
A large multinational company who has many, any sites, wants a MFP access control and pull print solution that does not rely on any server, fully works even if WAN connections are down and by the way it must ensure nobody prints emails in color…
The Tender Phase
While Celiveo was very busy working on that requirement, printer vendors were working hard to find how to answer those specifications, and we can say they have been very creative. The client finally made a short list with three vendors, that we will name A, B and C, from the least to the most expensive. In June he called vendor A for a POC (Proof of Concept) to verify the compliance of the overall solution with the specifications.Vendor A: the cheapest-ever solution is by far the most expensive option
Vendor A proposed solution E performing user authentication, pull-printing, rules based printing and tracking/reporting and claimed High Availability capability. Well, that could have made it except that there was one PC running the solution and two of those PC were needed on each site to provide WAN fault tolerance.
Can you remove the one or two PC from each branch without losing high-availability, rules based printing and fault tolerance?

No, but looks at our solution price, it is 30% cheaper than other solutions, and with multiple servers we can provide High Availability, that’s a no-brainer…



Vendor B: an innovative approach, but not the one that was expected…
Vendor B was called for his Proof of Concept the following month. But after hearing about the failure of Vendor A, vendor B came up with a very innovative offer:
You want no solution server and to control usage of color? Forget about the solution, with us you get color pages at the same low price as Black & White pages!



Our cost per page is probably at least 20% cheaper than any of our competitors, you won’t find a better offer…


Vendor C: Celiveo ZeroServer in action
Vendor C is the one who contacted Celiveo when the tender was issued. By the time the customer asked vendor C for a Proof Of Concept the solution was fully ready with user authentication, pull printing, serverless rules-based-printing and tracking, all that without any application or print server and with High Availability.
Conclusion
High Availability and ZeroServer make the cost per page virtually irrelevant, it is so low compared to the cost of the print infrastructure. Companies vastly underestimate the cost of servers and the recent release of a server calculator by Microsoft is a very good news for companies (https://www.tco.microsoft.com). Celiveo has released a TCO and ROI calculator that will also help clients to understand the deep financial impact of servers, failures and support (https://www.celiveo.com/tco-roi-calculator).