Distributed Capture update

I think it's safe to say that distributed document capture has reached maturity, as every new implementation is no longer a major news story. As the technology has matured, I think we've all realized that there are several different levels of distributed capture, from multiple regional centers doing batch capture to remote locations doing ad hoc capture with MFPs - with several variations in between. Here's a recent announcement from ISV GoScan that shows some of the potential benefits that distributed capture has, not just on business, but on life in general. It's about the State of North Dakota implementing distributed capture to help track swine flu cases. Sure, they could have done this without imaging, but it sure seems like it's going to be a lot easier to accomplish it with distributed capture. Hopefully, it can help save some lives.

On a bit of a sour note, it was pointed out to us recently that mortgage lender Taylor, Bean, and Whitaker, which as for a long time has been a marquee customer of Datacap's distributed capture solution, has gone out of business. Of course, it was not the imaging technology, which when we talked with them was saving great amounts of money on courier expenses, that drove them out of business, but bad loans - what else? The messes we've seen in the mortgage industry have certainly detracted from imaging sales over the past year. It will be nice when things finally stabilize.

NewWave to offer Sharp MFPs

Document imaging-focused value-added distributor NewWave Technologies has added MFPs to its line of products. Specifically, NewWave announced it will be distributing Sharp's Frontier DX Series. To us, Sharp has always been on the cutting edge of scanning from MFPs. It was one of the first MFP vendors introduce single pass duplex scanning on a multitude of devices. It's OSA platform for embedded applications was also fairly revolutionary and has been leveraged by multiple capture vendors.

This is actually NewWave's second MFP-related announcement that we've covered. Last year, it announced an agreement with Pitney Bowes to enable its VAR partners to offer maintenance contracts on HP MFPs. Presumably, Pitney Bowes will also offer maintenance for the Sharp devices through NewWave, as PBI is certified to service some Sharp devices.

A/R meets document Capture

One of the observations we came away with at the recent TAWPI Forum and Expo in Washington, D.C., is that the accounts payable and accounts receivable capture markets are moving closer together. Historically, payment capture specialists, whether it be service bureaus or ISVs, have focused on A/R, while traditional document capture guys have handled the A/P side of the house. This started to change a couple years ago with the introduction of full-page IDR technology into the wholesale remittance capture space. Then, our colleague Harvey Spencer, as well as some others, started extolling on the importance of a unified view of A/P and A/R data for the CFO. While this is the nirvana of the convergence of A/P and A/R capture, it's starting to show up on less-integrated levels as well. For example, at the TAWPI event, Pepsi Bottling Group was cited for its payment capture application, which was installed by VAR KeyMark and ISV AnyDoc-both of which traditionally come from the document capture space. We've also seen an increasing interest in applying advanced workflow, another traditional full-page imaging technology, to A/R and payment processing environments.

In fact, last issue, we ran a feature on J&B Software, traditionally a payment processing vendor, fleshing out its offering with full-page document capture and advanced workflow.

Finally, we'd just like remind you that Harvey Spencer Associates annual capture conference, where this concept of converging A/P and A/R capture has been discussed for at least two years, is scheduled to run Sept. 9-10 at the Glen Cove Mansion on Long Island. It's not only a great forum where cutting edge capture markets and concepts are covered, it's a great networking event, with several high-powered capture and imaging executives attending annually.

ACS Q4

There has been a lot of talk about how outsourcing/BPO services will benefit in a down economy as businesses look to cut costs by hiring other people to perform their non-core functions. Document management is, of course, one of the functions. In our last issue, we did a pretty extensive story on document management outsourcing specialist DataBank IMX. Databank CEO Dick Aschman explained how the down economy has been a bit of a mixed blessing - as business are certainly willing to outsource more, but that some of Databank's current customers had reduced volumes due to a fewer number of transactions. ACS' year-end/fourth quarter results would seem to confirm this, as they report a record amount of revenue coming from new contracts, but only a 6% growth overall. Now, granted a 6% overall growth is nothing to scoff at from a multi-billion company like ACS, but I'm guessing their overall growth figures would have been higher in a normal economy.

Any thoughts.

Howard Dean - The winner?

Did you know that Howard Dean actually won the 2004 Democratic primary. No, that's not what the history books say, but that's the real story according to Garrett Graff, executive editor for (the?) Washingtonian. Graff gave one of the keynotes yesterday at the annual TAWPI Forum and Expo. He also helped both the Obama campaign, as well as Dean's effort back in 2004. It's his theory, that while Kerry may have won the vote, Dean's influence on the Democratic party was much greater going forward. His talk was on how Obama's campaign did really unprecidented stuff with the Internet and text messaging as well, to beat McCain (although I think his biggest challenger was probably Hillary.) Anyhow, it was a fascinating talk. More in the next issue of DIR.

