Why not Bundle Textract with a Network Scanner?

I was doing an interview recently with a scanner vendor which was planning on introducing a new SOHO model, for which they expected Amazon to serve as the primary marketplace. Amazon sells a lot of document scanners. This got me thinking, why not bundle some AWS Textract services with scanners being sold through Amazon?

Introduced in 2018 and released for general availability last year, Amazon describes Textract as a "service that automatically extracts text and data from scanned documents." What more could you ask for with a document scanner? There are different flavors of Textract, from full-page OCR and layout recognition, to forms extraction, to table extraction. Here is a link to an article I did on Textract in 2019, and here's a link to Amazon's Textract site. Did I mention Textract is cheap?

One drawback to Textract, which we have discussed, is that unless a user specifically requests that their images are deleted, Amazon basically reserves the right to utilize them going forward to improve Textract, as well as "other Amazon machine-learning/artificial-intelligence technologies." That can be a non-starter for some, but adoption of the bundled service would be optional or a vendor could limit the bundling of AWS OCR services to single SKU.

So, if I am a scanner vendor, why wouldn't I look at including a year's worth of Textract services with the purchase of the scanner from the Amazon marketplace? Maybe the issue is that Textract is more of an AWS/B2B play than a B2C play like you get more commonly with the Amazon marketplace. But, for a vendor selling their scanners to the SOHO market, maybe there's a fit. And I'm not sure if Amazon works like this, but could you think of a better way to get good positioning with the world's largest e-tailer than supporting one of their up and coming AWS services initiatives, which are a major growth area for Amazon?

So, my proposition is for a scanner vendor to create a SKU, probably for some type of scanner with a network connection, that offers a free year of Textract Services. Amazon already offers a three-month free tier of Textract, so introducing some sort of trial with a scanner would not be that much of a stretch for them.  If anyone does take advantage of this idea, if you'd just give me credit, I'd appreciate it.

The Importance of Mobile on the Future of Scanning

It seems we have somewhat forgotten about the potential impact of mobile document scanning and capture. Back in 2011, when only 35% of Americans identified themselves as owning a smart phone, Harvey Spencer Associates projected that by 2015, there would be $1.5 billion worth of software sold related to mobile capture, up from $200 million in 2011.

Since then, while smart phone usage has more than doubled, HSA's projected revenue growth for mobile capture software has not been realized. The study identified several potential use cases including field service, transportation, scan-to-the-cloud, home healthcare, assessment/survey/audit, onboarding and mobile check deposit. Of these, while we've seen some traction in markets like transportation and onboarding, the real killer app has been check scanning, which Mitek has made a $60 million-a-year business out of. 

There have certainly been a lot of efforts at developing document scanning apps for mobile devices. A quick search in the Google Play store reveals hundreds--most of them offering some basic functionality, like PDF creation, for free. The challenge has been monetizing this technology.

At the recent ABBYY Tech Summit, VP of Marketing Bruce Orcutt acknowledged that it's very hard to make money off mobile capture as a standalone app, but stressed that mobile is vital to the future of the company, as complementary technology to its capture platform. "Mobile is the preferred channel of end users," he said, meaning that people want to use their smartphones to capture documents. As phones' cameras and processing power continues to improve, this preference will only become more prevalent. 

Mobile is even more vital in less developed markets outside the U.S. During the recent Harvey Spencer Associates Capture I had dinner with Claudio Chaves, Jr., the CTO of IcAPT, an ISV jointly based in Brazil and Orlando, that has developed a cloud-based capture service. Chaves also has extensive experience working with service bureaus in Brazil. 

He explained that in Brazil, legal requirements call for mortgage documents to be printed on paper, which creates a good business for capturing them. However, he noted that one of challenges is that the images are often poor quality because people use their phones to capture them

According to my infoSource data, there were approximately 26,500 document scanners sold in Brazil last year compared to 875,000 sold in the U.S. That's 33 times as many scanners being sold in the U.S. than Brazil, which has a population of 209 million, which is more than 60% of the U.S. population of 325 million. Obviously, Brazil is underserved when it comes to document scanner sales.

But not when it comes to mobile phones. In 2017, it was estimated that there were almost 200 million smartphones in use in Brazil, giving it a penetration rate of close to 100%, considerably higher than the U.S. smartphone penetration rate of 77% (at the beginning of 2018). Like many countries with emerging economies, Brazil seems to be somewhat skipping the desktop era (at least for scanners) and moving right to the mobile era.

I don't think Brazil is unique in this transition. The question is how do we best address it? I think the continued development of better mobile capture technology is the primary way. ABBYY, for example, has shown us some very cool video streaming technology that enables users to capture multiple images of a document and utilize ABBYY's algorithms to determine the best one. I recently saw a commercial for Google's new Pixel 3 phone that offers similar functionality for photographs.

Sure, I know that everyone in the hardware market likes to say that scanning one or two pages might be fine with a mobile device, but I think the market is moving beyond that. I think the market would like to do batch scanning with mobile devices. There is of course the option of using mobile devices to drive scanners, but it doesn't seem like there has been much uptake in that area yet. No, the preference seems to be utilize the smartphone camera. And with memory increasing and the cameras improving, we think this demand will only increase in the future.

What does this mean for the future of scanners? Well, we have already started to see a decline in sales of personal (<$400) scanners in the Americas, according to our infoSource data, while sales of higher end workgroup, departmental, and low-volume production scanners grow or at least remain steady.

Of course, this could be attributed somewhat to former personal leader Neat exiting the market for scanners to focus on software, but part of the reason Neat stopped selling scanners is that they launched a mobile app that they expect people to utilize as on on-ramp. 

It will be interesting to watch how this plays out over the next few years. Will better scanning apps enable users to better capture multi-page documents with their phone? Will the evolution of TWAIN direct and similar "driverless" scanning technologies enable users to take full advantage of document scanners and MFPs for scanning with smartphones? How will the introduction of more AI, NLP, and machine learning into capture and BPM apps affect the market for scanning?

All of this is on the table. Let's just remember that mobile will have a major impact on the scanning and capture markets going forward.

The Future of the Scanning Hardware Market

As the editor and publisher of DIR, and more recently, Americas regional manager for infoSource, I've spent a lot of time covering the document-related hardware market. When I started back in the late 1990s, high-volume scanners were the primary market drivers with vendors like Kodak and Bell + Howell leading the industry. In the 2000s, we saw the rise of "distributed scanning" and explosive growth in the workgroup ($500-$2,000) segment of the market. More recently, we've seen the emergence of the personal segment (sub-$500) of document scanners, as well as more scanning on MFPs, as the act of document scanning truly becomes democratized. Of course, being able to take a picture of a document with a mobile phone, potentially puts a document scanner in everyone's pocket.

