All Print Jobs To Go .PDF

Print system turns everything into PDF I saw this opinion by By James E. Gaskin - He describes a product from Ingenica that converts a print stream into a PDF's and the PDF "...becomes a print job that works on just about any Windows-supported printer. Still, have ink-jet printers on every desk, but can't convince your 5250 terminal emulation program to upgrade the driver and support those inkjets? UniPrint makes it happen..." This piece of information struck me because of a complicated implementation I recommended less than a year ago. When installing a "mini-fleet" of Canon devices( a few 5020i's, 105's, c518i 's, and some 5570's) we ran into some difficulty printing AS400 streams on the Canons. Yes, it can be done and was being done on one of the older Canons but we could not get consistent performance out of one of the newer units. 

 I think we could have used this product.(maybe) Anyway, what I find interesting is the ability to change any print stream or print job into a PDF. I do not know that much about the difference between printing a job out of Word vs printing to a .PDF format and printing the PDF but this sounds to me to be akin to a "universal print driver". More from James, "...Print streams, designed for locally attached printers, look pretty bloated compared with PDF print jobs. UniPrint says a one-page document may be 1MB of normal print-control language stream, but only about 100KB as a PDF file..." 

And now, all is clear to me. What was hanging my Canon up was the copier's inability to consistently interpret the print stream control characters; the copier would hang and wait for end-user intervention. Usually waiting for a paper tray selection. And something more - "...

Pricing will seem high for those companies that have never priced "grown-up" printing support: $3,999 for one Windows server for up to 60,000 printed pages per year. Those companies used to fighting ornery print streams and a lack of printer drivers for AS/400 systems will realize the price becomes an investment in better printing. And if the company has AS/400s or the like, "cheap" as a product description disappears.

It seems odd to charge for pages printed because computer people in small and midsize companies don't see that pricing model often. Yet those same companies pay for copiers on a sliding scale based on copy volume, so it won't be a total surprise..."

Now doesn't the above statement sum up one of the current issues in MPS?