Canon invests in I.R.I.S.

Canon Europe has taken a 17% state in Belgian OCR/ICR/IDR and systems integration specialist I.R.I.S. In Feb., Canon announced it would reselling I.R.I.S. capture software products in Europe and this seems to be the next step in that relationship. Canon paid $31 million for its stake, which values I.R.I.S. at around $184 million, approximately a 40% premium over its market cap and about 1.2 times revenue. Remember, however, that the majority of I.R.I.S. revenue is from systems integration and not software.

Jukebox article

I remember writing articles in years past encouraging the use of optical disk jukebox storage for document images. Rich Payne, an end user who speaks at a lot of industry events, recently wrote this article in AIIM's Infornomics saying that jukeboxes have gone the way of dinosaurs. The writing has been on the wall for many years. Unfortunately, I often found myself swayed by the energetic pitches of jukebox vendors such as Plasmon, which pretty much bet its whole company on next-generation UDO optical disk jukebox technology. Plasmon's filing for bankruptcy last fall may have been the death knell for jukeboxes. There are just too many people out there developing better, cheaper, faster, magnetic technology for a niche technology like optical disk storage to remain viable.

Ralph

Interview with EMC's CMO

Whitney Tidmarsh, EMC's Chief marketing office for its archiving and content management division, and a former marketing VP at Documentum, talks with Fierce Content Management about several hot topics in this interview. She touches on the emerging e-discovery preparedness market and how it relates to content management, EMC's relationship with Microsoft and its SharePoint strategy, as well as its cloud computing initiatives.

Ralph

ACS--Vertical Focus Success

Affiliated Computer Services became one of the leaders in outsourced data capture by understanding that to utilized document imaging to its fullest potential, it needs to be thought of as a piece of vertical solution and not an end in itself. I think our industry still struggles sometimes to get this right today. Here's an example of ACS discussing a large outsourcing contract they won, where it appears imaging will be a very important part of the services provided -but it's never mentioned in the press release. Rather, the focus is on the business process of helping the state of Texas find these property owners. And from some of the vendors we talk to, whose technology is licensed by ACS, it sounds like they have some pretty top notch imaging technology. They just realize, to be really successful, you have to remember it's an enabler, not an end in iteself.

Consumers Favor Going Green

Interesting results of a survey on consumers perceptions of "going green"mainly dealing with their printing habits. One of the things that makes the press release so interesting is the fact that it is sponsored by Lexmark but seems to encourage less printing. I guess that gives it credibility, because it's probably not in Lexmark's interest to encourage less printing. Clearly, there is a consumer interest in doing less printing, which bodes well for the document imaging industry. We're assuming of course that this desire go "go greener" spills over into the corporate world, where imaging vendors have always made their money. Of course, in the corporate world, ROI typically trumps environmental concerns, but introducing environmental concerns as a factor when an imaging system is on the table can't hurt.

Ralph

Monetizing Facebook

Here's an interesting article about plans to monetize the current most popular Web 2.0 social networking site. These social networking (and I guess professional networking) sites are fascinating. I, even being the media mogul that I am (snarky laugh), still don't have a full handle on them, but they definitely seem pretty important going forward, as everybody is starting to leverage them. They're kind of like an on-line multi-media document.

Ralph

Hyland Pushes Further into EMR

With $20 billion in federal stimulus money earmarked toward hospitals that can prove they are using eletrononic healthcare record (EHR, which seems to be the new acronym replacing EMR- electronic medical records) in a meaningful fashion, document imaging and mangement vendors having been trying to figure out how to get a slice of that pie. Hyland Software, which already has a fairly successful healthcare business, focsued mainly on automating back-office/financial administration at providers, has made an acquisition designed to move it deeper into this market. Yesterday evening, Hyland announced it had acquired Salem, NH-based Valco Systems. Quite frankly, we're not certain what Valco brings to the table that Hyland doesn't already have, aside from some more vertical expertise in a potentially burgeoning market. But, then again, when the majority of Hyland's stock was acquired by the investment firm Thoma, Cressey, Bravo, the Cleveland-area based ISV announced an aquisition strategy of acquiring market share. Presumably this is what they have done with Valco.