So, where is this all going? It's our opinion that the market is too fragmented and document scanning technology needs to become more standardized for it to take the jump to the next level and truly be considered mainstream technology. Basically, we need more consistent images and image onboarding/management processes to truly cross the chasm. So, how do we get there?

The new TWAIN Direct initiative is a step in the right direction. TWAIN Direct is designed to remove traditional drivers from the scanning process and enable scanners to be found on a network, similar to other peripheral devices like printers. The scanners would have to be running some bit of code in their internal memories that would enable them to connect with TWAIN Direct scanning applications, but it should be lightweight and not require a PC to act as an intermediary like document scanner drivers do today.

This is exciting because MFPs and apps on mobile devices could conceivably run similar code that would enable them to talk to those same applications. This could reduce the variety of connections that scanning software vendors have to create and upkeep and also serve to somewhat standardize the scanning process. Once we get that far, the scanning application vendors can invest their resources in what they are going to do with the scans once they get them.

I am not saying TWAIN Direct is the only way to accomplish this, but I would like to see some sort of standardized way to capture images across document scanners, MFPs and phones. They all have their place in the scanning hardware hierarchy, but for the industry to truly thrive, it is better if it's a connected, graduated hierarchy, vs. a lot of individual scanning platforms.

Is the Digital Mailroom is Making a Comeback?

Yesterday, I was stuck in the Buffalo airport awaiting transportation to a Xerox event in New York City being held today. A lot of new announcements are reportedly on tap and I got to wondering what some of these might be. Xerox, of course, recently separated its "Document Technologies" group from its "Services" group in a major split. Document Technologies, which is basically the old Xerox, carries on the Xerox brand, while Xerox Services, primarily the old ACS, which Xerox acquired in 2009, has been renamed Conduent.

The conference I am heading to is a Document Technologies conference, but, that doesn't mean services won't be represented. Xerox had a pretty healthy document outsourcing business before acquiring ACS and, from I understand, a lot of that has stayed with Xerox. This includes mailroom outsourcing - which led me to wonder if they would be announcing anything on the digital mailroom front.

In DIR, we recently ran a story on a new initiative by Ricoh called the Intelligent Delivery Services (IDS), which we billed as "More than a Digital Mailroom." The gist of IDS is that it combines scanning, analytics and consulting services to help optimize the processing of incoming mail. "“IDS is really focused on improving how people work,” said Nicole Blohm, senior product
manager-product marketing (managed services) for Ricoh USA, as quoted in the story. “It’s not just about opening mail and scanning it. We are trying to optimize mail delivery, reduce processing time, and drive better business decisions."

The first time we heard the term "digital mailroom" was back 2003 when Captiva introduced a prototype of the application at the AIIM Conference and Expo that year. We're not sure Captiva ever sold any of those systems, but they were certainly onto something as far as the concept was concerned. The term "digital mailroom" has been tossed about in our market even since.

While we saw some success in the U.S. market, particularly in federal government mailrooms in the wake of the Anthrax scares of the early 2000s, more digital mailroom implementations seemed to take place in Europe, where ISVs like Top Image Systems advertised their success in the segment. One theory was that the U.S. postal service already did quite a bit of pre-sorting for its customers, which led to more specialized mail delivery and cut down on the need for the auto-classification technology key to the digital mailroom concept.

Whatever the reason, the idea never really caught on rapidly in the U.S, market, but there are some signs that is changing. Mark Smith, director of strategic alliances at document scanner manufacturer  OPEX, told us he is seeing a renewed interest in the concept. "Related to this, we are seeing a lot of interest in using scanning and capture to cut down the amount of returned mail," he told DIR. "We are working with a capture software specialist, CPT Intelligent Technologies, that is focused on this specific area."

Estimates for the total cost of creating and processing a piece of returned mail are as high as $25. According to the USPS, there were about 1.4 billion pieces of first-class and standard mail returned in 2015. That adds up to a fairly large addressable market.

"One of the things we see with returned mail is that it's fairly uniform," said Smith. "In other words, you should be able to tell what it is depending on the thickness of the envelope. For example, if you sent out a bunch of similar credit card offers, the ones coming back should all be the same thickness. So, you can tell what they are without opening them."

Once the type of returned document is recognized, automated capture can be used to extract the addressee data from the envelope. This can then be fed to an analytics and/or another type of application, which can be used to correct the problem, such as updating the address or eliminating the addressee from the database - potentially saving large amounts of money down the road by preventing future returned mail.

This is the type of ROI that the digital mailroom always needed. "We are starting feel like digital mailroom as a concept is having a resurgence," said Smith. "It has come up in the past, but I don't think it was ready for prime time. People had concerns like they didn't want want the CEO's mail opened in the mailoom. (Modern solutions like IDS have an answer for that.) We are starting to see companies now asking for digital mailroom solutions and will have a marketing message around that at the upcoming National Postal Forum, along with a demo of the concept."

Not sure if Xerox is going to announce anything like that at today's event, but it will be interesting to see how widespread the digital mailroom concept is growing.

Management Changes Continue at Kodak Alaris

A week after announcing a restructuring of the sales management team at Kodak Alaris Information Management (IM), Kodak Alaris announced it is looking for a new CEO. In an announcement we received today, Kodak Alaris states, "To better position ourselves to achieve our long term growth plans, the Kodak Alaris Holdings Ltd. Board of Directors decided the time is right to initiate a search for a new CEO."

Effective May 1, Ralf Gerbershagen, who was named CEO of Kodak Alaris in 2014, has stepped down. According to statement DIR received from Kodak Alaris: "Today’s announcement is about looking forward. This was not a performance based decision but more an assessment of the future leadership needs of Kodak Alaris. The Board felt this represented the ideal time to begin the new search for a CEO. [Gerbershagen] leaves the company better positioned than when he arrived and with our best wishes for his future."

 Kodak Alaris was launched in September 2013, with the sale of Kodak Document Imaging (now IM) and Kodak Personal Imaging to the Kodak UK Pension Fund for a combination of $2.8 billion in debt relief and $650 million in cash and non-cash considerations. The sale was part of the bankruptcy proceedings for Eastman Kodak.

