Multi-channel capture is certainly a hot topic. A couple weeks ago, we visited ibml and ReadSoft, who each discussed their expanded focus to include multi-channel capture. This week, we briefed with Kodak Document Imaging on its new Info Insight application, which was announced last week.
Info Insight is a Web-based IDR solution that is able to automate classification and capture of document from multiple inputs. Kodak is advertising it for use with scanned images, faxes, e-mail, and input from social media sources. So, from the capture side, which Kodak is calling its "integration platform edition," InfoInsight certainly has multiple channels covered.
From the output, or process standpoint, Info Insight also addresses many, what we'll call "avenues." Kodak calls this side of Info Insight its "solutions edition module." It includes assisting with both automated and manual responses to e-mails, social media input, and traditional paper correspondence. It also includes being able to track the "moods" on social media sites via a graphical screen.
No, I wouldn't say that Info Inight is deeply into what Forrester has defined as the Smart Process Application space, but it's clearly a step in that direction. Info Insight is designed to take input form multiple sources, apply technology like self-learning and artificial intelligence, as well as data aggregation, and produce some sort of response to the input. The main SPA element that I see it as missing is a true BPM engine for dynamically automating complex processes. (Yes, Kofax has trained me well in the use of the word "dynamic," but I think it makes sense here.)
All and all, it is interesting to see where the capture market is heading. I completely agree with Kodak and Kofax's and others' position that it is very important for capture companies to expand their front ends to embrace multiple channels, because clearly the generation currently going through higher education and those behind it have less use for paper than any generation in the past 100 years.
That said, the processes that paper has traditionally been a part of are not going away. So, it's very important for anyone in the capture market to realize that the future is about owning the process, not the paper, and Info Insight, and Kofax's SPA strategy, and quite a lot of what I'm starting to see show up on the market, seems to be taking this approach. Good work guys!
Friday, May 24, 2013
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Andersson Spearheads ReadSoft Acquition Strategy
Since ReadSoft co-founder Jan Andersson stepped down as CEO in 2011 and joined its board of directors, one of his charters has been to guide the Swedish-based capture ISV's acquisition strategy. Last year, we saw that strategy manifest itself in the acquisition of foxray, a German high-volume document capture specialist. Last week I was in New Orleans for a briefing on how ReadSoft is integrating the foxray capture framework into its business strategy.
foxray is a capture platform that kind of reminds me of a newer version of the InputAccel platform. It's designed to manage multiple capture workflows and can utilize best of breed components. Historically, it's integrated a lot of Kofax technology for example, but now that foxray is owned by ReadSoft, ReadSoft's capture platform will certainly be the first, but not only, option. foxray's Xbound platform also has cool features like the ability to re-use components across multiple workflows (which eases set-up) and the option to use a single verifier for multiple data capture processes. It also provides an end-to-end view of all a user's multi-channel capture processes.
foxray's Xbound system has historically been sold primarily in Germany, but ReadSoft has plans to bring it to North America targeting markets like service bureaus, healthcare, and financial services.
Last week, ReadSoft announced another acquisition that Andersson helped put together. That was of e-invoicing network provider Expert Systems. Based in Sweden, Expert Systems' hosted application is complementary to ReadSoft's thriving software business in extracting invoice information from paper. ReadSoft recently launched a new cloud version of its invoice capture software as well.
According to Bob Fresneda, president of ReadSoft North America, Expert Systems was doing between $1.5 million and $2 million in annual sales -all of which is counted as recurring revenue due to its subscription-based model. ReadSoft paid $6 million for the business.
foxray is a capture platform that kind of reminds me of a newer version of the InputAccel platform. It's designed to manage multiple capture workflows and can utilize best of breed components. Historically, it's integrated a lot of Kofax technology for example, but now that foxray is owned by ReadSoft, ReadSoft's capture platform will certainly be the first, but not only, option. foxray's Xbound platform also has cool features like the ability to re-use components across multiple workflows (which eases set-up) and the option to use a single verifier for multiple data capture processes. It also provides an end-to-end view of all a user's multi-channel capture processes.
foxray's Xbound system has historically been sold primarily in Germany, but ReadSoft has plans to bring it to North America targeting markets like service bureaus, healthcare, and financial services.
Last week, ReadSoft announced another acquisition that Andersson helped put together. That was of e-invoicing network provider Expert Systems. Based in Sweden, Expert Systems' hosted application is complementary to ReadSoft's thriving software business in extracting invoice information from paper. ReadSoft recently launched a new cloud version of its invoice capture software as well.
