New features include an operator interface for unattended business centers to allow private and confidential guest printing from the guest room. The Focus software achieves confidential printing by spooling the encrypted print data and holding it until the guest triggers the release to the printer. All print jobs received by Focus that are not released within 24 hours are automatically deleted. This self-managed printing utility is ideal for hoteliers who want an inexpensive, 24/7 unattended business center. 

For attended business centers, Focus can be administered for automatic printing with a forced cover page in cases where the guest desires delivery to their room.

Steve Blakely, PrinterOn's Director of Business Development said, "The addition of Focus to driverless printing as a hotel business center amenity creates the seamless remote office experience hotel guests have been longing for and can be customized for both attended and unattended business centers. Hotels continue to standardize on PrinterOn because of our simple guest experience, enhanced security, and low cost implementation. And with PrinterOn's strong wireless data carrier relationships, there are literally tens of thousands of mobile professionals with handheld wireless devices seeking hotels offering the PrinterOn service each day." 

The Focus software is a lightweight PC application that runs as a background service, meaning the PC is available for other hotel or guest services such as Internet access. To access the Focus service, proper login credentials are required such as the unique print job reference number for the print job or, optionally, the guest email address. Additionally, the Focus software has a built-in Web server for local network access so that other PCs in the business center with a Web browser can access the Focus print spooler. This is especially useful for busy business centers containing multiple PCs. 

For hotels with 802.11 (WiFi) guest Internet access, the Focus software closes the loop for end-to-end data encryption using 3DES, providing secure piece of mind for guests printing over wireless networks. The encrypted print data is received immediately from the source so that guest files are not compromised by being saved on an off-site server for later "pull" down to the destination printer. The additional security benefit of the PrinterOn "push" approach is that data prints immediately when released so no waiting is required. 

Up front costs for driverless printing can be minimal with Focus, as it requires no special printers or hardware printer peripherals. Focus lets the hotelier use existing printers of any make or model, so new printers do not need to be purchased. The Hotelier may choose to make printers available to guests at the business center, front desk, conference room, on every floor, or each guest room. A single implementation of Focus supports all the printers in a hotel.

These new features offered by the Focus software enhance PrinterOn's complete hospitality printing solution.  The software provides business travelers with the option to securely obtain paper output from not only hotel printers, but also other public printers such as those at convention centers, airports and print centers.  Hospitality providers can mix and match support for Web-based driverless printing, Windows desktop printing with a print driver, email-based printing for wireless PDAs, or printing from a Pocket PC handheld computer. 

Driverless printing for hotel guests with the new features that the Focus software offers is available today.  Programming interfaces designed for integration with billing systems or property management systems are also available for hotels and Application Service Providers.

PrinterOn will be demonstrating remote and wireless printing for the hospitality industry at the PrinterOn booth #3277 at IHMRS (International Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Show) at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, November 9-12, 2002 in New York, NY. Demonstrations include remote printing form notebooks, wireless printing from handheld devices and 802.11 printing from a variety of Pocket PCs, Palms and notebook computers. 
 

About PrinterOn 
PrinterOn Corporation solves the number one productivity problem of mobile workers: printing documents when they are away from their desks. PrinterOn's award-winning solutions enable notebook, Pocket PC, PalmOS,BlackBerry, and WAP Phone device users to print simply anywhere. PrinterOn, a privately owned company based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, has been delivering award-winning document handling solutions for 19 years. For more information visit PrinterOn.