Related to this acquisition, it still remains somewhat of a question how much the stimulus package will drive growth in our industry. It's my opinion that it will be significant, as I've always believed EHR was a great opporunity for our industry-even before the stimulus. I mean, a standardized accessible eletronic record is too much of a benefit to healthcare providers to pass up, isn't it? They've pretty much managed to pass it up for over 10 years now, but at some point, they have to get smart, don't they? If this stimulus package helps them get there, all the better.

Here's an interesting article that discusses some of the hurdles that have prevented EHR from being adopted enmasse so far, and some of the hurdles it is still facing -even with the stimulus money.

The bottom like is that I hope universal EHR happens, as I have always thought it would -just for the sake of better healthcare service, not to mention the growth it could bring to our industry. Maybe the stimulus package will help it happen a bit sooner rather than later - although there are still obviously many hurdles to clear.

Ralph

Fingerprint card scanning project

It appears Lockheed has one a $47 million contract with the FBI to convert fingerprint cards and other types of records to a digital format. A couple years ago at AIIM, we saw a demo of a 600 dpi version of BancTec's high-speed scanner, which, as they are listed as a Lockheed partner on the contract, we'll assume is being used here. At the show, BancTec told us they had interst from some people in just this type of applicaiton...

Legal Depts. Cutting Costs

Here's a press release about a survey that talks about the pressure that corporate legal depts. are under to cut costs. You can get a copy of the complete survey through a link at the bottom, and we hope to see it and check it out more fully this week. But, it promises "an overview of the strategies, systems and management tools that law departments for U.S. organizations are using to cope with current economic challenges." Just curious if any of these strategies involve improved records management, which should cut down on e-discovery outlay. We'll have an article on that in this week's edition of DIR.

Also, here's an interesting press release about ColorTrac providing multiple 40-inch wide-format scanners to the Lebanese government for scanning election results. We've never heard of the use of WF scanners in elections and have put in an e-mail to ColorTrac asking about the logistics behind the scanner choice.

Ballmer to Keynote SharePoint Conference

Microsoft's SharePoint Conference 2009 is shaping up to be a pretty big event. It's scheduled for Oct. 19-22 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Vegas. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, has been announced as the keynote speaker. EMC, Open Text, and KnowledgeLake all are sponsors, along with people like Hitachi, CA, Quest, and others. Exhibitors include the sponsors, as well as, Adlib, AtalaSoft, Canon, eCopy, GoScan, Hyland, KeyMark, Laserfiche, SpringCM and others.

Could be a fun event. Microsoft is promising to preview the next version of SharePoint, 2010, as well as discuss real-world implementaitons of the current, 2007 version. The 2008 conference was held in Seattle (the same week as AIIM 2008) and we heard mostly positive reviews. We're not exactly sure why Microsoft waited a year and a half to hold another conference, but maybe it has something to do with the move to Vegas. One thing is for sure, Microsoft seems firmly committed the ECM industry and most everybody we talk to seems to be embracing them - but certainly not conceding the market to them, because, as well all know, SharePoint certainly isn't an imaging solution - although it can be used as a platform for image management.

Ralph

TIBCO posts good profit

TIBCO, the enterprise application integration specialist that purchased BPM provider Staffware a few years back, recently announced its second-quarter results. Despite almost a 5% drop in revenue, TIBCO increased its operating profit by 56%. "We are managing our business tightly during the downturn and focused on delivering strong returns, as shown by a 40% annual growth in non-GAAP EPS through the first half of the year," said Vivek Ranadiv, TIBCO's chairman and CEO.

Just thought this was interesting and it may show two things:
1. The economy is stabilizing.
2. Businesses are learning how to operate under adjusted conditions.

TIBCO stock is up almost 10% since Tuesday.

Ralph

eWeek Enterprise Apps in the Future

Number seven on this list is pretty cool. It's kind of a tongue-in-cheek look (I think) at some prospective enterprise applications of the future.

Ralph

Deflation, Hyperinflation and Cloud Computing

Here's a link to a interesting article from the Motley Fool about the risk of hyperinflation in the U.S. economy and which types of companies are in the best position to survive even double-digit inflation, which seems to be a real possibility as the U.S. government debt/deficit increases. Hint: it seems to be companies that can fairly comfortably cover their debt with their profits.

Also, here's a link to the great Michael Lewis article on Iceland's hyperinflation, which is referenced in the the Motley fool article.