Gerbershagen, who is based in the UK was brought in from Motorola Mobility in April, 2014. During his tenure, Kodak Alaris reportedly saw a strong rebound in its scanner sales, which were negatively affected by the uncertainty related to the bankruptcy proceedings. Kodak Alaris was less successful with a intelligent document recognition (IDR) venture. After signing a partnership with German ISV ITyX in 2012 and struggling to generate any sales momentum, in 2015 Kodak Alaris launched a subsidiary, AI Foundry, which is totally focused on IDR sales. However, shortly after the launch of AI Foundry, Kodak Alaris broke off its relationship with ITyX, which then filed suit.

According to Alan Swahn, VP, marketing for AI Foundry, in an e-mail to DIR last month, “We are working with other suppliers that more closely align with new opportunities in the marketplace. We are working on exciting new solutions and you can expect announcements later this year.”

Jeff Goodman has been appointed as Kodak Alaris' CEO on an interim basis. Goodman had been serving as COO. Kodak Alaris has not set a timetable for hiring a new CEO. Following is a statement form Kodak Alaris: "We are looking for an outstanding and inspirational leader with a proven global track record of identifying and driving long term profitable growth for large international companies.

"As we need to conduct a comprehensive search for our next CEO, we don’t have a specific timetable. Jeff’s presence, combined with the company being in a solid place, allows our board to conduct a thorough search for our next CEO. Jeff is committed to filling this role until we find our new CEO and will support his/her transition to the role."

We asked a Kodak Alaris representative if the organization's goals have changed since Gerbershagen was brought in two years ago. Here was the reply: "We continue to transform the company and our current focus has shifted from restructuring to growth. Our plans and our ongoing programs, developed by the Kodak Alaris Executive Committee (of which Jeff was and is a part) and approved by our Board, remain unchanged and have our absolute focus and commitment."

Management Changes at Kodak Alaris IM

Word came out yesterday that Kodak Alaris Information Management has changed its management structure. Cássio Vaquero, who had been serving as regional director of emerging markets (Asia-Pacific and Latin America) has apparently been appointed to a new head of global sales position. In conjunction with that, Martin Birch, Kodak Alaris' IM's regional manager for the US&C, and Erwin Schwarzl, regional manager for EAMER, have been let go. 

Here's a quote from Kodak Alaris on the shake up: "With the global integration of key business functions, including sales, within IM, we are transitioning to a new worldwide operational model. We thank Martin and Erwin for their contributions and wish them well in the future as we continue to help our customers grow their business using Kodak Alaris scanners, software and services."

The move is a bit surprising as Birch and Schwarzl have only been in their current positions for about a year. Last April, Birch, who was serving as regional director for EAMER, moved to the U.S. to take over for Russell Hunt, who retired. Schwarzl had been serving in another capacity at Kodak Alaris. Both Birch and Schwarzl worked at Kodak (and then Kodak Alaris) for several years.

These moves are part of a tumultuous few months at Kodak Alaris IM, which has also included some changes within its AI Foundry intelligent document recognition (IDR) software business.  

Lasefiche EMPOWER Event Continues to Grow

LONG BEACH, CA – It was good to return to the Laserfiche EMPOWER Conference this year after a three-year hiatus. Last time I had the opportunity to attend was 2012. I had planned to go in 2013, but a snowstorm changed that. 

Since that 2012 event, I haven't really had a chance to connect with the Laserfiche executive team. And there have been big changes to that team over that time. In 2013, Tom Wayman, VP of marketing and product strategy, died. The next year, his mother and company founder and CEO Nien-Ling Wacker passed away. (Both had awards named after them that were presented at this year's conference.) Nien-Ling's husband Chris Wacker has taken over as CEO, with CTO Karl Chan having added president to his title. In 2014, Laserfiche named Thomas Phelps IV as its VP of corporate strategy and marketing.

During the last few years, Laserfiche has continued to grow. For the 2012 conference, which was held at the Anaheim Marriott, I reported 1,600 people attended. For this year's event, which was moved to the Long Beach Convention Center (a much bigger venue), Laserfiche announced 2,700 attendees. Chris Wacker also told me the company enjoyed 10-12%  revenue growth in 2015 over 2014, which was also a growth year.

Overall, 880 organizations were represented at EMPOWER. This included a mix of end users, resellers, and vendor partners. The big announcement was the release of Laserfiche 10, which features improvements in collaborative and mobile capabilities, as well as the introduction of a library of more than 100 pre-built workflows across several vertical markets and horizontal applications. New analytics tools for BPM were also introduced.

A few things that have not changed in the four years since I last attended EMPOWER:

1. Laserfiche remains very strong in state and local government market.
2. There is still a big push toward getting many of these government customers to expand their implementations enterprise wide. It seems to be working. For example, I attended a presentation by the City of Boca Raton, which has expanded its implementation from the clerk's office to the A/P department and now has 50 more projects either currently being implemented or that have been requested. Many of the attendees I spoke with were considering similar (if not quite as big) expansions.
3. Epson is still the event's premier sponsor, although Epson's scanner business has grown considerably since 2012. According to Mark Pickard, senior product manager, Document Scanners, Epson America (citing numbers from the NPD group) through the first 11 months of 2015, the company's revenue from commercial scanners grew 24% over 2014, which was twice as fast as Epson's nearest competitor. He credited Epson's relationship with Laserfiche and its channel as contributing to that growth.

We'll have more detailed coverage of the event in our next newsletter, but that's a quick summary for you.

German Start-Up Developing Unit for Smartphone Scanning

Here's a preview of an article that scheduled to run in tomorrow's (Oct. 16) edition of DIR:

scanPAD is a German startup that has created a new apparatus designed to enable smartphones to act as document scanners, mini photo studios, and even overhead projectors. According to a press sheet, the scanPAD leverages patent-pending nanotechnology to hold and stabilize smartphones, as well as documents. Shaped like a desklamp (see image), the scanPAD holds a smartphone in place above whatever the user is trying to capture. 

For documents, the base of the scanPAD has a microsuction surface designed to not only hold documents, but also smooth and flatten them. It is designed to work with whatever document capture app a user has installed on their phone. The reverse side of the microsuction pad features a bluescreen that enables users to take pictures with a transparent/replaceable background. The device can also be used to give video presentations utilizing printed pages or whiteboards.  

The scanPAD carries a retail list price of 249 Euros, or about $283US. There is a Kickstarter campaign underway, with a goal of raising $113,000 over the next two months. As of mid-day yesterday, 40 backers had pledged $6,500. Pledges of a certain amount get the pledger a discounted scanPAD in return. Manufacturing is scheduled to begin in Germany in January with units to begin shipping in February. 

