Fit to Print

CIO, February, 2008 by Nancy Weil

It had 13,000 printers, copiers, fax machines and scanners for 43,000 employees. There was one device for every 2.5 employees, 10,000 print queues, and a tangle of IP addresses for the networked devices.

"When you look at the number of devices [in your enterprise], it's overwhelming and embarrassing," says Szymanski.

Most companies don't pay much attention to the amount they shell out for printing, not to mention the cost to procure, supply and maintain their fleet of imaging devices. "It tends to get overlooked because it's not sexy or up front," says Don Dixon, Gartner's research director for printing markets.

What's more, printing and imaging usually isn't controlled centrally in organizations. IT departments will be in charge of buying and installing printers because they run on the corporate network, while supply chain organizations or facilities departments will control purchasing supplies for those ...