Apple's iPad driving accelerated enterprise transition away from printing

Posted:
in iPad edited January 2014


A new analysis shows that the adoption of tablets in the enterprise, led largely by Apple's iPad, is having an accelerating impact on the decline corporate printing.



Investment bank Morgan Stanley said Tuesday in a note to investors that the rapid ascent of tablets for business use has adversely affected printing by more than it had originally predicted. Last February, a Blue Paper from the company predicted an 8-15 percent decline in printing, but a new survey shows cuts as deep as 16 percent due to increased tablet use combined and company measures to curtail printing.



The firm surveyed 700 tablet users in the U.S. about how the devices affect their printing behavior at work. 46 percent of respondents said they printed less, with 13 percent indicating that they printed 16 percent less after owning a tablet.



41 percent of tablet users said they viewed print reduction as a "main benefit" of tablet adoption, according to the survey. Among respondents who said they printed significantly less, 79 percent chose decreased printing as the key benefit of the tablet.



As a result of the move away from printing, analyst Katy Huberty predicts a roughly 3 percent decline in developed market laser supplies. She noted that Lexmark, Ricoh and Konica Minolta, which all have exposure in corporate laser printing, are the most "structurally challenged" by the drop. Fujifilm, Canon and HP could also see minor negative impacts.



Huberty went on to claim that the increase of "bring your own device" corporate policies will put "rising pressure" on printing in the enterprise. A Morgan Stanley survey of CIOs from last month revealed that 48 percent of them expect to allow tablets on company networks this year, up from 16 percent last January. That number is expected to increase even further to 66 percent by January 2013.











Company efforts to cut back on printing have also contributed significantly to a reduction. The investment bank's survey showed that 75 percent of participants printed less after their employers instituted print curtailment tactics.



CIOs have indicated plans to cut print-related spending by as much as 34 percent this year, Huberty reported. By comparison, an earlier survey from April 2011 had suggested plans for an 18 percent drop on average over 12 months.



As evidence of tablet devices' direct impact on the printing industry, Huberty pointed out that printing and writing paper demand in the U.S. has fallen 9 percent since the iPad was first released in April 2010. As of the fourth quarter of 2011, paper demand is down a total of 24 percent since it reached a peak in 2006.











"The potential 16% downside risk reported in our survey does not seem unrealistic given recent paper trends," Huberty told investors.



The analyst described tablet penetration in the enterprise as "nascent," while noting that rapid growth is taking place. Citing figures from IDC, she noted that the percentage of tablets in the enterprise as compared to the entire tablet market has risen to 5.6 percent, up from 0.8 percent in first quarter of 2010, the quarter before Apple released the iPad.











Huberty also quoted Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer as saying the iPad has experienced "unprecedented adoption in business" during a recent quarterly earnings conference call. According to Oppenheimer, nearly all of the top Fortune 500 companies are actively using iPads.



According to one recent enterprise study, Apple has a dominant market share in the industry. Enterprise mobile services vendor Good Technology found the iPad to have an unrivaled 96 percent share of tablets in the fourth quarter of 2011.



Apple sold a record 15.43 million iPads in the December 2011 quarter. Estimates from one market research firm noted Apple's global market share during the period as 58 percent.



[ View article on AppleInsider ]

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 47
    I hadn't thought of this before but I can clearly see how a tablet would reduce the need for a lot of printed materials in ways the emails and network shares couldn't.



    PS: The last thing Kodak had was printing and now that is also dwindling.
  • Reply 2 of 47
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post




    PS: The last thing Kodak had was printing and now that is also dwindling.



    Funny you should say that, Apple is going for the throat.



    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...ringement.html



    I realize this suit is about camera tech and image previews but it does't change the fact that Apple is serious about protecting their IP and they obviously don't care about kicking Kodak while they're down.



    That's business!



    Edit: I wonder what the printer patent is about.
  • Reply 3 of 47
    jd_in_sbjd_in_sb Posts: 1,600member
    Because very few printers are compatible with the iPad.
  • Reply 4 of 47
    I worked with a bullet head that printed out all his emails.. even the spam.



    I have a hunch that if he was given an iPad he's have it over on the Xerox machine... face down.
  • Reply 5 of 47
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Well, it seems as though Greenpeace should take this into consideration when issuing its reports.
  • Reply 6 of 47
    I used to be a software consultant at AT&T Wireless and let's just say each person just working on the Call Center Suite and testing [excluding the actual consultants--just regular full-time AT&T Staff] would print out reams of Call Center Documentation Updates, two to three times a week.



    The Doc was between 500-1000 pages. Instead of printing out an Addendum, they'd rip out a fresh copy.



    They wasted so much paper. They are the perfect example of using an iPad and getting documentation updates via an enterprise app.
  • Reply 7 of 47
    2oh12oh1 Posts: 503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jd_in_sb View Post


    Because very few printers are compatible with the iPad.



    Uhm, no. Do you own an iPad? The correct answer is: because you can hold it, view it and share it, there and then.



    I'm not in the corporate world, but I'm certainly printing less since I bought an iPad, especially when it comes to presentations.
  • Reply 8 of 47
    2oh12oh1 Posts: 503member
    P.S. I'm sorry if that came off as harsh. I don't mean to be rude, but so many of the answers which seem obvious actually are not.
  • Reply 9 of 47
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 2oh1 View Post


    Uhm, no. Do you own an iPad? The correct answer is: because you can hold it, view it and share it, there and then.



    I'm not in the corporate world, but I'm certainly printing less since I bought an iPad, especially when it comes to presentations.



