Zoran and Software Imaging Launch New Mobile Printing Solution for Smartphones, Tablets

Two technology firms, Zoran Corporation of Sunnyvale, CA, and partner Software Imaging Limited of Oxford, U.K., are launching a new mobile printing solution, called DirectOffice Mobile Print, that enables users to print from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets via Wi-Fi, the Internet, 3G, or other available connections.

Zoran notes that according to market-research firm In-Stat, the smartphone and tablet market will grow to one billion units by 2015. DirectOffice, which will be available in the second quarter, combines Zoran’s document-conversion technology with Software Imaging’s print-application software to provide mobile printing from smartphones and tablets, and easy discovery of printers on the network.

According to Zoran, with DirectOffice, users can print Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files, as well as Adobe PDFs, Web pages, e-mails and photos directly over Wi-Fi to a printer through multiple cloud service providers without installing printer-specific drivers. DirectOffice also provides automatic printer discovery-and-configuration capabilities, so that users can locate printers, as well as tag and save them for future use.

According to Simon Dolan, senior vice president and general manager at Zoran’s Imaging Division, printed output is WYSIWYG: “The printed output matches the originally created document, not the simplified version displayed on a mobile device’s screen. Essentially, what you created is what you get.”