Print Smarter: Modernizing Enterprise Printing for a Zero-Trust World

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Business RadioX. If you’re a business coach or consultant who’s tired of being a best kept secret, set up a call with Stone Payton at bookstonephone.com to unlock your perpetual prospect pipeline. Today on the show, we have the Executive Chairman with Pharos Systems, Kevin Pickhardt. Welcome.

Kevin Pickhardt: Thank you Lee. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Pharos Systems. How are you serving folks?

Kevin Pickhardt: Sure. So I guess as a as a quick background, Lee, I’ve been with Farasis since 2001, although the company goes back to 1992, and we are a software services company, increasingly just a cloud services company that helps large organizations deal with printing. And in particular, there’s not a single company in the world that we know of who wants to spend more time or more money on printing, but they all need printing. And that’s really where we come in. We help make it simpler, more efficient, and we take over the hassles of helping organizations, particularly large enterprises, manage it.

Lee Kantor: So where is the problem for these large enterprises when it comes to their printing management? Yeah.

Kevin Pickhardt: So, you know, it’s it’s funny because printing has been around for a long time in these organizations. And it’s in every single corner of the organization, every office, every floor, every organization, and just about every individual touches printing. And especially as you look at scale, which is why we talk about large enterprises, um, there’s a lot of infrastructure behind the scenes that most people are not aware of for how you manage the connections and the security side of it, and the asset management and the printers up and functioning. Are they are they not operating and who’s using them and how are they using them? So it’s, it’s a core part of infrastructure that’s almost become invisible because it’s so familiar. So oftentimes people end up printing ends up being owned by disparate groups. And since there’s not a single owner, um, it breaks down pretty, pretty frequently. So it’s, it’s one of those areas which despite the fact that it’s been around as long as it has, still has way too much that it takes for organizations to run it. And that’s really where, where, where we help. It shouldn’t be as complex as it is, and yet it still is.

Lee Kantor: Now, whenever there’s a new disruption in technology, uh, there’s always the threat of that. Everything’s gonna there’s no more printing necessary. Nothing will be printed. But there is the opposite. True. It seems like whenever there’s a change in technology, More printing takes place.

Kevin Pickhardt: Yeah. Yeah. And I would what I would say, Lee, is that, you know, AI is a is a good example. We are finding with AI that there’s such a proliferation of information that’s getting created with AI that it is leading to increased printing associated with, uh, even just the, the adoption of AI, which is almost almost counterintuitive. You think everything’s digitized now, but, um, but it’s getting increasingly difficult for people to internalize and, and, and for humans to deal with that level of information. So we’re seeing printing in some cases increasing. Overall, I don’t think we’re going to see a boom printing has had its day. Um, but we also don’t hear people talking about the paperless office, uh, anymore either that, that was one of the favorite topics, uh, you know, several decades ago. And I think people have given up on that paper still has its place. Uh, and printing has its place in, in organizations. So we don’t hear people saying it’s going away. At the same time, we don’t hear people saying they want to see more of it either.

Lee Kantor: Well, they may not want to see more of it. It just seems like more of it is occurring. Like you said, that people can’t process this much data. They need to visually touch it and see it and lay it out in front of them and see it in that manner.

Kevin Pickhardt: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and one of the things I, I started my career at, at Xerox and Xerox built a lot of the technologies behind computing that we know and love today. The mouse windows, even the Wysiwyg design layouts and so forth. Um, and what we, what we said way back when still holds and that is that documents and paper documents are structured for humans to comprehend, not a, not for AI. They’re structured for humans to comprehend. And that still is one of the one of the best formats to this day. It’s been hundreds of years that we’ve been dealing with it. So it’s it’s not something we see going away quickly in terms of a technology for human comprehension.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that in large organizations that printing decisions sometimes get made maybe department by department or floor by floor, um, or building by building. Tell me about why an organization should kind of rethink that and, um, and have a more holistic view of their print management.

Kevin Pickhardt: Yeah, yeah. And I’ll, I’ll, I’ll give you a couple. I mean, there’s print printing is not driving, um, really any it trends that I’m aware of, uh, anymore. Um, but it has to follow them and there’s a couple that have been going on, uh, in particular, uh, one is the whole shift of infrastructure to the cloud. You know, the migration away from on premises infrastructure and into cloud native design, uh, is one another from a security standpoint is zero trust. Uh, 97% of enterprises say they are embracing zero trust principles. And what’s interesting from both of those standpoints is that printing was not designed for either of them. Um, printing as we know it today breaks if you’re embracing zero trust and trying to use zero trust with printing. It also breaks if you’re trying to go cloud native and move infrastructure into the cloud. Printers are designed as trusted endpoints to, uh, to workstations. And they’re designed to have communication across a network and not through the cloud. So you’ve got these IT trends that are going on. And eventually organizations, when they’re heading down one direction or the other, begin to realize, wait a second, printing doesn’t work in this world. So, um, so they are forced to have to look at, all right, we need a different infrastructure. We have to modernize how we think about, uh, supporting printers and the printing process. And, uh, and that’s where companies like, like ferro systems come in.