    I'm in the enterprise as an IT manager, and yes, I do own an iPad. jd_in_sb is quite correct. Most corporate printers do not support printing direct from the iPad. We have a lot of people with iPhones, no-one prints from them because none of our printers will work with them. It's the same with the iPad. Our wireless setup is quite complex (much more so than my home one!) and therefore making it work, or at least trying is difficult.
  • Reply 10 of 47
    The other issue is that Bluetooth Printing is not supported with iPhone or iPad...

    My wife was never so disappointed in her iPhone as when she couldn't print to her Pogo!

    (you can do it via a Mac but that is clumsy and cumbersome)



    Why is Bluetooth Printing not supported on iDevices??
  • Reply 11 of 47
    bageljoeybageljoey Posts: 2,004member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    I hadn't thought of this before but I can clearly see how a tablet would reduce the need for a lot of printed materials in ways the emails and network shares couldn't.



    Actually, it is rather obvious, if you think about it. Have you ever seen anyone on Star Trek working off of a paper document or printing out a report? The future has been plain to see for several decades...

  • Reply 12 of 47
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigbadrobbo View Post


    I'm in the enterprise as an IT manager, and yes, I do own an iPad. jd_in_sb is quite correct. Most corporate printers do not support printing direct from the iPad. We have a lot of people with iPhones, no-one prints from them because none of our printers will work with them. It's the same with the iPad. Our wireless setup is quite complex (much more so than my home one!) and therefore making it work, or at least trying is difficult.



    So why are documents on the devices in the first place?



    They should be held on secure servers with iPads/iPhones accessing them remotely via an encrypted connection.



    This has the added benefit of wasting as much paper as you want with printing from the server.



    As an IT manager you are there to solve problems, not create them.
  • Reply 13 of 47
    The business world is incredibly slow moving. For years people have been complaining about printing support but they don't realize the iphone and ipad are devices of the future, where printing is marginalized.



    This is a small part of the problem, the business culture is full of inefficiencies, ugly, bloated, with crappy UX software and dogma. Thankfully the recent inroads of consumer products and mentality in the BW, spearheaded by iphone and ipad, will spread the 'consumer oriented' culture.
  • Reply 14 of 47
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    I hadn't thought of this before but I can clearly see how a tablet would reduce the need for a lot of printed materials in ways the emails and network shares couldn't.



    PS: The last thing Kodak had was printing and now that is also dwindling.



    Ya' know, that makes me think...



    Last night on the news they showed the President presenting published and bound books of the nation's budget...



    Unsearchable, likely difficult/impossible to read and annotate/reference/share in any meaningful way... about as anachronistic as the phone book or Sears Catalog.



  • Reply 15 of 47
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    Ya' know, that makes me think...



    Last night on the news they showed the President presenting published and bound books of the nation's budget...



    Unsearchable, likely difficult/impossible to read and annotate/reference/share in any meaningful way... about as anachronistic as the phone book or Sears Catalog.







    A stack of bound books is meant to look impressive. I guess it wouldn't have the same impact if he just waved an ipad around.......(well it would, but in a totally different way).
  • Reply 16 of 47


    Dumb questions...



    I retired in 1989, so I lack any current business experience...



    1) In enterprise, what kinds of documents are created with MS Word?



    2) Are most of these printed?



    3) Why?



    I picked Word because it is the dominant WP app...



  • Reply 17 of 47
    I had not considered a consequence to printing, but it's there.



    I hardly print anymore on Apple machines. My important docs on a Mac get printed to Yojimbo and organized, or they are printed as an attachment and mailed to myself and others. Received on the iPad, they are pulled into iBooks or goodreader and organized.



    Perhaps the iPad should simply present itself as printer on the network or as an attached printer when connected to a computer now iPad is being used that way.
  • Reply 18 of 47
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by waldobushman View Post


    I had not considered a consequence to printing, but it's there.



    I hardly print anymore on Apple machines. My important docs on a Mac get printed to Yojimbo and organized, or they are printed as an attachment and mailed to myself and others. Received on the iPad, they are pulled into iBooks or goodreader and organized.



    Perhaps the iPad should simply present itself as printer on the network or as an attached printer when connected to a computer now iPad is being used that way.



    Mmmm... Now, there's an idea!
  • Reply 19 of 47
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Yet another major industry gets totally shaken up by the Apple juggernaut! But hey, good for trees and screw you printer makers and your ink prices



    Macs should offer in the print dialog ... Print to Printer, PDF or iPad. The latter send the PDF directly to the iPad of choice on the network with a single click. Just as iBook Author does now.
  • Reply 20 of 47
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 2oh1 View Post


    Uhm, no. Do you own an iPad? The correct answer is: because you can hold it, view it and share it, there and then.



    I'm not in the corporate world, but I'm certainly printing less since I bought an iPad, especially when it comes to presentations.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigbadrobbo View Post


    I'm in the enterprise as an IT manager, and yes, I do own an iPad. jd_in_sb is quite correct. Most corporate printers do not support printing direct from the iPad. We have a lot of people with iPhones, no-one prints from them because none of our printers will work with them. It's the same with the iPad. Our wireless setup is quite complex (much more so than my home one!) and therefore making it work, or at least trying is difficult.



    While it may be true that 'most' corporate printers do not support printing from the iPad (I don't know - and really don't care), I don't think that's the reason why the iPad leads to less printing.



    If you're in the office (where the corporate printers are), you probably use your desktop or laptop PC rather than your iPad. You use your iPad remotely. So whether or not corporate printers recognize the iPad won't make much difference. Even if the iPad worked with every single printer out there, I don't think it would change anything.



    The reason for the drop is that people who travel often print out a ton of stuff to take with them when they're traveling (or going to a customer's site, or to the office down the hall, etc). If they have their information accessible on the iPad, there's no need to print out reams of paper - they can just look up what they need to know as they need it without printing (and it's probably quicker than flipping through 500 pages of dead trees, too).
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