Printers, to track or not?

Hardware Asset Management
1

With the very little memory that standard Multi Function Printers have now a days, and the cheap cost of printers.

Should I track printers as an asset?

Thanks,
Kevin

2

Track if on lease or under paid managed support services otherwise little value returned for time invested

3

That’s great. Thank you.

4

From a security angle, you may want to track it. Any connected device represents the company’s potential attack surface, you’ll want to arm your security teams with info on the latest sw version, patches, etc on those devices, and life cycle dates as to when they would need to be retired. Food for thought.

3 Likes
5

I realize this is a little late - but a lot of multi-function printer/copiers have harddrives in them that actually store images of copies - which to the point above is a security risk at the time of lease return/device disposal - so that is another reason you might want to track those. (not to mention get it in the lease contract that you get to keep the drives at time of return)

If you are thinking of simple laser jet or ink jet, those are quite a bit simpler and are more commonly not tracked compared to a bigger multi-function device.

1 Like
6

Roll out Dual screens for all - dramatic change in print volumes, particularly in combination with covid enforced digital & remote communications (no printed communications).

You’ll have less printers to track.

Kindest Regards,

Michael Buchanan.