According to Bob Fresneda, president of ReadSoft North America, Expert Systems was doing between $1.5 million and $2 million in annual sales -all of which is counted as recurring revenue due to its subscription-based model. ReadSoft paid $6 million for the business.
Monday, May 06, 2013
Is ICR Technology Underutilized?
Don Dew of advanced document recognition ISV Parascript recently authored an article on the benefits of intelligent character recognition (IDR) technology that he has asked us to share with you. It discusses how ICR technology is underutilized on documents that include handprint and even cursive writing.
Here's an excerpt from Dew's article, "From name, address, social security number, phone number, or any other unconstrained or cursive information entered on a form, advanced ICR solutions can capture this data with a high degree of accuracy and make it available for use within the organization. Based on research performed by AIIM and Parascript last year, only 6% of organizations are automating this level of recognition. At the same time, survey participants estimated that they would achieve a considerable level of productivity savings if they were able to automate the recognition of hand-written text."
Here's the link to Dew's complete article on our DIR Web site.
Just for some background, Parascript develops advanced recognition technology that does both OCR and ICR. Historically, it has been best known for its cursive recognition, which is utilized by the USPS in their envelope and parcel sorting operations. Parascript also offers a document recognition-centric toolkit that includes both OCR and ICR. Parascript recently released a new version of this SDK, as well as a new version of its FormXtra Capture application, which it is moving through a recently revamped reseller program.
Here's an excerpt from Dew's article, "From name, address, social security number, phone number, or any other unconstrained or cursive information entered on a form, advanced ICR solutions can capture this data with a high degree of accuracy and make it available for use within the organization. Based on research performed by AIIM and Parascript last year, only 6% of organizations are automating this level of recognition. At the same time, survey participants estimated that they would achieve a considerable level of productivity savings if they were able to automate the recognition of hand-written text."
Here's the link to Dew's complete article on our DIR Web site.
Just for some background, Parascript develops advanced recognition technology that does both OCR and ICR. Historically, it has been best known for its cursive recognition, which is utilized by the USPS in their envelope and parcel sorting operations. Parascript also offers a document recognition-centric toolkit that includes both OCR and ICR. Parascript recently released a new version of this SDK, as well as a new version of its FormXtra Capture application, which it is moving through a recently revamped reseller program.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Harvey Spencer Associates Launches Voice Recognition Study Related to Dodd-Frank
Related to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (commonly referred to as Dodd-Frank), Harvey Spencer Associates (HSA) has announced the launch of a new multi-client study to identify
opportunities for the use of voice recognition technologies to reduce
the costs associated with compliance discovery of trading records in the
banking and financial services industries. Basically, Dodd-Frank requires that traders in stocks and bonds record all communication related to their business of trading. And those records have to be made available for audits for a year, and delivered fairly quickly when asked for. Deadline for complying with this is Dec. 31. Thus, the current opportunity for implementing voice recognition software.
Spencer is known to most of us for his work in the document capture software market. Here's how he describes his expansion into voice recognition (a move which capture software ISV Nuance actually made several years ago): "It is part of expanding HSA to defining capture as ‘capturing transactional information from unstructured big data elements,'" Spencer stated in an e-mail to DIR. "Defining the inputs as documents; voice; photographs; and video, the intent is to build expertise in these different underpinning technologies which all use pattern based understanding combined with business rules (it’s really forms processing with different inputs) to extract meaningful data.
:In the case of the Dodd-Frank compliance issues, it is a matter of being able to add enough metadata to the trader’s voice recordings in order to reduce the time spent on searching and discovery. As with forms processing in the past, we do not expect that technology can deliver 100%, there will always be manual effort – what we want to do is identify the value of partial recognition/understanding and the supplements to voice recognition that can achieve this."
Spencer is known to most of us for his work in the document capture software market. Here's how he describes his expansion into voice recognition (a move which capture software ISV Nuance actually made several years ago): "It is part of expanding HSA to defining capture as ‘capturing transactional information from unstructured big data elements,'" Spencer stated in an e-mail to DIR. "Defining the inputs as documents; voice; photographs; and video, the intent is to build expertise in these different underpinning technologies which all use pattern based understanding combined with business rules (it’s really forms processing with different inputs) to extract meaningful data.
