Look around your home, and chances are you’ll see a Korean electronic appliance somewhere sitting pretty. With strong presence in displays, video systems, personal entertainment devices, and other general electronic home appliances, it is difficult to avoid the Samsung name in most homes. Samsung’s presence in the corporate side of the business is not as even however, and the Korean company is going all out to change this situation with a series of events under the Samsung Printing InspirAsia Tour 2008.

The HWZ team attended one of the said events this week at The Temple, Greenbelt, expecting something more toned down than Samsung’s usual treatment for events with a consumer spin such as for displays and MP3 players. Still, there’s plenty to be excited about with Samsung’s innovative and obviously well-thought out solutions and products for the corporate entity – with these solutions providing a powerful one-two punch that will surely prove as attractive for the procurement officer as Samsung’s consumer products prove to be for the common consumer.

Number one, and quite noticeable, is the excellent design, both in terms of aesthetic and functional, of all of the business printers on display. The most prominent of the new printers happen to be a model we recently had a lot of experience in, having tested and reviewed it – the SCX-4500W. With its menacing and sleek black façade, its compact dimensions housing a complete all-in-one unit and touch screen controls, this printer epitomizes good aesthetic design combined with good performance – one wouldn’t normally associate such good looks to the office place.

                                             The venue at Greenbelt proved to be an interesting backdrop.

Excellent functional design can be applied to nearly all the corporate printers in the Samsung line, but more so for the Samsung CLX-3170 series, which combines super silent operation, wireless capabilities, direct USB printing, and the multiple functions of this series. Designing good hardware obviously extends to the corporate printer line as well, as exemplified by these two printers and the rest of the lineup.

                                             Smart looking devices for the smart office.

The second big factor that will attract business customers is the set of applications and solutions attached to the Samsung hardware – solutions that make it easier to share, manage and secure documents and data. These include Samsung’s SmarThru Workflow network solution, a solution that allows easy digitization and sending of scanned or faxed documents, making it easy to archive and/or forward a document for the correct action. Samsung also includes in select models the SyncThru Web and Web Admin Service, designed for the busy IT manager for easy access through a network to the printer’s functions, status and settings. These programs can also be used to monitor printer usage, an important consideration for business settings.

                                             Designed for the office, Samsung printers on show.

With this one-two punch, Samsung is on the way to creating a good presence in corporate offices and businesses, with customers who will appreciate the better office aesthetic that Samsung printers will naturally endow, plus the functionality and efficiency of the design and software of these printers. With the Samsung Printing InspirAsia tour, it may probably be soon when you can’t look around your average office and not see a Samsung – branded appliance doing its work efficiently while looking good at the same time. More pictures to follow.

                                              Other Samsung product lines were also on display.