Lee Kantor: So then what’s kind of the pain? Does something have to occur in an organization where they have to look at this through your lens rather than their lens?

Kevin Pickhardt: Yeah. And it, and it could be either of those. We were dealing with a health ization that was closing down their data centers, and they were getting rid of all of the, the servers inside of their data centers moving into the cloud. When they realized that they had print servers in the data center. And it was when they decided, okay, we need to start moving the print service to the cloud that they began uncovering. Wait a second. Printing doesn’t just work that way. Um, printers don’t connect seamlessly to the cloud and accept information being delivered in, in that fashion. So, uh, so that happens. And then we’ve got organizations that have very large global, um, global technology company that had embraced zero trust and they said, uh, um, everything is moving to zero trust. They came across the same problem. So, um, so it’s, it’s usually almost by accident organizations tripping over it. Um, another, uh, another item that’s, that’s going on right now is Microsoft is in the process of re-architecting how windows, uh, looks at and thinks about printing. It’s going to be probably the single biggest change in, uh, in windows printing that we’ve seen in the last 20 years. And it’s all tied into security. Uh, so what happens is organizations that aren’t paying attention to it trip over it. And that’s not a great way to start thinking about how do I, how do I modernize and, and deal with change is, is to all of a sudden be under the gun. So, um, so that that’s oftentimes how it happens, but we like to tell organizations get out ahead of this and start planning. Um, if you’re adopting any of these trends, then you need to, you need to be considering your print environment as well.

Lee Kantor: And can you talk a little bit about the vulnerability when it comes to security? Why is it if they don’t incorporate some of what you’re recommending, why does that make them vulnerable?

Kevin Pickhardt: Sure, sure. So Well, let’s talk about what Microsoft is doing. Um, printing because it was such a, um, a horizontal application inside of the operating system. And because you were talking about, uh, taking digital information from so many different software packages and converting it into something that a physical device, a printer could understand. Um, very understandably, printing was designed to run at elevated privileges. So print drivers and print queues run at system level privileges inside of, uh, inside of windows. Um, and that’s just not the state of the art. You don’t want anything running at, at that level of, um, of privilege, uh, especially for Microsoft if it’s third parties, because there’s so many different manufacturers developing drivers. So Microsoft has started saying we’re not going to do that anymore. We’re going to change the way printing works. We’re not going to allow third party devices to have elevated privilege. Um, very basic decision. But once they make that decision, um, printing as we know it breaks and we need to redesign it inside of enterprises. So today’s print drivers just don’t function. Um, and similarly, when you start looking at, uh, how does information get passed around in a zero trust world? And I’m going to send a file to a printer.

Kevin Pickhardt: A printer doesn’t know that you Lea sent a file. It just knows that somebody, some endpoint sent me a file that I understand. And so I’m going to assume that you have access. Today’s world of security is about user based. It’s user centric. What does Lea have permissions to do. Not uh, not does does a random file coming across the network. Um, reach me? So as organizations start looking at this legacy design of how printing works, they’re really uncovering that, um, it’s fraught with security risk and it’s being, it’s being, um, attacked all the time. Microsoft’s latest update had six different vulnerabilities that they were fixing inside of the print stack. So, um, so it’s, it was designed at a point in time. And because as I mentioned before, nobody wants to spend a lot of time on it. It’s never been redesigned. Um, but it is being redesigned now. It has to be by necessity.

Lee Kantor: Now, are your clients mainly kind of the most vulnerable in terms of security? Like, is it, are they healthcare and fintech and those kind of things? Are those your, your kind of ideal client profile?

Kevin Pickhardt: It it is, it is horizontal. And yes, it’s, uh, security. You mentioned a couple of them, um, uh, finance from banks, healthcare being one insurance people who deal with, uh, with PII, uh, or personal information. Um, but then it also expands to organizations that are, um, largely hybrid. So you start looking at manufacturing organizations that have a lot of locations, and those locations may or may not all be connected by a physical network. So, um, so we do a high tech manufacturing in addition. So it’s, it’s security and complex networks that, um, is, is where we are particularly, uh, able to help solve those problems.

Lee Kantor: Now are you coming in for the leadership that is proactive or are you coming in because something bad happened and they got to fix it and now they got to call, uh, Kevin and his team?

