Mobile Printing with Phil Mazzilli of the Mopria Alliance

Gary Pageau of the Dead Pixels Society talks with Phil Mazzilli, a Qualcomm executive representing the Mopria Alliance. Mazzilli talks about how the alliance standards enable printing from mobile devices to a wide variety of printers; most recently, the alliance announced its code is now part of Android 11. Mazzilli is the chair of the marketing group of the Alliance. 

Founded in 2013, by Canon, HP, Samsung, and Xerox, the Mopria Alliance has grown to 22 members representing the worldwide printer and scanner business. In addition to the founding companies, the Mopria Alliance today includes Adobe, Brother, EFI, Epson, Fuji Xerox, Huawei, Lexmark, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Microsoft, OKI Data, Pantum, Primax, Qualcomm, Toshiba, Ricoh, Xiaomi, and YSoft.

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Transcript

Gary Pageau  0:01  
Hello, and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau. And today we're joined by Phil Mazzilli from Qualcomm, but he's here on behalf of the Mopria Alliance, which is an industry group dedicated to bringing printing to mobile devices. Hi, Phil, how are you today?

Phil Mazzilli  0:18  
I'm great, Gary. Thanks.

Gary Pageau  0:20  
So, tell me a little bit about the background of the mopria. Alliance. I think a lot of our readership probably or listenership isn't have not heard of the mopria. Alliance, but you've actually been around for quite a few years and involved in a lot of mobile devices.

Phil Mazzilli  0:35  
Yep, that's actually that's very true. We were formed in 2013, the founding member companies of democracy Alliance were canon, HP, Samsung, and Xerox. And really, they had a vision to bring the entire printing industry, and really the entire mobile industries together to make printing pretty seamless from your mobile devices. They've really expanded since then. And now there's over, there's somewhere between 20 and 25, members representing not only printer manufacturers, but operating system vendors, independent software vendors, hardware, but vendors for mobile side. So there's a lot there's a lot of numbers, and I think a lot of industries are well represented.

Gary Pageau  1:28  
Excuse me, what platforms is our is the Mopria Alliance, what platforms do you support?

Phil Mazzilli  1:35  
So, you know, we create standards for printing, right. And those standards are available to anybody who's a member of the Alliance. And currently, our membership includes Microsoft. And they have taken our standards, and implemented that in the latest versions of Windows 10. So there's one. We also work closely with the Android team at Google. And right now, our standards and they their basic default print service in the Android devices also support the mopria standard.

Gary Pageau  2:16  
And we're gonna want to talk about their lead a little bit later, because that's where we have some actual news. So what why is why is something like the mopria, Alliance even necessary, why can't just everyone just, you know, do their own thing, right? When it terms to what is the value of a standard like that?

Phil Mazzilli  2:35  
Definitely. So really, it's all about making print as easy as possible for as many people as possible. So what we're trying to do is align different operating systems and print printer manufacturers under a single set of standards. So that, you know, you as a user can be ensured that printing is going to work, it's going to be simple. You know, regardless of the device, you're on Windows PC, Android phone, or tablet, and the mopria Alliance really enables that, and makes it possible for users to get the printing, printing capabilities they need, without having to install some printer specific or manufacturer specific software. Really just getting it out of the box from their, their device, either,

Gary Pageau  3:21  
you know, you know, that's always been really puzzling to me is I've been, you know, knocking around the printing world for ages. And it's stunning to me how difficult it is to print from devices, or it used to be actually, you know, with, oh, install a driver, this is no longer supported, and you know, everything else so, so does memory address some of that those issues.

Phil Mazzilli  3:45  
Absolutely. Right. So that that's our what that is basically why the Alliance was formed. And we've expanded beyond that to some other stuff. But that that is was the initial driving force behind our formation, right. So you know, that that's the idea is you've now got all these printer manufacturers that support this single standard. So and you have these two major OSS, right, Windows and Android that also can support those standards. Oh, you know, when you when you're sit down at your PC, if you're going to print you can print to any mopria certified printer, right? You pick up your Android phone, you want to print you can predict any, any mopria certified printer and this 4000 of them 4000 models,

Gary Pageau  4:29  
so so so how does someone know if if they have a mopria certified printer? I mean, what's Is there a branding licensing logo or something like that?

