“UniPrint Infinity’s inbuilt compression was the most enabling factor that allowed us to produce a fast, sleek Cloud environment”

– Gareth Smith, Group National Architect, Bidvest Waltons

Bidvest Waltons Relies on UniPrint Infinity for Everyday Trading Across a Hosted Microsoft RDS Infrastructure

The Organization

Bidvest Waltons is South Africa’s leading consumer and business office supplier, offering a wide range of stationery, technology, PC accessories and consumables, office furniture and filing solutions to corporations and small and home-based businesses.

The retail giant has over 80 branches and 37 express outlets with 1500 remote desktops and business applications on a centralized Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) infrastructure.

The Challenge

With a SharePoint front end server farm and servers located at an external data center, Bidvest Waltons’ virtualized infrastructure distributes session based applications over Microsoft RDS to users across the country.

With up to 100,000 pieces of print jobs a day, Bidvest Waltons are high volume printing consumers, and stable access to application printing is critical to their everyday trading.

Printing access came to a halt at their initial RDS installation, with printing taking some 30 minutes to deliver back via the Cloud to branch users, if delivered at all. Print jobs were frequently abandoned, resulting in loss of productivity and paper waste.

The situation was not helped by South Africa’s limited and costly bandwidth availability, as well as the low compression capabilities within Microsoft RDS. Print files sent to laser printers became so bloated that they frequently could not be processed.

To add further complexity, a huge range of printer hardware existed across the estate – even the smallest branches would have a mix of around 4 different makes and models.

Identifying a universal printing solution was of paramount importance to ensuring ongoing trade and future expansion.

Without a prompt solution, the centralized RDS infrastructure service might have to be abandoned.

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The Solution

In 2013, Bidvest Waltons stress tested UniPrint Infinity and a competitive solution within their remote environment.

It quickly emerged that UniPrint Infinity was the resolute answer in solving the known remote desktop printing issues. Installation followed immediately.

UniPrint Infinity’s PDF generator compresses print files by over 90% – providing the much needed immediate relief on bandwidth, and enabling consistently fast and reliable remote printing.

Gareth Smith, Group National Architect notes, “The effect of the inbuilt compression was the single most enabling factor in allowing us to produce a fast, sleek Cloud environment.”

Over the next few months, the company was also able to improve the quality of print, remove embedded fonts and endless lists of page tabs.

In 2015, the latest version of UniPrint Infinity v9 was adopted, achieving an even more noticeable difference in printing speed for users.

Smith comments, “Adding the latest version was a further milestone in the delivery of an optimal print environment. Throughout the rollout, we tackled issues particular to our own custom environment.  Today, essentially we are very happy with the UniPrint product.”

In the future, as the company expands into delivery of a franchise network, IT is confident that new users can be easily added to the corporate printing infrastructure.

UniPrint Infinity’s mobile printing functionality will also enable Bidvest Waltons to integrate Android tablets and other mobile devices for on-the-go users.

Gareth concludes, “Without UniPrint we would have struggled and may not have been able to find a cost effective solution.  It’s that simple. It’s allowed us to achieve a viable printing solution from a centralized environment and we wouldn’t face the future without it.”

The Benefits

Bidvest Waltons has deployed UniPrint Infinity to enable easy access and fast and reliable remote printing in a hosted Microsoft RDS environment.

UniPrint’s PDF generator compresses print files by over 90%, thereby solving all bandwidth issues.

UniPrint Infinity has enabled the company to trade efficiently, while increasing productivity and reducing paper wastage.

Key Benefits Include:

• Solves bandwidth issues by compressing print files by over 90%.
• Enables fast and reliable remote printing.
• Allows centralized printer management through a single UPD, and easy deployment of new printers.
• Facilitates access to application printing functionality in a Microsoft RDS environment.
• Reduces abandoned print jobs and saves costs