The ThinPrint Hub collaboration, which also involves NComputing on the hardware side, is not designed exclusively for larger enterprises, but those will likely be the ones who see the most value in it.

Berlin-headquartered print management services provider ThinPrint has announced ThinPrint Hub, which provides advances printing capabilities to the Citrix Ready Workspace Hub that makes it much easier to manage large and complex print environments. The solution is the result of a close collaboration with VDI management software provider Stratodesk, and also involved desktop virtualization vendor NComputing, which designed the hardware component around the Citrix Ready Workspace Hub.

“The whole idea started when Citrix Hub was released last year, and we talked with some of our larger customers with hundreds of remote sites,” said Henning Volkmer, ThinPrint’s President and CEO. “They really needed a remote management solution for the Citrix Hub. So at that point, we started to talk to Stratodesk because they have an endpoint management solution that can support this kind of scale. NComputing provided the hardware for the Citrix Hub design, so we further evolved the ecosystem for the project to bring NComputing into the mix. This put the three partners in the same boat who were in the best position to build this. We provide the printing hub, one central point which allows the management of the printing. NComputing builds the broader Workspace hub. And Stratodesk has the broader cohesive management solution.”

ThinPrint Hub facilitates secure, fast printing in remote locations and branch offices within larger organizations. It connects all network printers in remote locations to a central print system through a secure print tunnel that delivers files in a compressed, bandwidth-controlled fashion, which can also be encrypted if required. Location printer drivers in those locations are no longer required. ThinPrint Hub complements the Citrix Hub software, and can be managed with it through the Stratodesk software.

Volkmer said that ThinPrint Hub should not be seen exclusively as an enterprise product, because other organizations will be able to get value from it as well.

“However, the larger an organization scales, the easier it will be for them to see the value in this,” he indicated.

In theory, management through the Stratodesk No Touch Center isn’t an absolute necessity to make the ThinPrint Hub work, but Volkmer said that as a matter of practical convenience, the kind of larger customer likely to find ThinPrint Hub most attractive would opt for the Stratodesk management capabilities.

“What ThinPrint does is just focus on printing,” he said. “Stratodesk has a much broader portfolio where they can fully manage thin client devices. To scale ThinPrint Hub, Stratodesk is highly recommended. You could go the manual route if you wanted, but since enterprise locations tend to be geographically diverse, it would be incredibly inconvenient. You would have to go to every location.”

The joint solution is being displayed this week at the Citrix Summit event in Orlando at both the NComputing and Stratodesk booths.