Phil Mazzilli  4:40  
Yep. So we've certainly got a logo, probably the easiest way for a person who's already got a printer is just to go to mopria.org and check the list. Okay, the printers there and you can sort by event by manufacturer and name and this kind of thing. But if you're thinking of getting a new printer, we do have a logo program. So you know for consumers Side printers, find the logo on the box for big printers that don't actually come in boxes, you can find in the literature, you know, our logo and note that it's more pre certified.

Gary Pageau  5:09  
Now, it seems like you've been focusing on OS level implementations of operating system level invitations of your standard is now considering after you mentioned a mobile platform, that's, that's not among the lions apparently. Is there a way for a aplikace provider to incorporate the Mopria Standard within their application? Or does it have to be at OS level? If you want to print from iOS, if you can you print from Microsoft Office and iOS using the, the Mopria Standard,

Phil Mazzilli  5:49  
you can print from Microsoft Office and iOS, but it's not using anything provided by Mopria. Okay, okay. So so it's really an OS level thing? Yes, we, we would love to do more work with the apple side things. And we're working on that, but I can't really share much.

Gary Pageau  6:03  
Sure, sure. But, you know, when you talk about, you know, large platforms, you you do have an announcement that just came out about Android 11, which I think is very exciting, because Android 11 is due when it came out in September. Okay, so it's very new. And mopr is built into that. So again, tell us a little bit about that. And, you know, unfortunately, things with Android is not everyone always implement Android in the same flavor, right? Is this is so baked in that device maker can't screw it up and do their own thing? Or is this?

Phil Mazzilli  6:46  
Okay? So with with Android 11, we updated existing functionality in the Android operating system, called default print service. So that's been an Android since Android eight. This particular version introduces some new functionality that really makes it a lot easier to print. And we can get into that what the new changes are true to one of your questions. You know, Android is a very customizable by manufacturer, right, you can even do

Gary Pageau  7:21  
it as another one.

Phil Mazzilli  7:23  
So it's not it, it is possible to remove the default print service before coming, leaving the factory, right. And some, some manufacturers do that. And we do have solutions if you want to print that. Your phone didn't come with printing on. But you know, it is in there. And it is offered to all manufacturers and whether they take it or not. That's really up to the individual manufacturer.

Gary Pageau  7:49  
But I I guess my again, I'm not a device maker. But I would think if you have already built this and done the work, why would I do my own?

Phil Mazzilli  7:56  
Yeah, that that that's what that's that's and I think that if you look at the market, you'll see that most devices do keep this functionality in. But for some real small, almost feature phone style phones, maybe they would take it out just because it takes a little bit extra overhead, a little bit of memory. So what are some of the newer features then of the latest implementation? You mentioned? There were some some changes. So what were what are some of those? Yep, so the biggest new feature is called shared a print. So in previous versions of Android, if a application, if someone who is developing an application wanting to enable print on that application, they would have to actually add a print button. Right, and it would hook into the to the default print service, where it print. Now, what Android has done, and actually what mopria alliance has done with Android is to get rid of that that need for a print button with certain file types. So if you have an image, jpg, BMP, whatever, you can just share it to the print service now. So if you're if you're used to using social apps like Facebook or Instagram, you're used to sharing file photos. Now, once you tap that share button, in addition to seeing, let's say, Facebook, if you're in Facebook, and you tap share, in addition to seeing share to email and share to a text message, you'll also see shared to a printer, and you have that print button and it will print. So that's that's all brand new in the ice.

Gary Pageau  9:33  
So so it's really a removed the impetus to for developer to have to build that functionality in now. So what is the process for setting up Have a printer on your device if you're a consumer.

