[perhagman]

Thanks for your comment Mike,

And yes - I'm sure the problem is fairly widespread, in the sense that quite a few people have posted threads relating to printing problems in diverse fora,,,

However - it goes without saying - anyone developing field-service applications for different industry/service sectors, based on either Smartphone or PDAs, would sooner or later run into the necessity of remote printing (ie. local for the worker sporting the handheld) !

A real simple case is large retailers with showroom salespeople, who might want to give a customer a slip with an article's name, number and storeroom placement -- DIY model of IKEA et al.

Obviously, other WiFi/PDA as well as PC/cash-register solutions to that scenario proliferate, but it is kind of neat to be able to provide 95% of the aspired functionality with a cheap i-Mate Smartphone (€100 or so), coupled possibly if need be with a bluetooth barcode scanner + validating stock over Gprs.

For one, the salesperson wouldn't need to lug a PDA around in addition to the ubiquitous standard cell-phone - the Smartphone fulfills both needs.

So, the webserver printing is out for some scenarios, and for others yet, there is no need for physical printouts - server-originated email or even fax-copies of e.g. passed orders suffice.

So - we must pursue the bluetooth printing idea further - and re. the size of the spooled document, we do not expect this to be a hurdle, as for the most part the portable printers would simply take a few houndred bytes of ascii-text to make up for these kinds of order-slips etc.

Right now, we will test the RepliGo avenue, but both that one and the FieldSoftware option requires a 3rd-party application to run in parallel, which (a) can be difficult to manage from our deployed C# app on the Smartphone; and (b) will at some point require user interaction, which we of course endeavor to minimize (salespeople are no IT-guys usually!)...

So - apart from the lacking Win2003SE printer drivers - if anyone has a solution to (a)+(b) whereby we could integrate the remote bluetooth printouts in our own C#-code -- please advice us !

[or direct us to a forum of specialized developers]

Cheers,
/ Per Hagman