BOSaNOVA to Distribute Printing Software from ThinPrint

Published: January 27, 2009

by Alex Woodie

BOSaNOVA last week announced the formation of a reseller partnership with ThinPrint, a German developer of software that claims to speed, secure, and simplify the process of initiating print jobs on servers (including System i servers) from thin client terminals. ThinPrint's offering, called .print, will be distributed by BOSaNOVA with its line of thin client terminals.

ThinPrint's software gives organizations more control over their printing environment--especially when print jobs are sent over the network to printers attached to thin clients. Because large print jobs can suck up a large percentage of total network bandwidth, it can be critical to restrict their network usage. Ensuring compatible print drivers on Citrix and Microsoft terminal services can also be a problem, which ThinPrint claims it solves with 100 percent driverless printing.

ThinPrint's .print is composed of two parts, including the .print Engine, which installs on the server, and the .print Client, which installs on the client or thin client device. Much of the actual work done by the product and the source of its benefits--including controlling network bandwidth allocated to printing, compressing print jobs by up to 99 percent, and encrypting the print job, if necessary--is performed within the .print Engine. A special version of the product, .print Engine AS/400, supports i OS host printing.

The .print Client, meanwhile, is responsible for receiving print data, decompressing and decrypting it, and sending it to the printer, which would typically be connected to the thin client. If there are only network printers at the remote location, then the .print Client can be installed on the local print server that controls them. ThinPrint has various versions of the .print Client component, including Windows, ActiveX, DOS, Java, Linux, MacOS, Solaris, and Windows Mobile.

ThinPrint has partnerships with many thin client manufacturers and resellers, and the addition of BOSaNOVA will make the printing capability more available to BOSaNOVA's predominantly System i-focused customers.

Martin Pladgeman, president of BOSaNOVA, sees real potential in the ThinPrint offerings. "ThinPrint has revolutionized printing for server-based computing," Pladgeman says in a press release. "We're always looking for ways to improve the customer experience with our thin clients. ThinPrint's .print solution does just that by reducing costs, faster printing, and simplified management."

For more information, visit the companies' Web sites at www.thinprint.com and www.bosanova.net.

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