Electronic postmark

This electronic postmark stuff is pretty cool. It's like certified e-mail. I did a briefing with Authentidate on it a few years ago. They also own a document imaging company, as well as some technology for timestamping document images. Unforunately, I've also read that their stuff with the USPS, for whatever reason, hasn't taken off. Maybe it has to do with the USPS marketing program for it, as I haven't really seen too much advertisting for it. Apparently the USPS is looking at alternative providers and Authentidate is applauding the decision.

ARMA

Back stateside after a week in Prague for Kofax Transform '06 - the European version. Well attended event. I think there were close to 400 resellers (individuals, not companies, but still a lot of companies) represented. Interesting thing about the European market - it's still doesn't seem to be one market. Although the Euro seems pretty well accepted, language barriers, at least, still exist. Even though everyone does speak some kind of common language, it's still cumbersome to converse in other than a native tongue (for many people). Dicom CEO Rob Klatell explained that this type of environment mean it's advantageous for Dicom to maintain its distribution infrastructure in Europe.

Unfortunately, I'm not attending ARMA this week, although that's typically a fairly small show. There was a lot of talk a month ago about AIIM and ARMA getting together, but apparently it all fell through, and now ARMA has recently announced an alliance with SNIA - a storage newtorking organization. Sorry, but I think AIIM would have made more sense.

Oh, yes, wanted to link you to an interesting Iron Mountain announcement from ARMA. Obviously, Iron Mountain holds quite a bit of sway in that world. I like their direction because they aren't afraid to invest in electronic infrastructure, while at the same time, they aren't quick to dismiss their paper roots as archaic. They seem to understand the balance that exists between paper and electronic documents - something we try very hard to be concious of here at DIR.

Finally, I apologize for the lack of recent posts on the Web site. We were really getting on a roll there, but have run into some technical difficulties - this is the reason for the ugly code line that may be displaying across the top of your browser. I've been trying to get this fixed and promise to get us back up to speed there shortly.

thanks.

Ralph

Questex InfoTrends

It appears that Questex and InfoTrends are merging. Questex is the Advanstar spin-off that runs AIIM/On Demand as well as some other IT-centric trade shows. InfoTrends, we best know as the compilers of information on document scanner trends and sales. InfoTrends actually was acquired by an organization called CAPVentures a couple years ago and CAPVentures founder Charlie Pesko started the On Demand show - so there is some definite synergy...

E-mail mismanagement- again

Now, we recognize there is a major problem with mismanagment of e-mail, and even IM, messages as records, but is it really appropriate to cite the Mark Foley case as evidence of this, as AIIM does in this release? I mean, after all, if you are trying to promote better e-mail management, aren't you kind of saying that ECM could have helped Foley hide is tracks? And do we really want our technology associated with that. Imagine the commerical you could do with John Mark Karr or someone. "If it wasn't for ECM technology, I'd be doing time with Jack Abranoff...

That all said, AIIM does provide some telling statistics even in its preview of the study results.

AIIM ARMA talks

It seems AIIM/ARMA had some merger talks that didn't bear any fruit and now AIIM is letting it's members know this a couple weeks before the ARMA show. Here's Alan Pelz-Sharpe's view on it. He's a pretty good ECM analyst.

Arobat 8 review

Here's a link to a pretty useful review of Adobe Acrobat 8. We wrote about the recently announced product in our Sept. 22 issue. Like us, this reviewer is impressed with the ability to combine multiple document types in a single PDF wrapper, while maintaining the original file format. That is a very useful document management feature. And of course, she also cites the upgraded collaboration funcationality. It's this kind of stuff that's going to keep Microsoft's XPS on the backburner for awhile, in terms of adoption.

Ralph

HP MFP Announcement

A couple days ago, HP came out with what one of its pre-sales support guys told me was its biggest MFP announcement ever. Now, there is quite a bit there, including four new MFP devices with very low prices. HP is an intriguing combatent in the digital copier market. While, the other top players are all married to dealer channels, HP goes through VARs or direct sales. As a result, HP's established relationships are with IT people, rather than the purchasing agents, that dealers often work with.

HP is trying to sell its MFPs like it sells its successful printer line - not lease it, like dealers do. And as copiers become more the realm of IT, HP would seem to be in prime position to make some real noise. Only problem is, I'm not sure how great their MFP hardware is. That said, HP has definitely upgraded its stand-alone scanners in the past year, and they've always had fairly good printers, so why shouldn't they have good MFPs? You might say it's because the UI's suck (maybe they don't, I'm just postulating here...) Still, HP has a partnership wtih eCopy, the king of UI, and they also partner with other software vendors like NSi, Omtool, and, and now even Kofax. This should also be able to help steer them in the right direction, at least. Take note, HP is moving rapidly into the digital copier market, and expect their traction to accelerate in the next couple years.

Ralph

Shredding

So, what's exactly the relationship between document imaging and document shredding - aside from the fact that some really bad scanners can accomplish both.

Acrobat 8

Here's an interesting post that discusses the latest release of Adobe's popular Acrobat softawre. It seems to say that Adobe has done such a great job with previous version of Acrobat, and with promoting PDF as a de facto standard, that its new technology in this area is pretty blase. Kind of an interesting concept and one that plays right along with Nuance's strategy behind its PDF Converter (the Avis of PDF) product.

Ralph

German Patent Office

IBM has landed a contract to install a document management and workflow system at the German Patent Office. From this article, it seems like they weren't using any form of electronic document system before, but I find that hard to beleive. I think the conversion of patent documents to digital images was one of the first biggest projects undertaken in the U.S. Anyways, from what I can tell the U.S. Patent Office is trying to upgrade it's digital imaging system. I think I'll try and track down some details.

Ralph

Xerox expands service bureaus

Lot of document imaging-centric news coming out of Xerox. Guess there having a big press event in New York where they're announcing all this.

TIS Invoice Win

Top Image Systems announces another impressive invoice processing win in Europe.

Patriot Act

In this industry, we love to talk about how compliance drives buisness. After years of talk, we definitely saw a lot of this in regards to meeting HIPAA requirements. The Patriot Act has been another buzzword related to compliance. And while we've haven't seen a lot of traction direclty related to it to date, this joint solution by FileNet and BearingPoint seems like it should score some wins.

Xerox AOL

Intersting story that just moved about Xerox Global Services landing a big document imaging installation contract with AOL. I'm interested to know what kind of hardware and sofware will be used to fill the bill. May do a follow-up for the newsletter.

Desktop Scanner Reviews

Here's an interesting review of the ScanSnap as well as the NeatReceipts package. It's kind of fun to read, but sorely lacking in some details. Maybe the writer ran into word count restraints.

Visioneer

So, we're assuming most of you have heard the news out of Pleasanton, that there has been a major personnel shakeup at Visioneer. Yes, Don McMahan, who was hired last year to lead Visioneer's transition into the document-centric, business scanning market is out. McMahan, who helped architect a successful VAR program at Fujitsu Computer Products of America (FCPA) in the late 1990s and early 2000s, joined Visioneer shortly after leaving FCPA early last year. It seemed like a solid fit, as Visioneer was targeting the fast-growing workgroup scanning segment, where FCPA had traditionally dominated. McMahan and right-hand man Rusty James, who also came to Visioneer from FCPA, worked quickly, boasting of several hundred VAR signees in their first year on board. Visioneer also watched its market share numbers rise solidly in 2005-presumably with help from its recently fortified channel, as VARs have historically been the key to selling lower-priced document scanners. However, last Friday, we learned that McMahan and James had both resigned from Visioneer and that possibly five other employees left with them. As recently as May's AIIM show, McMahan seemed strongly entrenched, as he accepted the appointment as Chairman of AIIM's board - a position which we presume he is retaining.

McMahan's departure from Visioneer caught many people off guard, as did his departure from FCPA 18 months previous. We never have received a definitive story as to why he departed FCPA. Visioneer CEO Murray Dennis has promised to talk to us next week, when he names McMahan's replacement. Of course, this is assuming the company hasn't been sold to OEM partner Xerox, and McMahan's and his marketing staff were deemed extraneous to the Xerox business model. As always, we'll keep you posted.

Ralph

FileNet IBM View

I think I expressed my opinions on the FileNet/IBM deal fairly clearly in the latest edition of DIR. This guy does a nice job summing up some of the stuff that was expressed in the conference call. He basically says, it's about the workflow and processes that FileNet specializes in, which IBM is adding to its core competency. That, of course, and the customer base.

Ralph

More Election problems

I came across this story while vacationing in Ohio last week. (Yes, I'm from Western PA, so sometimes we vacation in Ohio.) But anyways, it has always struck me as odd that we have all this great forms processing, data capture technology out there, but we still can't get our electoral processes right.

Ralph

Why'd IBM Do It?

We explore this question at length in this week's issue of DIR, coming soon. We will tell you that the deal, to us in the ECM know at least (wink, wink, nod, nod) is more complex than Big Blue just wanting to increase its software business, as many pundits, such as this one, are suggesting. After all, only something like 40% of FileNet's revenue is from software. The rest is from services. Then again, IBM knows a little about services as well. So, why'd they really do it? Well, you're going to have to get DIR to find out. (Unless, of course, you think you know, than please share.) Comments below.

IKON-Adobe e-forms

Thought is was kind of interesting that copier mega-dealer IKON has signed up Adobe as a premier partner for its e-forms solution. E-forms, of course, elminate paper, which has historically been the lifeblood of IKON's business. Kudos for IKON for having the vision to realize that it's about the processes, not the paper, and fully embracing electronic doucment management technologies.