing, mobile printing, and document capture workflows. One of the highlights of the latest edition is Printix Capture and Workflow.
On selected multifunction printers with Printix Go, end-users can enable and use Printix Capture to deliver scanned documents to their selected workflow destination, or alternatively use the Printix App on smartphones to capture and deliver images and PDFs to workflow destinations. Printix Go already supports Ricoh, HP, Xerox, Epson, Konica Minolta and Lexmark devices and we have now added support for HP Workpath and Kyocera printers and MFPs. Printix Go integrates with the printer’s touchscreen control panel, offering secure print release, card-based authentication, copy control and more.
With Printix Go, end-users can securely release print jobs using a card or ID code at any printer in the print environment. We have also simplified print management. Printix Administrator allows organisations to centrally manage printers from web browsers and connect new printers from a smartphone, tablet or computer in just minutes. From an end-users’ perspective, the solution is intuitive and easy to use, for example one of the features is automatic printer discovery. Printix allows users to automatically discover the print network and integrate printers and drivers or deploy and remove printers and print queues when users change.
We have also added Print Anywhere and Print Later capabilities which enable users to release documents from the Printix App when they arrive at the printer, or release documents to a printer anytime with the Print Later feature.
PITR: Kofax obviously has a wellestablished network of OEM and independent dealer partners, are you looking to engage with more partners and encourage them to build the Printix platform into their offering?
MH: Adopting cloud-based print management is a critical step in building a decentralised, future-proof IT infrastructure. We are seeing more and more companies looking for a serverless solution that enables them to shift their printing and capture needs away from individual devices and onto cloud-based servers and we are naturally keen to support channel partners in enabling their customers to leverage the benefits of a SaaS solution. Printix 2.0 is designed to provide a complete print infrastructure and environment for improved efficiency, productivity and cost savings. Printix bolsters all-cloud strategies for organisations and eliminates the need for print server infrastructure, while the SaaS model delivers quick provisioning and customer onboarding with no installation and configuration complexities.
PITR: That sounds good, but how can the channel get involved in this new release? What does this mean for their business?
MH: Printix is a true channel-centric solution and importantly we’re not just providing cloud print – it’s cloud print and capture. That’s a big differentiator. We appointed Dave Thompson about a year ago, he is a true veteran in the market and he’s driving our UK Dealer go-to-market strategy, engaging with resellers and communicating all of the value that the combined Kofax offering brings, as we move to increase adoption within the channel. As Dave often says to me, by our team raising the subject with the client we are leading the conversation rather than reacting to a situation.
Printix allows us broaden our conversations enabling our partners to offer different services which opens up other opportunities with our customers. Our messaging is clear: we can help dealers address customers’ real problems, protect their customer base by digging deeper into their workflows and thus increase stickiness, as well as drive more margin. Our focus is firmly on enabling partners to capitalise on the fast growing, cloud-based SaaS print management software market, and we’ve got a powerful combined print automation solution with Printix and ControlSuite, that can be delivered in a hybrid model that will help them do exactly that.