:In the case of the Dodd-Frank compliance issues, it is a matter of being able to add enough metadata to the trader’s voice recordings in order to reduce the time spent on searching and discovery. As with forms processing in the past, we do not expect that technology can deliver 100%, there will always be manual effort – what we want to do is identify the value of partial recognition/understanding and the supplements to voice recognition that can achieve this."
Monday, April 29, 2013
Kodak's New Deal
Well, forget everything you read about Brother buying Kodak DI. Not going to happen. Kodak got a better deal from the U.K. Kodak Pension Plan (KPP). How much better? Well, in addition to receiving $650 million in cash and non-cash considerations (for both DI and Kodak Personalized Imaging (PI), which was also up for sale under Kodak's bankruptcy proceedings), the deal also settles $2.8 billion in claims that KPP had against Kodak Corporate.
Granted, claims in a bankruptcy case are not typically worth 100% of face value (or even close to 100%), but still, technically, Kodak Corporate came out $3.45 billion on the books ahead for divesting itself of DI (for which Brother had bid a net $277 million) and PI, which I'm estimating is a little more than twice as big as DI. (In 2012, combined, the two units generated a reported $1.46 billion in revenue, with DI somewhere around $400 million.) I'm guessing that in separate auctions, which is what was supposed to happen prior to the KPP deal, Kodak corporate would have been lucky to get $1 billion combined. So this is a big win.
On top of things, apparently one of the requirements of Kodak corporate's emerging from bankruptcy was that it settle with KPP, which was listed as Kodak's largest unsecured creditor. So, this announced sale takes care of multiple requirements. It also gives DI and PI and solid landing spot.
Dolores Kruchten, president of DI, said to think of KPP as a "financial buyer." "KPP operates independently of Kodak and has more than 1 billion British pounds of assets under its control," she said during a conference call this afternoon. "They have the capability to make investments and actively support our DI business."
Basically, it sounds like KPP plans to continue to operate DI and PI as a business. Said Steven Ross, chairman of KPP, as quoted in a press release, "The businesses that we are acquiring will deliver long-term cash flows to support the plan’s obligations. The financial stability that KPP will provide for the Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses will be beneficial to those businesses’ employees, customers and partners.”
Kodak still has to submit its plan to sell DI and PI to the bankruptcy court for approval, but Kruchten said she does not anticipate any problems with closing the deal. Brother is stepping aside, and Kruchten did not have any insight into what it was being compensated for serving as the "stalking horse" in an auction that will never happen. Kruchten said that Kodak was obligated by law to announce the Brother deal, even while continuing to work on a deal with KPP.
"Brother understood that if we reached a deal like this, where we were able to bundle DI and PI together, its stalking horse bid would be terminated," said Kruchten. "The deal with KPP was not finalized when we reached an agreement with Brother. As you know, no deal is final until ink is on paper. When we made the agreement with Brother that was the only signed deal we had. You know what they say about a bird in hand."
Granted, claims in a bankruptcy case are not typically worth 100% of face value (or even close to 100%), but still, technically, Kodak Corporate came out $3.45 billion on the books ahead for divesting itself of DI (for which Brother had bid a net $277 million) and PI, which I'm estimating is a little more than twice as big as DI. (In 2012, combined, the two units generated a reported $1.46 billion in revenue, with DI somewhere around $400 million.) I'm guessing that in separate auctions, which is what was supposed to happen prior to the KPP deal, Kodak corporate would have been lucky to get $1 billion combined. So this is a big win.
On top of things, apparently one of the requirements of Kodak corporate's emerging from bankruptcy was that it settle with KPP, which was listed as Kodak's largest unsecured creditor. So, this announced sale takes care of multiple requirements. It also gives DI and PI and solid landing spot.
Dolores Kruchten, president of DI, said to think of KPP as a "financial buyer." "KPP operates independently of Kodak and has more than 1 billion British pounds of assets under its control," she said during a conference call this afternoon. "They have the capability to make investments and actively support our DI business."
Basically, it sounds like KPP plans to continue to operate DI and PI as a business. Said Steven Ross, chairman of KPP, as quoted in a press release, "The businesses that we are acquiring will deliver long-term cash flows to support the plan’s obligations. The financial stability that KPP will provide for the Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses will be beneficial to those businesses’ employees, customers and partners.”
