An interview with Mark Asbridge, Head of Product Enablement at MyQ
The print management industry is often written off as legacy, slow-moving, or even obsolete. Yet behind the scenes, it’s undergoing some of its most profound changes in decades – driven by security demands, cloud transformation, and shifting user expectations.
To unpack what’s really happening in the market, we spoke with Mark Asbridge, Head of Product Enablement at MyQ, a global provider of print and document workflow solutions. Mark works at the intersection of product development, pre-sales, training, and marketing, giving him a uniquely holistic view of both customer needs and industry direction.
In this conversation, he shares why print still matters, where organizations lose the most time and control, how regional needs differ globally, and how MyQ approaches security, usability, and future innovation.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and your role at MyQ?
My name is Mark Asbridge, and I’m the Head of Product Enablement at MyQ. My role spans several areas – I manage the pre-sales team and the training center, but I also work very closely with product development, marketing, and sales.
The core idea behind product enablement is communication. It’s about ensuring that product messaging, sales conversations, training materials, and marketing outputs are all aligned and consistent. Ultimately, my role exists to help bridge the gap between what we build, how it’s sold, and how it’s understood by partners and customers.
From your perspective, what problem does MyQ ultimately exist to solve for customers?
The answer really depends on who you’re talking to. If you start with end users, it’s about simplicity and efficiency. When someone walks up to a printer or multifunction device, they shouldn’t be wasting time figuring out what to do. Logging in, printing, scanning – all of that should be fast, intuitive, and personalized.
MyQ focuses heavily on personalization. Users don’t all work the same way, so why should every device present the same options to everyone? With MyQ, users see only what’s relevant to them, wherever they are, on any device. That saves time and reduces friction in day-to-day work.
For IT teams, the challenge is different and often more painful. IT professionals generally don’t enjoy dealing with printers. They’re time-consuming, generate support tickets, and introduce security risks. MyQ exists to remove that burden. From automated onboarding and provisioning to security, auditing, and compliance, we take complex tasks and make them manageable, often through one-click or fully automated processes.
What makes MyQ’s approach to print and document management different from other solutions?
For me, it comes down to being genuinely user-centric. Most print management solutions cover the same core functions – secure pull printing, authentication etc. – but MyQ differentiates itself through experience.
That experience applies to both end users and IT administrators. We focus on how people interact with the system: how intuitive the interface is, how easy it is to configure, and how well it adapts to individual needs. Whether you’re an IT admin onboarding thousands of users or an employee scanning documents every day, the product is designed to feel natural and efficient.
What are the biggest trends currently shaping the print and document workflow industry?
Cloud is the most obvious one. Organizations across industries are moving away from on-premise legacy systems toward cloud or hybrid environments. That shift isn’t uniform, though. Education, government, and highly regulated industries all move at different speeds and with different constraints.
Another major trend – and probably the most disruptive – is Windows Protected Print. Microsoft is fundamentally changing how printing works, largely because of the number of security incidents tied to print drivers. This will force the entire industry to adapt, including OEMs, software vendors, and IT departments.
There will be legacy devices that can’t support modern protocols like IPP, but the bigger picture is security. Microsoft is right to make this change, and vendors like MyQ need to help customers transition without disrupting operations.
Many people talk about “the death of print.” How accurate is that narrative?
It’s an oversimplification. Print volumes are declining in some areas, but not disappearing and certainly not everywhere.
In education, for example, printing remains stable. Many teachers and students still rely on physical materials because they’re often more effective for learning. In other regions or industries, digitization is happening at different speeds.
What’s interesting is that even as organizations reduce the number of printers, the need for print management software actually increases. Shared devices create new security, compliance, and auditing challenges. That’s where solutions like MyQ become even more critical.
You work with partners and customers globally. How do customer needs differ across regions?
They differ significantly. Take Germany as an example — regulatory requirements around printing, budgeting, and data protection are particularly strict, which strongly influences how solutions are evaluated and deployed. In parts of APAC, priorities can look different. Some markets place greater emphasis on local Active Directory integrations and on-premise server environments rather than cloud-first architectures. These differences aren’t about maturity, but about local infrastructure, compliance requirements, and customer expectations.
North America has its own complexities, particularly around large-scale integrations. Universities, for example, want end-to-end integration across multiple systems. Data protection laws may be framed differently than GDPR, but the underlying concerns are similar.
For MyQ, the challenge and the opportunity is flexibility. We have to support cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments while adapting to regional legislation and industry-specific requirements.
What are the most common pain points customers still struggle with?
Unmanaged print environments. Without proper control, printing becomes a free-for-all. New users generate tickets, roaming users create inconsistencies, and IT teams spend an enormous amount of time responding to basic requests.
Printers often account for a disproportionate number of support tickets. MyQ addresses this by centralizing management, automating onboarding, and standardizing configurations across locations.
Are these challenges mostly technical, or are people and processes just as important?
People and change management are just as important, sometimes more so. End users often resist new systems because they associate them with control or surveillance. But once you show them how MyQ actually saves them time, the attitude shifts very quickly.
When users realize they can print faster, scan directly to approved destinations, or reuse saved workflows, the resistance disappears. The technology matters, but adoption comes down to experience.
Can you give an example of how customer or partner feedback influenced product development?
Partner feedback is absolutely critical for us. We analyze market trends, of course, but nothing beats insights from partners who deploy MyQ every day.
We don’t just collect feedback – we act on it. Features like Printer Provisioning Profiles are a direct response to real-world challenges partners faced. That responsiveness is something partners consistently tell us they value.
Security is a major topic today. How does MyQ approach security in a way that’s robust but usable?
A big part of security is understanding data flow. When someone prints or scans, where does that data actually go?
With MyQ, scanning data goes directly from the device or server to the approved destination – whether that’s a cloud storage platform or another system. At no point does MyQ store or access that data. Printing is encrypted end-to-end, including encryption at rest and secure protocols like IPPS and adopting a Zero trust methodology.
This approach meets the requirements of even the most security-conscious organizations, including government and military environments, without adding unnecessary complexity for users.
Finally, what do you think the print and document management landscape will look like in the next 3–5 years?
In Europe especially, the future is cloud-driven but with a strong emphasis on security and compliance. Cloud alone isn’t enough. Organizations need secure integrations, digitized workflows, and flexible deployment models.
Windows Protected Print will be a major catalyst for change, forcing organizations to rethink legacy approaches. At the same time, scanning destinations, cloud integrations, and automation will continue to grow in importance.
Print may evolve, but it’s not disappearing. The focus is shifting toward making it secure, efficient, and as invisible as possible in day-to-day work.
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