Interestingly, the Motley Fool article also talks about deflation the negative effects it can have on an economy. I know I've mentioned a few times that the document imaging industry is no stranger to a form of deflation, especially when it comes to hardware. It's no big secret that users are getting way more bang for their buck from scanners than they were 10, 5, and even two years ago. Fortunately, overall scan volumes have continued to increase, which means more scanners are being sold and keeps the demand reasonable for higher-volume production models. But, with some of this IDR (intelligent document recognition) technology starting to come downstream, we really have to be careful not to let our margins disappear, in what has historically been a good B2B market.

I also wanted to highlight this interesting press release from A/P document imaging specialist VersionOne Software. I couldn't find a link, so I've pasted the entire release below. But, it basically talks about the some of the uncertainty and mystery surrounding the term "cloud computing." It's a term that people have started to throw around as a future trend for our industry and others, but it still seems to be a ways off before the rubber hits the road, as a lot of IT professionals still apparently don't even know what "cloud computing" means, much less do they plan on investing in it.

Here's the release, which details some of the results of VersionOne's survey on cloud computing:

The findings of a survey by document management software company, Version One (www.versionone.co.uk), has revealed that 41% of senior IT professionals admit that they “don’t know” what cloud computing is. Version One carried out the research with 60 senior IT professionals (IT directors and managers) across a range of UK public and private sector organisations. This research follows-on from a similar survey carried-out by Version One which highlights that two-thirds of UK senior finance professionals (finance directors and managers) are confused about cloud computing.

Of the remaining 59% of IT professionals who profess to know what cloud computing is, 17% of these understand cloud computing to be internet-based computing while 11% believe it is a combination of internet-based computing, software as a service (SAAS), software on demand, an outsourced or managed service and a hosted software service. The remaining respondents understand cloud computing to be a mixture of the above.

Despite cloud computing being in the media spotlight, only a minority of respondents (5%) say that they use it “a lot” and less than a quarter of those surveyed (19%) reveal that they only use cloud computing sparingly. Almost half of respondents (47%) admit that their company doesn’t use cloud computing with the remaining 29% conceding that they “don’t know” whether their organisation uses it or not.

Julian Buck, General Manager of Version One, says, “Although this is only a small survey of IT professionals, the results are nonetheless very alarming, especially as IT professionals are the very people that need to understand cloud computing so that they can explain its benefits to management.”

Buck continues, “It is clear from the survey results that there are a number of contrasting views as to what cloud computing really is, which is hardly surprising in light of the many different cloud computing definitions in the public arena. For instance, Wikipedia defines it as ‘Internet-based computing’ while Gartner refers to it ‘as a service’ using Internet technologies. IT expert, John Willis, writing in his cloud blog says that ‘virtualisation is the secret sauce of a cloud’ and provides different levels of cloud computing. With so many definitions circulating, clarity is urgently needed.”

Only 2% of respondents say that their company is “definitely” going to invest in cloud computing within the next twelve months whilst 30% state that their organisations “may” invest in this technology. 45% admit that they “don’t know” whether their organisations will be investing in it or not with the remaining 23% stating that they currently have no investment plans. For those who definitely or maybe have plans to invest in cloud computing, some of the key business drivers cited include reduction in overheads and paper, ease of use, cost savings and the ability to provide collaborative tools for teaching and learning.

Buck adds, “If organisations are going to embrace cloud computing in the future it’s essential that a single, simplified explanation is adopted by everyone. Failure to cut through the confusion could result in organisations rejecting this technology and missing out on the benefits it provides.”

Document Imaging Install at Center of Scandal

Some interesting stuff out of El Paso. A few years ago we wrote about how convicted former California Congressman Duke Cunningham's road to ruin began with quesionable document conversion deals with Audre and later a company called ADCS. It seems there's a couple things that remain inherent when dealing with the government: paperwork and corruption.

Ralph

iPhone Camera upgrade

Somewhat good news out of the Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference for ISVs looking to leverage iPhones for document capture. The new 3G S, which is scheduled to hit the stores this month, will feature a 3 MP camera with auto-focus. Previous iPhones featured 2 megapixel cameras without any auto-focus.

We did receive feedback that there is some sort of image processing in current iPhones, but apparently it is difficult to work with anything below 14-point type when it comes to document imaging. The increased megapixels, new auto-focus features, along with Apple's image processing should make the 3G S a much improved document capture peripheral.

Also, we heard there are rumos that Apple is looking at licensing a 6 MP camera, which would clearly make its mediafile followers happier, as some of the reviews we read didn't seem satisified with the 3 MP camera. Of course, a 6 MP camera should be that much better for document imagiing applications.