PaperCut Targets Cloud Print Management As ‘Huge Opportunity’ For Partners

The company’s new serverless offering, Hive, is aimed at appealing to SMBs as well as larger businesses seeking a cloud-native solution.

PaperCut Software is working with channel partners to solve a major unmet need for small and medium-sized businesses with the company’s new cloud-native print management solution, executives from PaperCut and a top print services partner told CRN.

The solution, Hive, offers a 100-percent serverless and cloud-based approach to print management, and is compatible with all major printer vendors, according to the company.

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Hive is an ideal solution for smaller businesses that may have never used print management before due to the need for print servers, said Matthew Schotten, GTM lead for cloud at the company. And PaperCut Software, which generates 95 percent of its revenue through the channel, is working closely with partners to bring Hive to their SMB customers—as well as to larger businesses that are seeking a cloud solution for print management, he said.

“This is bringing enterprise scale to organizations of all sizes,” Schotten said. “We built the product to be easy to deploy and to really target that SMB space. It’s a huge opportunity for resellers.”

Benefits of print management include reducing waste and cost, while improving security. PaperCut Hive shares some of the core management and security functions with the company’s flagship on-prem product, PaperCut MF--but stands out by not requiring on-site infrastructure and enabling rapid setup for users wherever they’re located, Schotten said.

That adds up to a significant reduction in complexity for partners and customers, he said.

“With our serverless solution, you can provision a server in seconds and enable printing in just a few steps,” Schotten said. “Making that process really simple is a huge advantage to our channel for achieving scale.”

At St. Louis Park, Minn.-based solution provider Marco, a managed print services provider and longtime partner of PaperCut, the launch of Hive fills a need for SMB customers that don’t have the budget or IT staff to deploy a print server, Marco executives said.

“We’ve really felt like we were missing a piece for our smaller customers,” said Amy Lindgren, software sales specialist at Marco. “We’d never felt like print management was something they could implement into their environment. This is really going to open up a lot of those smaller businesses that felt like they weren’t a candidate for print management.”

The solution is also “convenient, quick and easy for customers who have moved to at-home work,” Lindgren said. “The ease of use for at-home printing really is a game changer in my mind. You don’t have to have IT remote in to your PCs to make sure you have the right drivers installed. PaperCut Hive does that on its own.”

Ultimately, Hive should appeal to companies of any size that are interested in a subscription-based, cloud-native option for print management, said Kurt Meemken, director of software solutions at Marco.

“Even our larger customers are wanting this functionality,” he said.

PaperCut Software is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, with its U.S. operations based in Portland, Ore., and competes in the print management market with vendors including Kofax. PaperCut’s revenue in 2020 grew 8.2 percent compared to 2019, Schotten said.

With Hive, PaperCut is aiming to become the dominant player in cloud-based print management, he said.

“We’re one of the largest players in the traditional print management space, but there’s not a clear leader at the moment on cloud,” Schotten said. “This is our opportunity to differentiate.”