Back in March 2020, Microsoft announced their vision for an Office 365 print server in the cloud called Microsoft Universal Print. This service is well past Beta but not quite into full release.

If you are using a Mac OSX, Linux or premise based Windows products, this new release will have no benefit.

At this point I am not sure when there might be fees to use this service

If an IT Manager decides to fully engage with Microsoft Universal Print, a user will have to work with the print driver that Microsoft provides. This may not be as full a feature set as provided by individual manufacturers.

I can only speak for Toshiba but I know when Windows automatic updates automatically installs their V4 print drivers overwriting the Toshiba original print driver all sorts of printing problems can occur.

A tech may have to remote in or go onsite to restore the original manufacturers print driver and this can result in billable labour.

I have not yet seen any demand for this new product but lots of industry voices are calling it the new big thing.

Lexmark has published this week a new YouTube video on how to make their latest firmware connect to MUP.