Kodak still has to submit its plan to sell DI and PI to the bankruptcy court for approval, but Kruchten said she does not anticipate any problems with closing the deal. Brother is stepping aside, and Kruchten did not have any insight into what it was being compensated for serving as the "stalking horse" in an auction that will never happen. Kruchten said that Kodak was obligated by law to announce the Brother deal, even while continuing to work on a deal with KPP.
"Brother understood that if we reached a deal like this, where we were able to bundle DI and PI together, its stalking horse bid would be terminated," said Kruchten. "The deal with KPP was not finalized when we reached an agreement with Brother. As you know, no deal is final until ink is on paper. When we made the agreement with Brother that was the only signed deal we had. You know what they say about a bird in hand."
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Perceptive Capture Selected for Invoices by Kohler
Quote from the press release:
"We tested a number of available automation solutions, and Perceptive Software’s platform was able to extract more than eighty percent of field data from Chinese and Thai invoices sight unseen, far better than any of the others,” said Ming Zhang, Sr. Systems Analyst, IT Asia-Pacific Corporate Services for Kohler Co."
Being used for invoices that solution is powered by Brainware software, which Lexmark/Perceptive acquired last year. " The technology will be implemented within Kohler Co.’s SAP enterprise resource planning system over the course of a three-stage rollout to include shared services operations in the Asia-Pacific, North America and EMEA markets."
Kohler is a global leader in the manufacturing of kitchen and bath products, engines and power generation systems, tile and home interiors, and an international host at its award-winning hospitality and world-class golf destinations. For more information on Kohler Co. and its products, please visit www.kohler.com.
"We tested a number of available automation solutions, and Perceptive Software’s platform was able to extract more than eighty percent of field data from Chinese and Thai invoices sight unseen, far better than any of the others,” said Ming Zhang, Sr. Systems Analyst, IT Asia-Pacific Corporate Services for Kohler Co."
Being used for invoices that solution is powered by Brainware software, which Lexmark/Perceptive acquired last year. " The technology will be implemented within Kohler Co.’s SAP enterprise resource planning system over the course of a three-stage rollout to include shared services operations in the Asia-Pacific, North America and EMEA markets."
Kohler is a global leader in the manufacturing of kitchen and bath products, engines and power generation systems, tile and home interiors, and an international host at its award-winning hospitality and world-class golf destinations. For more information on Kohler Co. and its products, please visit www.kohler.com.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
A Little More Commentary on Brother's Bid for Kodak
A lot of media outlets are reporting that Kodak Document Imaging has been sold to Brother for $210 million. I'm not certain whether or not this is actually the case. As I stated in yesterday's post, the Brother bid is actually a "stalking horse" bid, which is bankruptcy proceedings is technically the low bid in an auction that will take place following the acceptance of a stalking horse bid. The question that I cannot seem to find an answer to is what percentage of stalking horse bidders end up being the final buyer.
This piece does a nice job in explaining some of the "The Pros and Cons of Being A Stalking Horse Bidder for Assets In Bankruptcy." It explains that the stalking horse bidder has an advantage because it basically gets to sets the terms of the sale - what will be included and what will not - and once those terms are set, it's pretty hard to change them apparently. So, anyone else bidding is basically bidding on what Brother has carved out of Kodak as representing DI.
Somewhat related to that, here's what said George Conboy, president of Brighton Securities, had to say about the Brother bid. (I'm quoting from this Rochesterhomepage.com article.) "The price is a little bit light but what we can't be certain Kodak said it would be selling a certain portion of that business, probably majority but can't be sure what they are obtaining as of now."
One question, of course, is is Brother buying the Kodak brand for the DI products and services going forward?
If someone should outbid Brother, as the stalking horse it would likely be owed some sort of compensation, maybe something equal to a small percentage of the deal. I hope to have more later today - after an interview with Kodak executives.
This piece does a nice job in explaining some of the "The Pros and Cons of Being A Stalking Horse Bidder for Assets In Bankruptcy." It explains that the stalking horse bidder has an advantage because it basically gets to sets the terms of the sale - what will be included and what will not - and once those terms are set, it's pretty hard to change them apparently. So, anyone else bidding is basically bidding on what Brother has carved out of Kodak as representing DI.
Somewhat related to that, here's what said George Conboy, president of Brighton Securities, had to say about the Brother bid. (I'm quoting from this Rochesterhomepage.com article.) "The price is a little bit light but what we can't be certain Kodak said it would be selling a certain portion of that business, probably majority but can't be sure what they are obtaining as of now."
One question, of course, is is Brother buying the Kodak brand for the DI products and services going forward?
