Zebra DEVPODCAST: Developing the Performance Edge of Printing

Zebra DEVPODCAST hosts Dan Quagliana and Mark Jolley are joined by MicroEJ’s CEO Fred Rivard and VP of US Sales, Robert Diloreto. MicroEJ builds cost-driven solutions for embedded and IoT devices. MicroEJ decided to try and duplicate what has been done for the smart phone industry for printers. With developers moving to develop on the Android platform, MicroEJ saw an opportunity to add app capability to other devices to provide additional value and to future proof them. By building a small application platform to fit into lots of printers and to re-use and scale apps across broader fleet of devices, MicroEJ was able to embed the full standard language of Java to create an on-board service onto a Zebra printer. With growth and rise in mobile phones, and as Android continues as the preferred platform along with Java growth, MicroEJ, alongside Zebra can help developers develop faster and easier with Java applications as they build for printers.

So how much of the Java applications are proprietary to the MicroEJ platform and Zebra functionality?

By opening up the application space to all Java developers (10 Million) rather than limited to printer experts who know ZBI or Link-OS developer can write apps with low-overhead device, from processor perspective. This is opening up a previously restricted embedded device to outside developers so they can treat it almost like a mobile device. But this does raise questions around boundaries and restrictions.

To address the security issues, through high level certification, MicroEJ has built a virtualization sandbox which separates core print from app layer keeping separate apps from each other. Third party apps can often cause security concerns but thanks to the trusted MicroEJ Virtual Execution Environment (MicroEJ VEE) they have created a safe and secure virtual execution environment supported today by more than 8 millions software developers and engineers. The developer community can develop at no risk and they don’t need a printer to build app for one. The platform separates this development from the core competencies keeping it secure as they are obligated to go through the APIs.

While this is not yet available today on commercial Zebra products and MicroEJ and Zebra are partnering to finalize these details. It is expected this will be available on select Link-OS products in the near future. The user will have to pay to enable the feature through Zebra.

As Dan Quagliana points out, Zebra spent many years building out the Link-OS suite of products, building software and solutions to satisfy broad customer needs across various verticals. Similarly, Zebra has a Custom Applications Group that solves custom issues our customers run into. This new solution is now empowering the Zebra partner community to solve more of these issues. Zebra internal developers can take advantage of standard libraries like IoT connectivity protocols like MQTT to streamline the development process. MicroEJ’s platform on Zebra Link-OS printers is a really exciting solution driving new use cases, enabling workflow optimization while extending use cases and printer life-cycles.
Want to learn more? Listen to this podcast or visit Zebra and MicroEJ in person at Google Next 2019 and at Zebra’s APPFORUM in Las Vegas in October 2019.