I believe this is the third device we have covered in DIR designed to hold a smartphone to create higher quality scans. The last one was the Scandock from Atiz, a company headed by former Apprentice finalist Nick Warnock. Atiz’s Scandock lists for slightly more than the scanPAD but also offers a lighting system and software designed to ensure high-quality color images are produced. 

Added for blog: Would it make sense for someone to create an ADF version of this type of scanner? Along those lines how fast could you capture images, say, leveraging the video camera within a smartphone or tablet? Could you do it ibml fast if you had the right transport? Just some food for thought.

Kruchten to Depart Kodak Alaris

Dolores Kructhen, who has served as president of Kodak Alaris Document Imaging - DI (recently renamed Information Management- IM), since it was launched in 2013, is leaving the company at the end of May. Here's the official statement from Kodak Alaris:

"Dolores Kruchten, President of the Information Management division, has decided to leave Kodak Alaris at the end of May. All of us at Kodak Alaris thank Dolores for her contributions over the years and wish her all the very best for the future. We are actively recruiting – in the interim, Ralf Gerbershagen and Jeff Goodman will work closely with the existing Information Management Executive leadership team to ensure a smooth transition."

Kruchten started with Kodak  in 1981. She held numerous positions at Kodak Document Imaging, including running the hardware service business for Kodak Graphic Communications before taking over as GM of DI in 2007. Kruchten oversaw that transition of DI from a division of Eastman Kodak to one of the two principal divisions of Kodak Alaris - which were spun off as part of Eastman Kodak's bankruptcy proceedings.

The DI business struggled with uncertainty in 2012 and most of 2013, before bouncing back with a strong year for scanner sales in 2014. Like many hardware vendors, it is attempting to move towards more of a solutions approach and has added more software to its portfolio. Last week, DIR ran a story on Russell Hunt's retirement as Regional GM of the US&C for DI/IM. He is being replaced by Martin Birch, who had previously served as regional GM for EMEA at DI/IM.




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EPM Sells Service Business to Kodak Alaris

Just about a year after acquiring Imaging 411 in order to launch its own service business Eastman Park Micrographics (EPM) is selling its service business to Kodak Alaris, its biggest competitor. From what I heard, EPM was not entirely happy with the way its court case against Kodak Alaris was going. EPM had sought to bar Kodak Alaris Document Imaging from marketing its service to EPM ImageLink micrographics customers - but after originally receiving a court order that supported this position, that order was reversed.

Previous to EPM's acquisition of Long Island-based imaging service specialist Imaging 411 in December 2013, Kodak Alaris had been the official service provider for ImageLink equipment through a contract with EPM. After EPM acquired Imaging 411, it took over the ImageLink service contracts and attempted to bar Kodak Alaris from competing for them. From what we understand, this strategy was not entirely working out, which prompted EPM to sell its service business to Kodak Alaris.

EPM had previously signed on Kodak Alaris to provide support for its hardware customers in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. EPM Service and Kodak Alaris were competing in North America.

With the acquisition, Kodak Alaris also picks up a competitor for scanner service. Imaging 411, and then EPM, employed several ex-Kodak DI technicians and had aggressively pursued document scanner service contracts.

EPM will now focus on hardware manufacturing, with Crowley doing the sales and marketing, as well as media distribution.

Top News Stories in 2014

 This article originally appeared in our Dec. 19, 2014 premium issue.

What Went Down in 2014

A review of our five biggest news stories/trends in the past year. We’ve listed them in reverse order, like a countdown.

5. Convergence of call center and capture markets: It’s the natural evolution of multi-channel capture to eventually include voice. Conversely, as call centers evolve into contact centers, they are starting to embrace document-centric communication. Then there is everything in between: e-mails, Web sites, text messages, social media, etc., that is somewhat unconquered, and this is where the convergence is starting to occur.

At this year’s Harvey Spencer Associates Capture Conference, customer experience management (CEM) consultant Michael McBrien showed a slide depicting an ideal contact center where social, Web, in-person, phone, and mobile communications were all integrated. When asked if anyone is actually doing this, his answer was no.

That said, from the capture market perspective, we are starting to see these elements come together through initiatives like Kofax’s First Mile SPA (smart process application) strategy [see DIR 3/28/14], Kodak Alaris’ partnership with German IDR/AI specialist ITyX, and even document outsourcing specialist BancTec’s recent merger with Dataforce Group [see DIR 8/22/14]. From the contact center side, it was good to see a respected industry veteran like McBrien show up at the HSA Conference.

4. Kofax misses consecutive quarters: The year started so auspiciously for the Irvine, CA-based capture and SPA vendor. At the annual Transform conference held in March, Kofax was riding four straight quarters of software license and overall growth. In addition, an IPO on the Nasdaq (which was completed in Dec. 2013) was paying off, with Kofax’s market cap soaring to around the $750M mark

Then came Kofax’s fiscal Q4 2014 and Q1 2015. For the quarter ended June 30, Kofax reported a non-IFRS YOY decline in software license revenue of 7.5% and a YOY decline in EBITDA of 38.9%. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Kofax reported a YOY non-GAAP decline in software license revenue of 3.5% and an adjusted EBITDA decline of 47.8%. For Q1, Kofax’s margin was just 6.3%—when in March CEO Reynolds Bish had set a goal of reaching 20% margins within three years.

In both quarters, Bish blamed the shortfalls on large seven- and high-six-figure “core capture” deals that had slipped into future quarters. After the more recent miss, Bish went so far as to say that Kofax will be putting more focus on its “mobile and new or acquired products,” hoping they will pull through traditional capture sales—and get capture back to “single-digit growth.” “We are now accelerating the reallocation of resources and expenditures into this fast growing part of our business,” said Bish [see DIR 10/10/14].

But then a funny thing started happening. In the past month and a half, since Kofax announced its fiscal Q1 results on Oct. 30, the ISV has issued no less than five press releases touting software deals in the high-six to seven-figure range, mostly focused on automating document capture processes. When you couple this with Kofax’s continuing to increase its number of $100,000 (mostly capture) deals (even during its Q1, the number of six figure deals increased by 33%), maybe the capture market isn’t in as bad of shape as Kofax had thought.

3. Increase in onboard imaging processing (IP) technology in document scanners: We’ll admit this isn’t a very sexy story in and of itself, but to us it is the sign of something bigger. In 2014, three leading scanner vendors announced enhanced on-board image processing features: Fujitsu introduced PaperStream IP, which has replaced Kofax VRS as its bundled IP technology [see DIR 1/31/14]; Visioneer embedded IP on a chip with its new On Board Acuity [see DIR 7/18/14]; and Kodak Alaris introduced a new embedded version of its PerfectPage technology [see DIR 6/13/14].