If someone should outbid Brother, as the stalking horse it would likely be owed some sort of compensation, maybe something equal to a small percentage of the deal. I hope to have more later today - after an interview with Kodak executives.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Brother Puts Up Stalking Horse Bid for Kodak DI
Brother Industries has posted the initial "stalking horse" bid in the auction for Kodak Document Imaging. The way I understand it is that the $210 million offer will serve as the minimum bid in an auction that will take place throughout May and close in June. According to the press release on the bid, "Kodak will seek U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval of the bidding procedures at a hearing in late April and is targeting final court approval of a transaction in June."
When Kodak announced it was selling Document Imaging last August, it was advertised as a $400 million profitable business coming off a record year. There is not doubt that the uncertainty surrounding Kodak corporate's bankruptcy has negatively impacted Kodak DI's sales, but $210 million still seems like somewhat of a bargain. That said, the deal also includes Brothers' accepting $67 million in owed service contracts - presumably stuff that can continued to be renewed, so it shouldn't have negative impact on the bottom line.
Brother would be classified as a strategic buyer as it was recently moved into the document scanner market with the release of some mobile and desktop workgroup models.When I last talked with Brother executives, they said they indicated the vendor had plans to keep moving upstream and an acquisition of Kodak would certainly be one way to do that.
Rumor has it that several venture capital/investment firms were also looking at Kodak, so perhaps there will be a higher bid between now and June. But, remember the prediction I made back in January, "Kodak DI will be acquired by a major printer vendor." The ball is in play.
When Kodak announced it was selling Document Imaging last August, it was advertised as a $400 million profitable business coming off a record year. There is not doubt that the uncertainty surrounding Kodak corporate's bankruptcy has negatively impacted Kodak DI's sales, but $210 million still seems like somewhat of a bargain. That said, the deal also includes Brothers' accepting $67 million in owed service contracts - presumably stuff that can continued to be renewed, so it shouldn't have negative impact on the bottom line.
Brother would be classified as a strategic buyer as it was recently moved into the document scanner market with the release of some mobile and desktop workgroup models.When I last talked with Brother executives, they said they indicated the vendor had plans to keep moving upstream and an acquisition of Kodak would certainly be one way to do that.
Rumor has it that several venture capital/investment firms were also looking at Kodak, so perhaps there will be a higher bid between now and June. But, remember the prediction I made back in January, "Kodak DI will be acquired by a major printer vendor." The ball is in play.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Capture vs. SPA growth
In this week's premium edition, which just came out, I have a feature comparing Harvey Spencer Associates growth rates for the capture market to Forrester's as published in a study recently commissioned by Kofax.
Anyhow, here are two charts I came up with that I felt were relevant to the story (the x-axis represents billions of dollars in software revenue):
Basically, it's Spencer's contention that SPA is primarily capture technology, so the bottom chart is a more accurate representation of HSA's numbers vs. Forrester's than just comparing the black and orange lines on the top chart.
Anyhow, here are two charts I came up with that I felt were relevant to the story (the x-axis represents billions of dollars in software revenue):
Basically, it's Spencer's contention that SPA is primarily capture technology, so the bottom chart is a more accurate representation of HSA's numbers vs. Forrester's than just comparing the black and orange lines on the top chart.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Declining PC Sales and Document Capture
One of the biggest high tech stories of the past couple days seems to be this precipitous drop in PC sales, which IDC reported fell 14% in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the first three months of 2012. The most obvious reason for this is the increasing adoption of tablets and smartphones for computing that was formerly exclusively done on PCs. This reminds me of statement Visioneer President and COO John Capurso made to me a few weeks ago about mobile computers becoming the new PCs. Looks like a very prescient thought right now.
I happened to be on the phone earlier with document capture software market industry analyst Harvey Spencer, and I asked him if he thought declining PC sales might affect document capture sales. He thought not very much.
We initially conjectured that it might negatively impact document scanner sales, but concluded that might not be the case either, as most current PCs have enough horsepower to run whatever document scanner a user would need to run anyhow. Spencer added people are already doing more scanning on MFPs than ever before, and that this indeed may be having a negative affect on document scanner sales, but if people are going to buy a document scanner, they don't necessarily need a new PC to run one anymore.
Spencer added that he felt the increase in cloud computing may be negatively impacting PC sales as "users no longer need more powerful PCs to run new applications; they can now license the latest version of Office, for example, on the cloud." This is an interesting dichotomy, as Windows 8 was supposed to drive more PC sales, but Microsoft's latest version of Office would appear to be working in the opposite direction.
