Canon Photocopiers 'On the Cloud' - What's the Point?

Canon recently launched a new software product for its award-winning imageRUNNER Advance photocopiers - Cloud Connect - a feature which allows Canon photocopiers to be connected with leading cloud-based services. But what possible benefits could connecting a stationary photocopier to a cloud-based service have? Is this a technological breakthrough or more technological breakdown?

Cloud Computing

In the last few years a new genre of technology has emerged as the chief means by which individuals and organisations store and distribute their documents. Cloud-computing is essentially a technology which enables IT infrastructure and services to be accessed over the internet, in 'real time'. There is now a whole gamut of cloud-based applications and services but for typical user and organisational document requirements, Google's Google Docs and Microsoft SharePoint have become the most widely-used services. Very basically these cloud-based services allow users to store or pull documents from a 'cloud' or web-based service, accessible from any web-enabled device. In an era in which many more workers are now travelling with their jobs or working from a number of locations and a time also of much more advanced computing technology, cloud-based services have effectively broken down the physical boundaries of the office, enabling important documents to be accessed from anywhere and important information to be made available to office workers from-the-cloud as well.

But Canon Photocopiers 'On-the-Cloud'?

The idea of the humble photocopier being connected to a new-fangled 'cloud' service may occur to some as a fairly unecessary over-technologisation of what should be a straightforward and relatively simple part of the office furniture. What tangible benefits could such a feature possibly bring?

In actual fact, while CloudConnect is no technological revolution, it does significantly enhance the usage possibilities for any Canon imageRUNNER Advance photocopiers. CloudConnect enables users of imageRUNNER Advance Canon photocopiers to connect directly with leading cloud services from their device interface. It also means those Canon photocopiers can be accessed from cloud services, so wherever there is a link to the internet, files on either Google Docs or Microsoft SharePoint may be printed off at a CloudConnect-enabled imageRUNNER Advance Canon photocopier/MFP.

This improvement in photocopiers technology really does give mobile workers an extra edge. While previously, for someone working from home or travelling with their work, locating and sending important documents to a colleague in the office for example, might have required accessing a PC to find a file on the hard-drive or plugging in aUSBcard and then (only where there is internet access) sending files by email to the colleague to download and print, a CloudConnect enabled imageRUNNER Advance photocopier combined with a cloud service, such as Google Docs, enables a mobile worker to effectively "order" documents to be printed out at a chosen photocopier and from any web-enabled device, be that a conventional PC/laptop (with an internet connection) or an iPhone, Android phone, iPad, PDA, whatever it happens to be...

Looking at this from the angle of someone in an office location with a CloudConnect Canon photocopier available, rather than printing or sending a scanned document to a PC or a number of locations on a network, CloudConnect gives users the ability to scan a document to a potentially universally-accessible cloud location, such as Google Docs or Microsoft SharePoint. This means that documents, rather than being effectively 'land-locked' to a specific hard drive or internal intranet, are readily available to whoever is permitted to access them and at any and from any internet-enabled device. Colleagues, who may be out of the office or in a meeting for example, can access these documents from their mobile device, wherever they happen to be and whenever it suits them.

Photocopiers/MFP's are that crucial point in the office where digital information materializes into paper and conversely where media may be scanned-in and transformed into digital information. CloudConnect is really a way of fully-capitalising on that existing scanning and printing technology by making the photocopier/MFP or the information that is scanned into it, through a cloud-based service, universally accessible. It may be no technological breakthrough but CloudConnect makes Canon photocopiers far more readily accessible to mobile users than they've been in the past and the documents that are scanned into them, immediately and easily available for users anywhere with a connection to the internet. The technology will likely have a big impact on the way that IT professionals organise company workflows in which Canon photocopiers feature and it should come as no surprise if other major photocopiers manufacturers soon start to follow-suit.

For further information on CloudConnect, the latest Canon photocopiers and photocopier leasing, please contact Falcon.

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Canon Photocopiers 'On the Cloud' - What's the Point?