Zebra Technologies, a vendor of specialty printing and automatic identification products, has expanded its line of thermal printers enabled by Extensible Markup Language, or XML. Direct-connect printers utilizing that internet formatting standard will be available for Zebra's 105SL, S4M and Z Series printers. As a result, XML output can be sent directly from a company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to the Zebra printer. With built-in XML support, Zebra thermal printers can accept and analyze incoming data streams, then print labels at the point of need without added middleware or additional print server hardware. According to Zebra, companies using XML-enabled printing can streamline employee workflow and eliminate costs associated with middleware, licensing, hardware and the programming of additional software. In another company development, Zebra announced that all of its tabletop printers now support 802.11b/g and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access) standards for wireless security. Those features are recent additions to the ZebraNet Wireless Plus print server option, available for the ZM400 and ZM600 commercial printers, among others. WPA2 used the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to protect confidential data transmissions. The technology is considered superior to the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption protocol developed for the 802.11b standard, Zebra said.
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