Spencer concluded that he expects cloud deployments will begin to have an effect on document capture revenue this year, with some large implementations being purchased through a subscription model rather than a traditional capital expenditure. Not a major impact yet, but the beginning of a trend that bears watching.
I happened to be on the phone earlier with document capture software market industry analyst Harvey Spencer, and I asked him if he thought declining PC sales might affect document capture sales. He thought not very much.
We initially conjectured that it might negatively impact document scanner sales, but concluded that might not be the case either, as most current PCs have enough horsepower to run whatever document scanner a user would need to run anyhow. Spencer added people are already doing more scanning on MFPs than ever before, and that this indeed may be having a negative affect on document scanner sales, but if people are going to buy a document scanner, they don't necessarily need a new PC to run one anymore.
Spencer added that he felt the increase in cloud computing may be negatively impacting PC sales as "users no longer need more powerful PCs to run new applications; they can now license the latest version of Office, for example, on the cloud." This is an interesting dichotomy, as Windows 8 was supposed to drive more PC sales, but Microsoft's latest version of Office would appear to be working in the opposite direction.
Spencer concluded that he expects cloud deployments will begin to have an effect on document capture revenue this year, with some large implementations being purchased through a subscription model rather than a traditional capital expenditure. Not a major impact yet, but the beginning of a trend that bears watching.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Bish's Nasdaq plans for Kofax
An excerpt from a story on Kofax' Transform appearing in this week's premium edition of DIR:
Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish believes a listing on the Nasdaq could have positive affects. “It has taken us quite a bit of work to prepare the information required by the SEC to list on the Nasdaq,” Bish told DIR. “Now that that has all been completed, we want to move ahead with our listing. Previously, I said I’d like to get it done by June 30, but that will likely be delayed due to a poor second quarter (ended Dec. 31). I’m thinking we will still file in the current calendar year, but not until we’ve demonstrated that we’ve turned around our business and built some momentum.”
Bish’s plan is to list Kofax on the Nasdaq through the provisions of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act, which was passed last year. According to Bish, listing through JOBS is an easier process than following the traditional listing route, which requires compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. “Our plan is to make available on the Nasdaq the minimum number of shares we are allowed,” said Bish. “The Nasdaq listing will enable all our shares to be traded on both exchanges [Kofax is currently traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE)], and eventually, we expect the majority of our trading will move over to the Nasdaq. This will be a positive because historically companies like ours are valued at a 30% premium on the Nasdaq compared to the LSE.”
Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish believes a listing on the Nasdaq could have positive affects. “It has taken us quite a bit of work to prepare the information required by the SEC to list on the Nasdaq,” Bish told DIR. “Now that that has all been completed, we want to move ahead with our listing. Previously, I said I’d like to get it done by June 30, but that will likely be delayed due to a poor second quarter (ended Dec. 31). I’m thinking we will still file in the current calendar year, but not until we’ve demonstrated that we’ve turned around our business and built some momentum.”
Bish’s plan is to list Kofax on the Nasdaq through the provisions of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act, which was passed last year. According to Bish, listing through JOBS is an easier process than following the traditional listing route, which requires compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. “Our plan is to make available on the Nasdaq the minimum number of shares we are allowed,” said Bish. “The Nasdaq listing will enable all our shares to be traded on both exchanges [Kofax is currently traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE)], and eventually, we expect the majority of our trading will move over to the Nasdaq. This will be a positive because historically companies like ours are valued at a 30% premium on the Nasdaq compared to the LSE.”
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Jazz Sound & Software Development
Came up with this one after a few nights out on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans, while in town for the AIIM Conference, Canon ICS National Reseller Meeting, and Microsoft Dynamics Convergence.
Frenchmen Street was recommended to me by the drummer in the band playing at the Canon Conference. It's an area a few blocks outside of the French Quarter and features multiple bars with jazz and other types of musical acts performing nightly. But, I'll compare trying to find the right act to software development.
The first night on Frenchmen we got there kind of late and the first band we heard had solid sound - a couple of strong horn players, but only played two songs before they called it a night. We'll call that version 1.0. It proved the concept for us and made us want to go on to the next level.
