OKI Data to Carry Brooks Print Converters

March 5, 2013 Alex Woodie

OKI Data Americas, the North American subsidiary of the Japanese printing and telecommunications giant, has inked a deal with Brooks Internet Software to carry the software company’s line of print protocol converters for IBM i, Unix, and mainframe servers.

The co-marketing deal announced last month will ensure that organizations buying printers and other gear from OKI Data Americas will also have the opportunity to buy Brooks’ products, notably ExcelliPrint and RPM Remote Print Manager, as part of the deal. RPM Remote Print Manager is a Line Printer Daemon (LPD) print server designed to provide more flexibility in the management and handling of the print output of IBM i, mainframe, HP3000, OpenVMS, Unix, and Linux servers. The Windows software can perform EBCDIC to PCL and PCL to PDF protocol conversions, and make other modifications to print jobs.

ExcelliPrint is a Windows-based print server that allows any Windows desktop or server computers to be used for IPDS printing. The software works by receiving and processing IPDS print requests from IBM i-based Power Systems and System z servers, which connect to ExcelliPrint over standard IP networks, and executing those IPDS print jobs as PDF or PCL print jobs on less costly printers.

The deal also includes INTELLIscribe, a print client designed to provide print failover and job balancing across a range of printers.

David Brooks, CEO of the Idaho Falls, Idaho-based software company, expects the deal to help joint customers. “Brooks Internet Software shares a number of enterprise customers with OKI Data Americas: Our co-marketing agreement with OKI Data expands the range of our joint support and systems, ensuring these customers can more easily manage and maintain their enterprise printing systems.”