When future paleontologists examine the fossilized remains of today’s corporate printers, they’ll re-use dinosaur die-off theory to explain the mystery of these inkjet beasts: “A series of environmental changes and perhaps a disruptive technology or two set them on the path to extinction.”
One of those disruptive events has only recently meteored through the tech sky. Anyone passing an empty Barnes and Noble— say for example, the Brontosaurus-size flagship near NYC’s Lincoln Center—knows that ebook readers have smashed the book industry into bits. Borders ain’t doing so well either.
But what’s happening in the consumer world is also recurring more quietly in the closed corporate ecosystem.
Instead of feeding their printers with reports, PowerPoints, and emails, enterprise workers have been using their laptops and now their mobile gadgets as electronic readers.
When will printers disappear from the enterprise scene altogether?Continue reading