So, what’s the big deal? This trend may help scanners run at closer to rated speeds today, but down the road is when the big benefits could come. More onboard IP creates the potential for removing the PC (where IP has historically been run) from the scanning equation. Not surprisingly, Fujitsu, Visioneer, and Kodak Alaris are all members of the TWAIN Working Group, which is actively working on a new TWAIN Direct standard, designed to connect scanners to applications without going through traditional drivers. EMC Captiva (which develops ISIS drivers) has undertaken a similar initiative with its Cloud SDK.

One end game of these initiatives is that they will enable scanners to be run by a multitude of alternative computing devices such as network devices, phones, tablets, netbooks, and who knows what else. They should also simplify development of capture applications. This trend of more onboard IP is helping move document scanning into the 21st century and beyond.

2. Rise of Cloud computing in ECM: I don’t think we’ve hit the tipping point yet, but in 2014 there were multiple small movements this way that are starting to add up: You had reseller IDT telling us that 40% of its new business is coming from cloud sales [see DIR 11/7/14]. You had Captricity, a 100% cloud-based crowdsourcing capture ISV, securing a $10 million round of Series B funding [see DIR 8/1/14]. You had Ephesoft, which has a purely Web-based cloud friendly capture platform, getting a minority investment from Fujitsu [see DIR 8/1/14]. You had capture ISV TIS buying cloud document management provider eGistics [see DIR 7/18/14]. And you had Box announcing workflow technology at BoxWorks and Dropbox revamping its Dropbox for Business; in the meantime, you had SharePoint experience some growing pains as Microsoft tried to reposition it as part of its Office 365 cloud offering.

As I said, there wasn’t a tidal wave of ECM cloud adoption, but rather a large number of smaller waves in that direction that combined can be equally powerful, especially if they continue to gain momentum in the upcoming year.

1. Lexmark acquires ReadSoft: Far and away the biggest story of 2014 was Lexmark’s acquisition of ReadSoft. The drama played out publicly over a period of four months, from May to August, with the Lexington, KY-based MFP vendor finally paying the equivalent of US $255 million for the market leading capture ISV, which is based in Helsingborg, Sweden. Counter bidding by Hyland Software drove up the price from Lexmark’s initial offer of $182 million.

By all appearances, the acquisition began innocuously enough when Lexmark announced its initial bid on May 6. Although the price seemed relatively low by capture market standards based on its multiple of 1.5x ReadSoft’s 2013 revenue, it did represent a record premium of 117% over market cap for a company trading on the Stockholm Exchange. Lexmark’s offer was unanimously recommended by ReadSoft’s board and included a provision that the board would only consider a competing offer if it was at least 7% higher than the Lexmark offer.

About a week before the acceptance period for the offer was scheduled to conclude, in mid-June, Hyland, probably Lexmark’s Perceptive Software’s most direct competitor in the ECM market, made a bid of approximately $198M, which was 8.7% higher than the Lexmark bid. Lexmark quickly countered with a $200M bid, because, well, they did not have to adhere to the same 7% premium.

Reading the ReadSoft and Hyland statements surrounding the bids led DIR to believe that Lexmark has made some promises regarding future employment of ReadSoft personnel that Hyland was unwilling to match [see DIR 6/27/14]. We also got the impression that Hyland was feeling a bit jilted by ReadSoft’s preference of Lexmark as a suitor. Apparently Hyland had been in talks with ReadSoft prior to the original Lexmark bid that had reportedly ended abruptly.

This all led to Hyland’s buying up of approximately 11% of ReadSoft’s outstanding shares, which it felt voided a 90% share requirement provision in Lexmark’s bid, and then making another bid of approximately $210M. Lexmark countered with a bid of $224M, which included an option to waive the 90% provision [see DIR 7/18/14]. Hyland took one more shot, which Lexmark answered with its $255M bid that included purchasing outright all the shares of ReadSoft’s two co-founders. This gave Lexmark a voting majority and effectively closed the deal [see DIR 8/22/14].

The bidding war was great for the capture industry, as it effectively increased the acquisition multiple of one of the market leaders to 2.2x revenue, a much healthier figure than the one associated with the original bid. The reasons for the acquisition on Lexmark’s side are clear. These include helping it reach its goal of $500 million in revenue for Perceptive Software in 2016 and increasing its European ECM presence. At the same time it helps Lexmark avoid the higher tax rates associated with repatriated profits by investing them in a European acquisition.

Hyland would also have benefited greatly from ReadSoft’s European presence, including its well regarded SAP integration in accounts payable applications. But, in the end it could not compete with Lexmark’s deeper pockets and whatever employment agreements were reached between Lexmark and ReadSoft. Curiously, at the same time it was acquiring ReadSoft, which has recently operated at around a break-even level, Lexmark was touting a goal of reaching 25% operating margins for Perceptive, which, for Q3 (minus some partial quarter numbers from ReadSoft), reported just 3.8% margins [see DIR 11/7/14]. Lexmark clearly has its work cut out.

Somewhat ironically, a couple months after it bowed out of the ReadSoft bidding, Hyland signed a partnership with Xerox. Part of the goal of that relationship is to help the ECM ISV expand its international reach [see DIR 11/21/14]. This should help even the playing field with Perceptive somewhat, although we still wouldn’t be surprised to see Hyland acquire a European ISV to supplement its efforts.
Those are some of the high points of our news coverage in 2014, a year which also included another successful AIIM Conference [see DIR 4/11/14], a strong rebound in Kodak branded scanner sales (now being sold by Kodak Alaris) [see DIR 10/24/14], Harvey’s Spencer Associates celebrating its 10th annual Capture Conference [see DIR 9/12/14], and Nuance buying MFP capture rival Notable Solutions.

Industry Pioneer Passes
Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that 2014 was also the year that we lost one of the industry’s true pioneers, Nien-Ling Wacker. Wacker founded Laserfiche in 1987, a company that has been one of the leaders in the document imaging and management space since I started working in the market in 1998. Despite the company’s consistent growth, Wacker did her best to maintain her personal touch in the business. Whenever I would see her at events, should always made time to hold a real conversation and never failed to ask how I and our publication were doing, even as I interviewed her about Laserfiche.