Kevin Pickhardt: Yeah, the answer is yes. Um, we prefer the former, right? We, we prefer to have organizations who are saying we’re looking at our infrastructure, we’re moving to the cloud. We want to understand how print plays because it gives us time to talk about the change, the change process, how it’s going to touch desktops and, and model that in a, in a structured way. Um, but we absolutely have organizations who call us to say we, you we just got hacked through our, um, our printing systems and our CISO and security office have said, uh, we need to re-architect printing and now it’s under the gun. Um, the, the good thing from our standpoint is this isn’t rocket science. Um, printing is not a crazy new, difficult technology. Um, the problems of it are solvable. It just takes a little bit of, uh, a little bit of focus, but, uh, but it’s a good question. And while we prefer to be out ahead of things, it’s, uh, it’s oftentimes the case that, um, that we’re brought in when somebody’s discovered a problem.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share what it’s like to work with you and your team? Don’t name the name of the organization, but maybe share the challenge that came to you with and how you were able to help them get through it?

Kevin Pickhardt: Sure, sure. Well, it’s let’s, let’s talk about one that, that we’re dealing with now, which is a, um, a very large multinational bank. And, um, They they brought in a new, uh, head of, uh, of information technology who, who said we’re, we’re modernizing. So we’re getting rid of existing services. We’re going to move everything into the cloud. And we want, um, we want from a security standpoint, we want everything observable. Um, we want to know who’s accessing information. And that comes down to printing. So from their standpoint, the problems they identified was we, we need to reduce the number of people that we have focused on printing. And so we want to buy this infrastructure as a service. And um, and it’s, we’re going to do that and we’re going to do it quickly. We want it done in 18 months. So we want to move from all of our print servers on premise to all of our print printing being handled through the cloud. And then in addition, um, we want to understand security so that we know who’s printing what. And, um, and they’re looking at, at security in a, in a, in a modern way, not just are you printing something that has a Social security number that’s that’s of some interest, but, um, but are you somebody who’s printing something that has a social security number when your role is that you shouldn’t? So the nature of the user identity and how they’re doing access. So, um, so they’ve engaged with us and we’re doing some, um, some co-design and co-development and, um, and helping them to, um, first put in an infrastructure that can handle printing through the cloud. And then secondly, go back to all of their desktops and start migrating to it.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice you could share with an organization that, um, is interested in modernizing, uh, their print environment, but maybe isn’t interested in, you know, replacing every printer there?

Kevin Pickhardt: Yeah. And you really should not have to, um, the, the aim is that the issue is not necessarily the printers, unless you’re talking about really old ones. Um, it’s how those printers are being used and how they’re getting connected across your network. So pretty much every printer that is out there is able to handle a secure, uh, file transmission and handle a modern protocol for how we print to it. Um, but very few organizations have gone through the exercise of putting in the infrastructure that ensures that that’s how this is done. So it’s really the plumbing at the end of the day, more so than the printer. That’s the problem. And really, that’s, that’s part of the benefit of zero trust is, um, is if I can isolate all of these printers, I don’t necessarily care so much. I do care whether they’re secure, but if I can isolate each and every one of them, then the security issue becomes less about the physical endpoint than the plumbing as to what has access to that device and what does that device access. So this is usually not a case of going in and saying I need a whole new fleet of printers. It’s I need to rethink how I communicate from desktops to printers and really that print operations, what we call print ops. Um, making that modern. And, uh, and if you do that, you’ve solved 90% of the problems.

Lee Kantor: Are there any steps that you would recommend the listener take to determine whether their, uh, organization is ready for changing their printing?

Kevin Pickhardt: Yeah. Um, good. Good question. We’ve touched on, on a few of them. I think one of the, one of the key ones is just, just probe in a few areas. Um, as we mentioned before, 97% of the organizations are embracing zero trust. If you talk to your security team and ask them, where does print sit in your zero trust strategy? If they if they give you the deer in the headlights, which most will, um, you’ve identified a gap. Um the second is the change that windows is, is making the Microsoft is making the windows with protected print. Um, talking to end user services, have they started down a path of understanding that change in what’s going to, uh, what the impact is going to be on them as Microsoft begins to enforce that in the next 18 months or so. Um, and then I think really the third is understanding who you, who owns all of these, uh, these print servers and this print infrastructure today. And can you identify who they are? And are they, do they want to continue to manage them once, once you start probing in a few of these areas, uh, people will figure out pretty quickly whether their organization is, um, is thinking proactively about printing. And if not, just asking the questions is sometimes going to prompt people that they need to.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, What’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Kevin Pickhardt: Sure. And I appreciate the the time here for us to, to share some of what we’re doing and seeing in the marketplace that’s driving some of these changes. Um, we, we present a lot of information at pharos.com, www.pharos.com. Um, feel free to reach out. Look at our website. Much of that information is, uh, is readily available, uh, as is the button to learn more. And we’re always happy to have conversations with organizations, uh, about their, their printing and how they’re thinking about it at any time.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Kevin Pickhardt: Thanks, Lee. It’s been nice to be on with you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor.