ABBYY Signs Reseller Agreement with Xerox

Xerox will now be selling ABBYY's Flexicapture document and data capture and Recognition Server OCR and PDF software, in connection with its DocuShare Web-based document management platform. Introduced as primarily an electronic document repository at least 10 years ago, Xerox has introduced records management and workflow features in recent years. With the ABBYY software Xerox is adding intelligent data capture and server-based OCR to the mix.

Xerox represents ABBYY's largest reseller partner. More on this in an upcoming premium issue of DIR.

Vertical Specialization Increasing

The sign of a maturing market is when you take proven technologies, such as document imaging and OCR and start to package them into soluitons. Invoice processing for accounts payable has been one of the big ones in our industry over the past few years. Recently we saw two announcements about imaging vendors moving more deeply into vertical solutions.

One is from Konica-Minotla, which has announced "customized electronic document management suites developed in conjunction with Prism Software to address workflow demands across key vertical markets." These include legal, education (both secondary and higher), healthcare, and legal.

The suites seem to be a combination e-forms/document mangement system. "The suite is powered by a robust document and forms management system that improves workflow efficiency by eliminating paper- based forms, while providing a low-cost document management solution for office environments of all sizes."

Recognition technology specialist Orbograph has acquired Correct Claims Now (CCN), a Dallas-based company, "that provides services in the field of Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management (RCM)." Basically the acquisition seems to enable Orbograph's recognition technology to the RCM processes that CCN specializes in. These include claims and EOB processing.

From the press release, "“Orbograph has extensive field experience and strong operational capabilities in deploying effective recognition-centric automation solutions for mission-critical financial environments. CCN provides deep expertise and know-how in healthcare payments processing”, said Barry Cohen, General Manager at Orbograph. “By joining forces, we can achieve an unprecedented level of revenue cycle efficiency that will provide critical advantages for providers including: lowering the cost of collecting and posting a payment, reducing aging of receivables, and increasing reimbursement amounts.”

Perceptive Discusses Content in Context

This week I came acorss this article on Fierce Content Management by Perceptive Software CTO Darren Knipp discussing how important it is for ECM vendors to embrace and control the context of conent. Knipp makes the point,  "Personas, processes, application integration and content types describe the context that we as ECM professionals need to design into our solutions in order for real value to be derived."

This reminded me of an article I wrote based on an interview with Perceptive VP of marketing Glenn Cross a couple months ago. Cross also discussed the importance of content in context and stressed that that is how Percpetive is going to differentiate itself from the big ECM ISVs like Microsoft, IBM, EMC, and Oracle going forward. "“Perceptive understands how people use content and the processes they use it in. Our software operates between content repositories and applications in areas like ERP, HR, and marketing. We serve up content, and try to anticipate what content is needed in processes related to those applications.”

It's good to see that Perceptive's CTO and VP of marketing are on the same page.

Autonomy-HP Deal Still on

At least according to this report, because it's an all-cash deal, it doesn't require shareholder approval. Says Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, who is quoted in the link:  “While disastrous quarterly earnings from Autonomy in November could open the door for HP to claim a [material adverse change], we see the likelihood of successfully doing so – even under such as a scenario – as remote."

This article explains some of the confusion that Autonomy founder CEO Mike Lynch is facing. I'm not sure how to feel for Lynch in this scenario. If he owns 8% of the business as reported, he's getting something like $800 in cash in the buyout, but Meg Whitman running Autonomy - I'm not sure that's what he had in mind. Ousted CEO Leo Apotheker was a software guy at least, and clearly had some serious investment in making the Autonomy acquisition work. Whitman's only software credentials appear to me a mostly disastrous acquisition of Skype while at eBay.

Kofax , Top Image Land Large Census Contracts

Kofax landed theirs with the Indonesian Bureau of Statistics. It's a $1.9 million deal that includes Kofax Capture, VRS, and the KTM data capture modules. According to the press release, the implementation will be used to "process approximately 700 million documents used for statistical data collection from over 460 cities each year in the world’s fourth most populous country." (I didn't realize Indonesia had that large of a population. Jakarta, the capital, has almost 10 million people.) Also, to "scan and capture data from surveys, census forms and other statistics related documents and then export the images and data to an SAP system to be used as a repository and for access by employees."

TIS, which has worked on multiple census projects throughout the world over the past 10 years, recently landed the German Census. TIS' "eFLOW platform will be used  to digitally capture and process approximately 180 million questionnaire pages by seven statistical offices." Census projects that TIS has completed include Argentina 2011, Belarus 2010, Brazil 2000, Cyprus 2002, Czech Republic 2011, Hong Kong  2001 and 2006, India 2002 and 2011, Ireland 2002, 2006, and 2011, Italy 2002, Kenya 2000, Romania 2011, Scotland 2011, Slovak Republic 2001 and 2011, Slovenia 2006, South Africa 2001, South Africa  2007 and 2011, Thailand 2010, Turkey 1997 and 2000, and Vietnam 2009.

Dicom to distribute KnowledgeLake in EMEA

European-based value-added distributor Dicom has announced it will act as KnowledgeLake's distribution arm for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa territory. KnowldgeLake is a St. Louis-based ISV that has emerged as a market leader for adding document imaging to SharePoint deployments. KnowledgeLake has more than 1,500 customers using its software, but almost all of those are in North America. Dicom, the hardware distributor that spun off from Kofax earlier this year, adds KnowledgeLake to a growing portfolio of software products that also include Kofax Express, Kodak Capture Pro, and most recently,CaptureBites.

More on this in this week's premium edition.

The deal was announced at DMS, which is being held this week in Germany.

Laserfiche Offers to Trade-In Program

In the wake of HP's announcement that is acquirinig Autonomy, which owns the Interwoven and iManage document management software code and install base, Laserfiche has announced "a trade-in program designed to help customers of acquired enterprise content management (ECM) vendors easily and cost-effectively upgrade to a full-featured—and fully supported—Laserfiche ECM system."

Accoridng to a press release, "Laserfiche’s trade-in program allows new customers to receive credit for the value of their existing ECM systems when converting from a competitor’s product to Laserfiche." Not sure who is coming up with that "existing value," but it's a great idea by Laserfiche. It kind of sounds like the "Cash for Clunkers" Laserfiche was promoting a couple years ago in conjunction with the federal government's buying of old, gas-guzzling cars.

We've seen ISVs take a similar approach with VARs and offer to give their customers software for free if they can just switch their base over to the new vendor's maintenance program - and then also sign on for new software sales. We understand there is some of this going on in the capture market right now in fact.