Wacker received many accolades throughout her career, including the AIIM Pioneer of the Year Award in 2002, National Luminary of the Year by the Mothers in Business Network in 2005, and City National Bank’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2009. In 2006 she was inducted into the National Association of Women Business Owners Hall of Fame in Los Angeles. She is also remembered for her “Red Shoes” story, the moral of which is along the lines of “make hay while the sun shines,” which Wacker certainly did during her tenure with Laserfiche.

Nien-Ling’s husband Chris has taken over as Laserfiche CEO. Karl Chan has been promoted from CTO to president.

No Need to be Scared of Paper

As you may have heard, Thursday was World Paper Free Day. Officially, it is AIIM initiative that encourages people and businesses to not use paper for one day. I was Tweeted, I did not go paper free: 

Yes. I'm a heretic printing on @WorldPaperFree day! More in upcoming DIR Talk blog post. pic.twitter.com/GBNi5dWZQa
— Ralph Gammon (@DIREditor) November 6, 2014

I was writing and on a deadline for my newsletter--and to tell the truth, absent three or four monitors, I just find it easier to compile a story using multiple sources, when I at least have my notes on a paper. Then I can utilize my computer screen for additional research. And the proofreading....I did go paper free for a year, just to see how it worked, and it was certainly possible to publish the newsletter without printing anything. However, I think it is easier to do it when I can print certain items.

Yes, I think there are situations where paper is more efficient than electronic documents, which brings me to the major discrepancy I currently have with the ECM industry--Everyone is always trying to go paperless! All I hear is about how much more efficient and secure EDM systems are over paper. And this may be true on some levels, but certainly not all.

Let's start with security because I think that's more black-and-white. Yes, I think a properly controlled electronic document in an ECM system is more secure than a paper document. This seems obvious. I mean you can pretty much control who accesses it and changes it and track whoever sees it and provide an audit trail. It's harder to do this with paper. 

Of course, this doesn't quite explain why people in the healthcare industry consciously choose to use fax over e-mail. Apparently they still feel that analog is more secure than digital. I'll explore this more in an upcoming issue of DIR. 

As far as efficiency, I am a fan of paper for many collaborative exercises, as I think it's easier to share because in many cases it represents a least common denominator. I mean you don't have to worry about your paper being compatible with another system. And your annotations, notes, signatures, et al, work across systems as well. And if you need to contact someone in a remote location - a scanned image should work just fine.

Now, I agree that electronic processes are generally more efficient than paper ones - but I also firmly believe that there are times when paper can be more useful - and that we should take advantage of the fact that we have access to such great printing and scanning technology. In fact, I think we've reached a tipping point, where if managed correctly, it really doesn't matter if information comes in on paper or digitally, it can be dealt with just as efficiently either way.

In other words, don't be scared of paper, embrace it where it makes sense. Don't try and eliminate it, try to set up the most efficient processes you can that take full advantage of paper as a medium of communication. There is great document imaging technology out there. Don't be afraid to use it.

And of course, there are these guys.

Cheers.

SourceCorp, BancTec Merger Makes Sense

This week's announcement that SourceHOV has merged with BancTec made complete sense from a strategic standpoint-although the announcement admittedly caught us somewhat by surprise. Here's a true story: I was in Birmingham last week visiting ibml when the topic of BancTec came up. I said I could not figure out why they did not just merge with SourceHOV, especially since they had a common investor after BancTec was acquired by HandsOn3 in February.

BancTec's story was that HandsOn3 was only a minor investor in SourceHOV and that the plan was to integrate BancTec with the smaller Dataforce, which would create a $300M business combining BancTec's document capture outsourcing with Dataforce's call center business. Well, apparently, plans changed. It seemed that others agreed with my thoughts that it made just too much sense to merge BancTec and SourceHOV, which are in  a similar market and are both headquartered in Dallas.

SourceHOV, which is actually the result of the merger of the former Lason and SourceCorp that happened in 2011, must have been doing about $600M in annual revenue, as the new organization is being touted as having annual revenue of more than $900M. Here's a quote from the press release the discussion the complementary nature of the organization's services operations. " “SourceHOV’s deep domain expertise in healthcare and legal claims processing, alongside BancTec’s 40+ years of banking payment processing know-how, enables the creation of a global powerhouse provider for Transaction Processing Services,” said Ron Cogburn, Chief Executive Officer of SourceHOV and Mark Fairchild, President of BancTec in a joint statement.

As you might guess from the dual-attribution, decisions have not been announced as to who is going to be managing what going forward. Fairchild was only recently appointed president of BancTec in the wake of the acquisition by HandsOn3. Nothing will likely be finalized until the deal closes, which is apparently subject to Hart Scott Rudino review. DIR caught up with Ray Wise, VP Sourcing and Treasury at SourceHOV, who said he doesn't foresee any problems. The press releases states the closing is expected to happen this year. Wise said SourceHOV would like to close it sooner, but a lot depends on how long the government review takes.

HandsOn3 will become the owner of the entire organization, as it is buying out SourceHOV's other major shareholder. Related to the transaction, SourceHOV will receive a new $1.1B line of credit.

Panasonic introduces new Departmental models

Panasonic flies under the radar a lot in the document scanner market, but they continue to come out with some impressive new technology. Check out these new departmental models (80 and 100 ppm, list price  $5,195, and $6,195) that were introduced this week.

An impressive list of features in the press release:

• ToughFeed: Stapled Document Detection, Ultrasonic Double-Feed Detection, Intelligent Feed Control and High Quality Feed Rollers ensure a smooth supply of paper into the scanner for efficient scanning.
• Mechanical Deskew: Physically adjusts and corrects the skew of documents before scanning by the paper feed mechanism to reduce the need for rescans.
• Paper Ejection Control: Paper exit roller reduces the speed of ejected paper and aligns it to prevent paper jams or the loss of originals.
• Hardware Image Processing: Performs image enhancements and prevents scanning speed degradation by maintaining workflow efficiency at 300 and 200 dpi
•  Auto-Preview / Auto-Rescan: Automatically produces nine different versions of a scanned document and displays them as thumbnails. Users select the most suitable image with a single click with no time loss. Similarly, users can adjust the quality of an image via the thumbnails without having to rescan the original thereby saving time and improving productivity.
•  Notification Function: Automatically detects problems with scanned images including binary/color, binary image, blank page and unique page detection using four notification functions and displays warning icons using Panasonic Image Capture Plus software.
• Additional productivity features include Automatic Glass Cleaning, Self Cleaning Ionizer, and One Touch Scanning for up to 100 programmable scanning workflows.
• The new models include Panasonic’s proprietary Active Double-Feed Roller Prevention, LED scanning illumination, Advanced Image Processing, and Image Capture Plus technologies (easy-to-use data formats, automatic image orientation and OCR Zone function).

