Smart phone scanning

Speaking of smart phone capture, check out this short YouTube video on technology from Canadian forms management specialist Crawford Technologies. I'd explain it, but it's easier to just watch.

Ralph

Unisys Payment Processing Business Acquired and Changes Name

Not sure if these guys do much full-page document stuff anymore, but they definitely were big back in the day....

Also, here's Steve McNair's musings on the Google Goggles mobile recognition apps.

CeBit to host Green Hall

Tuesday, March 2–Saturday, March 6
Venue: Hannover Fairgrounds; Hannover, Germany
Website: www.cebit.com

 From a press release:
"Green IT (Hall 8)
CeBIT Green IT is comprised of three thematic areas, two that focus on business and one that spotlights the consumer market. "Smart Infrastructure" is dedicated to energy- and resource-conservation, with subcategories such as virtualization, cooling, server-based computing, and intelligent outsourcing. "Green IT meets Business" looks at how IT can sustain cost-cutting measures by optimizing processes and improving energy efficiency. Examples will include zero-watt screens, resourceconserving output devices, and user-friendly mobile devices. "Green IT @ Home" addresses energy conservation at home, using PCs, notebooks and screens as examples. CeBIT Green IT will also feature a forum with highcaliber speakers from industry, science and government. More information is available at www.cebit.de/greenit_e"

Analysis: I've been skeptical about how much greener a document imaging operation really makes an organization, because of all the computing power used to access documents, but when you combine imaging with some of the innovations mentioned here like "zero-watt screens," maybe we're onto something.
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Kofax reports 6-months results

There is a lot of information in the release.

Here's the stuff I boiled down as important:

1. Overall software revenue increased by 17% to $101.5m compared to $86.7m in the prior year. Revenue on an organic and constant currencies basis increased 8%. Analysis: By our calculations, the September acquisition of 170 Systems, an approximately $7 million per quarter business, is being credit for about $8 million over four months, which, I'm guessing is pretty much what was expected.)
2.  Applications software license revenue increased 11% while services revenue continued its strong performance with growth of 29%. Analysis: This is less impressive, as based on our calculations, 170 Systems could have quite possibly accounted for $4 million in software licenses sales over the six-month period - meaning there could have been no organic growth in software license sales. Of course, Kofax is telling us that the 29% growth in service revenue, which is now accounts for 54% of application software revenue (compared to 46% for licenses), made up for this. I'm not sure how this jives with the scuttlebutt we've been hearing about Kofax increasing maintenance fees. Does anyone know if Kofax accounts for maintenance as licenses or services? Either way, services traditionally produce lower margins than licenses.
3. That said, even with a 15% increase in total expenses, almost all related to sales and marketing, Kofax did manage a 41% overall increase in the EBITDA for its software business, which checked in at a cool $8 million.
4. VRS sales were essentially flat; they are actually included with software sales and were about 12% of Kofax's $101.5 million in half-year software revenue.
5. The hardware business sucked, actually decreasing 1% in total revenue to $67 million and producing an adjusted EBITDA of just $2 million, after reporting a $5.6 million EBITDA for the previous year's six-month period. Analysis: Granted, I've never made $2 million in six months from my business, so I guess, $2 million is nothing to sneeze at, but comparing the profit and growth numbers of the VRS and hardware business to those of the software applications business, it's clear to me that a schism is going to have to take place for Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish to achieve the stock valuation he desires. Presumably dragged down by the hardware numbers, Kofax share value actually took a minor hit after the Interim report came out - even though the software numbers look pretty good.

Ralph

ACS cuts costs in Illinois child support payment ops

ACS continues to do very well in the area of processing child support payments. As we've said many times, ACS does a great job leveraging imaging/capture/OCR technology as part of a larger business process improvement initiative.

News of the Day

Kofax has released a new version of the MarkView BPM for invoices app it acquired last fall. MarkView 6.5 features tighter integration with the Kofax capture suite of products. It is also certified for both Oracle and SAP environments, a sign that Kofax is aggressively pursuing SAP accounts. MarkView's legacy has been primarily Oracle Financials.

Also, Cabinet NG, a Huntsville, AL-based ISV that targets that mid-market, has announced a Green Awards program that "will award SMBs who demonstrate the best use of document management to improve their bottom line and operate their businesses in a more environmentally friendly means." We're not totally sold on how much greener document imaging can make a company - after all I don't exactly think silicon-based electronic equipment is the cleanest machinery in the world, but it's interesting to see somebody trying to measure the effects of at least how much less paper is being used.

ZyLab Introduces New E-Discovery Application

“Approximately one percent of organizations are prepared for full-scale eDiscovery activities,” says Johannes Scholtes, Chief Strategy Officer for ZyLAB. “As a result, the vast majority of organizations facing litigation are forced into a costly reaction mode in order to respond to discovery requests within court-imposed timelines."

Scholtes makes this statement in a press release about the new capabilities in the ZyLAB eDiscovery & Production system.  ZyLab, which began life as a search vendor, and transitioned to document imaging, is now very focused on this legal/e-discovery market. In the press release, ZyLab breaks down how its product addresses the five areas of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) and how addressing these areas can benefit businesses. ZyLab has had some significant success in this market recently and checking out how it applies its product to EDRM could be very instructive to imaging VARs, end users, and vendors looking to succeed in what is burgeoning opporunity.

Another Six-Figure Deal for Kofax

Kofax, which has made a fairly well-publicized transition toward more direct sales, today announced another large, six-figure deal. This is one is for $600,000 with a "a major global financial services firm headquartered in the U.S." In a recent conversation with CMO Andrew Pery, he indicated the Irvine, CA-based ISV has increased its number of six figure deals 25-30% since going to a "hybrid sales model" from its former strategy as almost purely channel driven sales. Kofax's six month report is due out soon.

Fujitsu buys our PFU shareholders

This deal make Fujitsu 100% owner of its scanner manufacturing business.

LuraTech Launches Capture Workflow

LuraTech, a document imaging capture and compression specialist, has become the latest vendor to announce an enterprise capture platform. InputAccel, back in the day, was really the first one of these types of products, which involve plugging in pieces of capture software to handle different process. LuraTech has its own image processing and data capture software, but has also introduced an API for introducing third-party technology. Monitoring capabilities are also key in these types of environments. I'm not sure of all  the details, but other vendors' offerings I've seen in this area has brought the concept of GUI process design to capture. As we've written before, although this isn't exactly BPM, the concepts of capture and workflow continue to move close together.

Industry veteran's take on iTablet

Datacap founder Scott Blau introduced forms processing technology that last time Apple introduced a revolutionary tablet computer. Remember the Newton? This got me thinking about the EMR world, where doctor's are attempting to go paperless to get their share of the stimulus package. EMR applications are often connected to tablet computers.

A had a conversation with Hyland Software's healthcare manager who explained how document imaging can contribute to providers meeting "meaningful use" requirements and earning reimbursement. Basically, her view was that about 30% of medical records like EKG and lab reports, faxes from other offices, etc. comes in on paper and needs to be captured. Thus imaging technology is necessary to ensure full utilization of an EMR system, which contributes to meeting "meaningful use" requirements.