Samsung Electronics has acquired mobile cloud printing company PrinterOn in a bid to enhance its mobile cloud services to the business-to-business market, the company said Wednesday.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. PrinterOn in Kitchener, Ontario will operate as an independent, wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Canada.
Focused on three major vertical markets – enterprise, education and public printing locations – PrinterOn uses cloud technology to let users print documents from any smartphone, tablet, or laptop to any PrinterOn-enabled printer, regardless of the network or its location, according to the company’s website.
Users email documents from their smartphones, tablets or laptops and PrinterOn renders the document in the cloud and securely delivers it to the PrinterOn-enabled printer of choice, where it is then printed after the user enters a secure release code. There are over 10,000 PrinterOn printing locations worldwide. The company also offers private cloud services on-site for customers that require mobile printing but do not want data to leave the secure corporate network.
Samsung said last month it had agreed to acquire SmartThings, a developer of software to connect household devices and control them remotely from smartphones. Acquiring the two-year-old startup will strengthen Samsung’s presence in the market for the Internet of Things, a moniker for the proliferation of small, connected devices.
The acquisition of PrinterOn will boost Samsung’s leadership in the standardization of mobile printing as a founding member of the Mopria Alliance, it said in a statement. A non-profit organization, backed by vendors like Hewlett-Packard, Canon, Adobe and Xerox, Mopria aims to drive standards adoption by mobile, printer and OS industry leaders, and certify products to carry the Mopria brand.