Phil Mazzilli  10:04  
Okay, so if you so are some our solutions work over Wi Fi and Wi Fi direct?

Gary Pageau  10:13  
Right? Okay,

Phil Mazzilli  10:14  
if you're if you're setting up a new printer in your home or your business, you put it on your network. Yeah, the default print service will find it if it is always on the same network, right?

Gary Pageau  10:27  
As long as it's one of these partner printers. So you know, you've got brother, Kyocera, okie data,

Phil Mazzilli  10:34  
you know, etc. And, you know, we're estimating, you know, 90, well over 90% of printer manufacturers are involved with the mopria. Alliance.

Gary Pageau  10:43  
Yeah, I mean, most of these names, you would see a trouble go officemax or BestBuy.

Phil Mazzilli  10:48  
Exactly. So if you're on the Wi Fi network, if your phone's on the same Wi Fi network as your printer, you're going to see it, if your Wi Fi, if your printer is Wi Fi direct enabled, but it's not on your network, you'll also see that so if you're, if your phone has Wi Fi direct capability, which most do.

Gary Pageau  11:08  
Now, you mentioned earlier images, and a lot of my audience are primarily in the the photo or, or complex document compound documents space where you're doing images and text. What are there any image editing features built into this? Or is it just the sharing function? Like, for example, if you wanted to do very simple things like crop and, you know, some of the things, you know, turn sideways format for the page, and you know, those kind of things?

Phil Mazzilli  11:34  
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's very limited to basically taking what image you've already provided, and then saying, This is how I want it to look on the page. So you can, you know, change, if you're printing to let her pay her for a reason, you could say I want this to, you know, be take up as much space on the paper as possible, or you could keep it in portrait mode. Those kind of changes are controlled by the, by the default print service. But, you know, as far as editing it any kind of heavier editing with your photos, that's going to have to be done by in the application. And that's the good part about this share to print functionality is applications, which never bought never added a print button, you can now print, right? So you can use to do your editing and then print.

Gary Pageau  12:20  
Yeah, so I'm thinking of like, a lot of love the social apps, for example. Yes, you know, your snapchat your What have you more really focusing on on hardcopy printing now have that available?

Phil Mazzilli  12:32  
Yes, exactly. Yep. Yeah, I think that this opens up printing to thousands, perhaps, maybe more.

Gary Pageau  12:40  
So well, that's great. So is there any other ways to and get more information if they want to be involved with the Alliance?

Phil Mazzilli  12:47  
Yeah, I mean, it's certainly you can go to mopria.org. And check out, you know, what we're doing what we're all about, there's information about what the Alliance is, and what we're doing and, and the standards that we're driving, if you're a user, and you just want more information about how to use the mopria print service, or how to use the default print service, you can go there, too. It's, it's, it's pretty packed with info, but I, I think it's pretty easy to use.

Gary Pageau  13:17  
So you're trying to straddle the the worlds of being an industry information site, but also providing information for exactly Well, yeah, that's a tough, that's a tough row sometimes. Well, thank you, Phil, for your time. I appreciate it. If I missed anything.

Rob Mauldin  13:34  
No, I mean, I would just the only thing is, I would, I would say that mopria alliance is not a household name. So this, this kind of opportunity is always great for us to talk about what we're involved in what we're doing. And although mopria alliance is not a household name, I would say pretty much Well, at least in the United States, almost everybody has something that's got mopria technology inside of it in their household. Okay. You know, there's about 2 billion devices worldwide that that include mopria technology in one way or the other either in the Android operating system and the Windows operating system and their printer. You know, we're not big on on saying, you know, mopria lines did this mo pri lines did that exactly,

Gary Pageau  14:17  
like Intel Inside and stuck on every device accuracy. But mopria inside is something you want if you're interested in printing. So I agree. There you go. Well, thank you for your time and look forward to learning more as you share more of your achievements over the years.

Phil Mazzilli  14:37  
Awesome, Gary. Thank you.