DIR Top Stories of 2013: 7 thru 10

Here are the final three of our top 10 Document Imaging stories for 2013 as covered in DIR. (Here are links to posts on our top, second, and third, as well as fourth through sixth top stories):


7. Captricity Secures Round of Financing: Berkeley, CA-based ISV that specializes in automating data entry leveraging crowdsourcing, announced a $2.4 million round of financing led by The Social+Capital Partnership, a Palo Alto-based group founded by former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya.

8. Kofax Hires New CMO; Former Kofax CMO Joins ReadSoft: Okay, it wasn't quite that cut and dried, but these hirings happened within about a month of each other. Former FileNet and Pagasystems executive Grant Johnson joined Kofax in October in the wake of the resignation of Martyn Christian. Then a month later, Andrew Pery, who worked as Kofax CMO from 2006-2010, joined ReadSoft full-time after working there as a consultant for almost a year. Additionally, in 2013, former ReadSoft Marketing Manager Alayne Pregeant joined TIS.

9. BancTec Lands Its Largest Scanner Deal Ever: This was a cool story as the Dallas-based imaging hardware, software, and service provider sold more than 30 high-volume scanners, through a reseller partner, to a Japanese shared services center. The kicker is that the center was opened in the Fukushima Prefecture, where a partial nuclear meltdown occurred in 2011, in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami.

10. TWAIN Working Group Launches Driverless Scanning Initiative:  Pam Doyle, Chair: "We are working on changing the conversation and taking out native drivers. We want to make the conversation occur directly between an application and a scanner. This will eliminate the need to develop drivers for multiple platforms.”

 

Sale of Kodak DI - Top Story of 2013

I apologize for being a few days late with this but I was busy enjoying holidays with my family, as well as dealing with living in the snowiest city in the U.S. so far this year: and yes, it is certainly coming down as I write the first draft of this post on Thursday evening (We're at 70 inches and counting- more than twice as much snowfall as Anchorage Alaska!). Anyhow, in between holiday cheer and bouts of flu and cold, I've been going over my annual article index for 2013, which will get published along with my 2014 predictions next week.

Going over the index is a great way to review the top stories and events of the previous year, which is inevitably leads to a top 10 list or something like that. For 2013, it seemed there were certainly two stories that stood out above all others, and maybe eight more that I thought were fairly significant.Today I'll share with you my top story in the document imaging industry from 2013 and follow up shortly with number 2, and the rest thereafter.

Without further ado, here is a summary of the top story we covered in DIR in 2013:

1. Kodak Document Imaging is acquired by the Kodak U.K. Pension Plan (KPP).

In a deal that was announced in May 2013, one of the leading players in our market was sold to an organization that is roughly the equivalent of an equity investor, but with a longer-term vision. Not coincidentally, KPP, which operates independently of Eastman Kodak, also happened to be Eastman Kodak's largest unsecured creditor. KPP agreed to pay Eastman Kodak $650 million in cash and non-cash considerations for DI and Kodak Personalized Imaging (PI), which combined generated $1.46 billion worth of profitable revenue in 2012. As part of the deal, Eastman Kodak was also relieved of $2.8 billion in claims that KPP had made against the bankrupt organization. So, in all Eastman Kodak received a potential net $3.45 billion for the two businesses, which KPP renamed Kodak Alaris, when the sale was completed in early September.

This brought to an end a saga which began in early 2012, when after months of rumors, Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy. Originally, DI was positioned as a "core business" that Eastman Kodak would hang on to help fund its emerging "growth businesses." That changed in August when Eastman Kodak realized it needed to sell more assets to pay off its creditors and get them to agree to the terms of its bankruptcy. Per bankruptcy laws, a formal process was put in place for selling DI that included accepting a "stalking horse" bid that would serve as a starting point in an auction.

The stalking horse bid came in April from Japanese manufacturer Brother, which offered $210 million, plus the assumption of $67 million worth unfulfilled service contracts for DI. However, that bid was trumped less than two weeks later by KPP's much higher bid for both DI and PI.

Just a few weeks after the sale to KPP was closed, the recently renamed Kodak Alaris DI put on its second annual Global Directions educational conference, where the keynote was noted author and futurist, and current Google Director of Engineering Ray Kurzweil. The event focused on a more software-centric future for Kodak DI. "In five years, we’d like to have at least one third of our revenue coming from software,” said Tony Barbeau, DI VP, products and services. “It could be higher depending on how much investment the organization makes. We could possibly choose to complement our organic growth through acquisition."

Barbeau and most of the Kodak DI management team, including President Dolores Kruchten, stayed on through the acquisition, so we don't expect any major shake-ups in the way DI will be doing business going forward. That said, everyone in the organization seemed relieved and somewhat elated that the sale to KPP was completed. They are looking forward to the opportunity to run free of the burden of their failing parent and the increased nimbleness and aggressiveness their new position should bring. We expect more exciting news from Kodak Alaris DI in 2014, but we're not sure if it can top the exciting events of 2013.

Imaging 411 Targets VARs, Offering Higher Margins on Service

Following is an excerpt from an article entitled, "Imaging 411 Pumps Life into Hardware Service Market" that appeared in our July 19, 2013 premium edition of DIR.

There are several components to a document imaging sale. We typically talk a lot about the hardware, software, and professional services associated with a deal, because those items typically produce the big upfront price tag. (Unless of course it’s a SaaS or MPS driven deal—but, while gaining momentum, those are still exceptions rather than the norms in our market.) But, there is also typically recurring revenue that can be earned through software maintenance and hardware service contracts.

One difference between these recurring revenue sales and the upfront sales, however, is that while any number of vendors may be competing for the upfront sales, the number of options for maintenance and service is typically limited. Software maintenance, for example, because of the nature of the beast, is usually offered only by the ISV who developed the software. As a result, the ISV typically gets to set the terms with no questions asked.

Hardware service has historically been somewhat more flexible, and at one time many resellers were actually certified to service scanners, which enabled them to control their own pricing. However, while some scanner vendors like Canon still certify VARs, other market leaders like Kodak and Fujitsu have increasingly encouraged resellers to offer only the manufacturer’s authorized service at a price dictated by the manufacturer. The result has been successful service programs for the manufacturers, which has helped them offset some of their falling margins on hardware sales, but it has also put the squeeze on resellers who also have to deal with falling hardware margins and now have to deal with more restrictive service margins as well.

