What is a Print Server? A Print server is any device (software, or hardware) that manages the documents you, or those in your office print. What makes a Print Server different than a Desktop Printer? A Print Server is accessible to everyone in your office, work group, or team.

This doesn’t just mean that the Print Server (Printer) is in a location where everyone can get to. For a Print Server to be useful it needs to be on the Network; a network print server. When a Print Server is network capable, everyone in the office can use it and your organization benefits from saved costs. With a Printer Server you save costs by not having to buy a printer for every employee, or in the home computing scenario, everyone in your house. You save on reduced Ink costs, and reduced paper costs as you wont have as many printers laying around stocked with paper and ink. So to summarize a Network Print Server saves you money by:

• Reducing the number of printers in an organization (office, home)
• Reducing the overall cost of ink
• Reducing the overall cost of paper

Which Print Server is best for you? A Hardware Print Server? A Software Print Server? A Wireless Print Server? A USB Print Server? A Windows Print Server? A Linux Print Server? An iSeries (AS400) Print Server?

Each comes with its own pros and cons. We’ll discuss each in future articles.