from Buyer's Lab

June 17, 2008 – Apago Inc. recently announced that it is working with Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America (SIICA) to offer ONEticket, its universal print driver, to Sharp customers. As part of this alliance, Apago will promote this integration to both the Sharp dealer channel and the public at large. Apago debuted ONEticket’s compatibility with Sharp at Sharp's 2008 National Dealer Meeting recently held in Orlando.

While ONEticket is also compatible with products from Canon, Heidelberg, Hitachi, IBM, Kodak, Konica Minolta, Océ, Ricoh, Toshiba, and Xerox, Sharp has chosen to work directly with Apago on the offering, with the key advantages being support from both a technical and marketing standpoint. According to Eric Roundtree, software engineer at Apago, Sharp’s dealers will work directly with Apago to offer ONEticket, while Sharp direct will primarily be a marketing partner. “ONEticket is a valuable tool to help our customers get the most out of their digital printers,” said Mike Marusic, senior vice president of marketing, SIICA. “We believe our customers will appreciate how Apago's technology can help to increase productivity.”

A “Universal” Offering

As Roundtree explained, ONEticket is ideal for CRDs and print shops with multiple machines. “Even individual vendors at times have different interfaces depending on the low end or high end,” said Roundtree. ONEticket makes it possible to send PDF print jobs to dozens of devices from multiple manufacturers using one interface through a series of plug-ins from Acrobat. “With ONEticket, print shops will not need to know how to interface with different speed devices,” he added. The software works with Acrobat 8.0 or higher.

The universal print driver enables users to create a single ‘virtual job-ticket’ that describes how a document should be printed. This job-ticket is not specific to a single model, as is the case when using vendor-supplied print driver software. Upon printing via ONEticket, the virtual job-ticket is converted into printer-specific commands. Capabilities include the ability to use different paper sources for a single job, and page-level finishing and simplex and duplex settings. In addition, users can set up a job once and then run it to multiple machines. Additional features include Bates stamping, watermarking and masking, as well as the ability to print on tabs.  

Fiery print drivers from EFI, a competitor of ONEticket, tend to require users to buy enablers for different speeds and the cost keeps increasing, said Roundtree. “We interface directly with the device, not just the front end of the device,” he said, adding that EFI users must get the front end in order to support Fiery printing. Other competitors include Canon’s imageWARE and Kodak’s SmartBoard.

“From our standpoint, we had to add Sharp’s printing commands to our software, just like we do with all other vendors. Sharp provided us with the necessary material, we added the commands to our ONEticket software, and Sharp validated and approved it,” Roundtree said.

What The Future Holds

While ONEticket has been available for seven years, it is new to Apago, who recently bought the rights to the software. According to Roundtree, the product is currently sold mostly by dealers who offer multiple lines. While sales have been steady, Apago hopes to increase sales by changing the software from a plug-in application that requires Acrobat to a standalone application. “We would like to get more manufacturers and dealers to carry this,” Roundtree said, adding that direct sales to end users is also under consideration. Apago is also looking into Sharp OSA as a development channel. ONEticket has a suggested retail price of $2,495, and is available from supported manufacturers, authorized resellers, or Apago.

This article was originally posted at Buyer's Laboratory.