Imaging 411 is attempting to reverse that dynamic and once again make scanner service an important profit center for VARs. The Long Island, NY-based organization is offering scanner service packages to VARs—advertising significantly higher margins than the VARs get reselling similar service packages from leading scanner manufacturers. Imaging 411 recently brought on board long-time scanner industry sales and marketing executive Don McMahan as its VP of sales to help it drive some aggressive channel growth.

McMahan was originally hired by Imaging 411 as a consultant in 2010 when he launched the service provider’s Maintenance VAR Program (MVP). “One of the big components of the MVP program is that we offer deal registration,” said McMahan. “This signifies that we are not competing with our resellers. In addition, we are offering VARs two to three times the margins they get on service contracts from leading scanner vendors.”

Imaging 411 was launched in 2004 as a VAR, with the value-add of being able provide its own service. Its co-founders, Gary Armstrong and Joe Paradiso, are former Lason executives who helped manage service for a large conversion services and imaging systems integration business. Over the years, Imaging 411 began to increase its focus on service on both microfilm and document scanner equipment.

“In each of the past five years, Imaging 411 has enjoyed at least double-digit growth in terms of revenue and new accounts,” said McMahan. “We’ve landed some major national accounts with more than 100 locations—including Databank, which we publicized last year. We also landed a contract to provide in-house scanner service for one of the biggest office integrators in the U.S.”

A lot of the Imaging 411’s early customers are former Kodak Service & Support customers. “We went after Kodak customers and partners first because the dollar values associated with some of their accounts are so high and Kodak’s programs aren’t very flexible,” said McMahan. “One of our differentiators is that we pride ourselves on being easier to do business with."

McMahan said that Imaging 411 currently has about 20 reseller partners. “We are definitely growing our channel,” he said. “That said, I think 30 partners, that really want to do a good job, would be plenty."

Imaging 411 offers coverage throughout the United States through a combination of its own field engineers and contractors. It also provides Level II support to supplement its field personnel. “Our price book is basically the same as the manufacturers’,” said McMahan. “We match all the service SKUs sold by Kodak, Fujitsu, Canon, etc., and we offer more flexible pricing.”

“The bottom line," McMahan added, "is that even if the service market is shrinking, for a smaller company like Imaging 411, the opportunity is too great to pass up. We think the market is plenty big enough to support another major player.”

Kodak Event to Focus on Leading Edge Information Management

Here's an excerpt from an article that appeared in last week's premium edition of DIR:

From Sept. 22-25, Kodak DI will be hosting its second annual Global Directions Conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington D.C. The event features a keynote by Ray Kurzweil, the noted technology inventor, author, and visionary who is currently employed as the director of engineering at Google. Kurzweil, who is probably most widely known for his work on artificial intelligence, but was also an early pioneer in the area of applied OCR, will talk on “The Next Wave of Intelligent Information Management.” According to the Global Directions Web site, the talk “sets the stage and explores the exponential increase in computing power, computing intelligence, and the inexorable impact they will have on transforming information management for the enterprise.”

This is in line with the event’s theme of intelligent information management. “We look at Global Directions as an educational conference,” explained Tim Palmer, VP of worldwide marketing for Kodak DI. “We want to help advance the thinking of the whole industry around understanding information and taking friction and cost out of business processes.”

The other opening day keynotes reflect this broad focus that expands well beyond the traditional areas of business for Kodak DI. In additional to Kurzweil, high level executives from IBM, Google, Salesforce.com, and Microsoft will take the dais to discuss topics like big data and analytics, smarter enterprise search, the death of the desktop, and the future of business collaboration. There will also be a panel discussion moderated by Michael Hickins, editor, Wall Street Journal/CIO Journal, that will pull together multiple keynote speakers, including Kurzweil.

“We are taking a very broad view of where Kodak DI intersects with traditional business and new business going forward. We are looking to have our brand and division associated with end users, service providers, manufactures, resellers, etc., as they think about what they need to do to go to market in the future.

“If you consider the concept of information workflow, traditionally capture for us has meant scanning paper documents. But, we realize that information is coming from more and more sources and the growth of digital information as input is increasing exponentially. In the future, we need to help businesses capture information not only from paper, but from multiple other sources.

“‘Collecting’ is probably a better term than ‘capture,’ when you talk about taking this one large stream of information and getting it all to the right places, routing it, understanding it, semantically and contextually, and making sure you have the right associations and the right conclusions are being made.”

We asked Palmer, if Kodak’s Info Insight platform, which brings semantic and contextual understanding to the table, will be prominently featured at Global Directions. “It certainly fits on the far right of the information workflow model,” he said. “But, the event is focused on themes that are much wider than our current product offerings.”

A look at the agenda
After a Sunday evening reception, the full first day of Global Directions, Monday, Sept. 23, will be full of keynotes presented in a general session followed by an exhibitor showcase where dinner will be served. Tuesday and Wednesday will feature four tracks of breakout sessions, with no more than two or three sessions overlapping at a given time. Tuesday evening will feature a “Monuments by Moonlight” bus tour of downtown D.C.

Kodak is hoping for 300-400 attendees, or about double the number from last year’s inaugural Global Directions, which was held in Las Vegas [see DIR 9/28/12]. “We are looking to make a giant leap forward with this year’s event,” said Palmer. “We felt last year was pretty successful, and we definitely learned a lot, but this year we feel we are really offering a world class conference.

“We think we have a strong enough program to attract senior IT executives at end user organizations and business process owners. Primarily we are marketing to end users with the understanding that if they show up, systems integrators and resellers will certainly follow. We are marketing the event throughout the U.S., as well as internationally. We expect a decent turnout from Central and South America, and our team in Europe is looking to bring over some top end users customers—at least a double-digit number. Just because of logistics, we think it may a little tough to attract attendees from Asia-Pac.”


Kodak is also looking for sponsors and exhibitors. It is looking for a total surpassing 20. “Anyone that believes they can make a contribution to the future of intelligent information management is encouraged to exhibit at Global Directions,” said Palmer. “We expect plenty of end users to be on hand looking for those types of partners. We are taking a broad view of this conference as an educational opportunity, and we are looking for a similarly broad representation of exhibitors.

“The bottom line is that I think we are at the beginning of a very exciting period of time that will play out over the next 5, 10, and even 25 years. I sense another revolution in the way we are going to use information. With the presentations and networking at Global Directions, we hope to help attendees bridge the gap between this revolutionary vision and the practical first steps that need to be taken. We are hoping people are able to come away from our event energized and with at least a few things that they can put into action when they get back in the office on Thursday [Sept. 26].”