News
HP & LRS Form Alliance
Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Levi, Ray & Shoup (LRS), a provider of enterprise host print-management solutions, have formed an alliance designed to enhance the services and solutions offered to customers by both companies by combining HP’s expertise in network printing with LRS’ host output printing-solution expertise. Together, the companies will help customers who are struggling to integrate their host and LAN printing environments.
Under this new alliance, HP Digital Workplace Services (DWS) printing and imaging professional services will recommend and implement LRS’ VPS enterprise-management software as part of its host print-services offerings. This solution is ideal for customers who require centralized control over their entire enterprise print environment. By simplifying and streamlining distributed host and LAN print environments, this solution builds greater productivity and efficiency into multi-tiered printing systems.
"We’ve seen a trend in which organizations want to migrate internal production reports off central printers to LAN printers in an effort to deliver critical information closer to users," says John Curtis, Consulting Manager for HP’s Digital Workplace Services Division. "They are seeking outside expertise on how to do it simply and efficiently."
HP and LRS teamed to create a flexible and reliable enterprisewide print solution for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (IDHW). The state agency’s former printing environment included mainframe and numerous network-printing systems that ran throughout 100 locations across the state of Idaho. IDHW’s various distributed print systems overlapped, and it became difficult and costly to manage and support this complicated print environment.
After conducting an in-depth analysis of IDHW’s entire print environment, HP designed a new print architecture that consolidated its previous multiple print architectures into one unified architecture. HP implemented LRS’ VPS enterprise-management software to provide a single point of control for their enterprise printing. The new printing solution allows users across the state to print files generated on the mainframe or on the network to the department printer closest to them. In addition, the state agency now has a single point of control that allows it to determine its costs and to maintain and support the environment more easily and with fewer resources.
"HP offered us more than HP product expertise by providing the ability to analyze our entire printing environment, regardless of the software and hardware brand we were using. They also brought the industry knowledge to bring in the right solution partner, such as LRS," says Jerry Bassett, Administrator for IDHW’s Information Technology Services.
HP’s host print services are part of a portfolio of professional services, delivered by HP’s Digital Workplace Services, that provide customers with greater information-management capabilities through consulting, system integration, education and outsourcing. HP offers consulting and system-integration services around printing and imaging, with specific expertise in distributed printing, host printing and Enterprise Resource Planning output management. HP also offers outsourcing through its Managed Print Services program. The services are available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands.
More information on HP Digital Workplace Services is available at www.printservices.hp.com; more information on LRS is available at www.lrs.com.