Version 2.0 was better - a strong band in a bar a little up the street. We heard several great songs, but they were crossing over a little into rock'n roll, so it wasn't pure jazz. The next night, we hit three more places, the first one being too crowded and the second - definitely too loud and too much rock. Then finally, when we were about to give up on things, we made on last stop at Vaso's on Decatur and Frenchmen and found a great trumpet player leading a band with some true jazz sound. Version five was the killer app!
Version 6.0, the next night, started out a Vaso, but was a disappointment, but version 7.0 really hit it out of the park.
The lesson here I think is that finding a good jazz bar is like software development often is - it often takes a few tries before an ISV comes up with a truly successful product - even if the concept is proven as solid in version 1.0. Multiple times I've seen software companies struggle out of the gate before finally figuring out exactly what they need to do to successfully market their product and accelerate their growth. I'm not sure what this really proves, but I think it says that patience and persistence are important qualities when developing software, as well as finding the right jazz sound.
Frenchmen Street was recommended to me by the drummer in the band playing at the Canon Conference. It's an area a few blocks outside of the French Quarter and features multiple bars with jazz and other types of musical acts performing nightly. But, I'll compare trying to find the right act to software development.
The first night on Frenchmen we got there kind of late and the first band we heard had solid sound - a couple of strong horn players, but only played two songs before they called it a night. We'll call that version 1.0. It proved the concept for us and made us want to go on to the next level.
Version 2.0 was better - a strong band in a bar a little up the street. We heard several great songs, but they were crossing over a little into rock'n roll, so it wasn't pure jazz. The next night, we hit three more places, the first one being too crowded and the second - definitely too loud and too much rock. Then finally, when we were about to give up on things, we made on last stop at Vaso's on Decatur and Frenchmen and found a great trumpet player leading a band with some true jazz sound. Version five was the killer app!
Version 6.0, the next night, started out a Vaso, but was a disappointment, but version 7.0 really hit it out of the park.
The lesson here I think is that finding a good jazz bar is like software development often is - it often takes a few tries before an ISV comes up with a truly successful product - even if the concept is proven as solid in version 1.0. Multiple times I've seen software companies struggle out of the gate before finally figuring out exactly what they need to do to successfully market their product and accelerate their growth. I'm not sure what this really proves, but I think it says that patience and persistence are important qualities when developing software, as well as finding the right jazz sound.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Options for Mobile Scanning
For several years, I've been pretty adamant encouraging vendors to fill what I feel is a hole in the document scanner market. That is connecting mobile scanners to mobile phones. I mean they are both marketed as mobile devices, why can't one talk to the other in a truly mobile, i.e. wireless, fashion?
Last month, I ran this article on Canon's WU10 appliance, which can be used to power a Canon mobile scanner, and contains a wireless radio that can transmit scanned images directly to a smartphone. In the article, I mistakenly described some of Visioneer's technology which accomplishes the same thing. Visioneer's Xerox Mobile Scanner contains a custom built Eye-Fi card that enables it to capture multi-page PDFs and transmit them wirelessly to smartphone. I was only familiar with an older version of the Visioneer mobile scanner, and I apologize because apparently this new version has been on the market for more than a year.
Visioneer President and COO John Capurso pointed out my mistake. This let to a discussion on smartphones and their role in the capture and printing space, which was predicated by a previous blog post: Document Scanners, MFPs, and Mobile Phones. My premise in that post was the tablet computers and smartphones pose a bigger threat to the MFP market than they do to the document scanner market (you really have to read the post for that to make sense.)
John does not see smart phones as a threat to either set of devices. His position is that mobile devices are (going to be) the new PC. "Mobile devices are going to be the focal point of a lot of usage of MFPs and scanners," he said. "They are going to be the peripherals that we utilize with our mobile devices, just like they are the peripherals that we utilize with our PCs today."
Great point. Basically, here's the use case he defined. If I receive a document on my mobile device that I need to print, I wirelessly access my network through my smartphone/tablet and print it on the most convenient printer. Conversely, depending on what type of document I need to capture to my mobile device, or to the cloud by passing it through my mobile device, I connect wirelessly (presumably utilizing some sort of capture app) to a dedicated document scanner or MFP (or if it's a single page document just maybe use the camera on the mobile device), drop the paper in the feeder, and drive the scanning process through my app.
Does that all make sense? It's all about creating paper capture options for the end user, which are mobile, wireless, and hopefully easy to use. Then, of course, you need to combine those paper capture options with some other data capture options on the smartphone/tablet and you've got yourselves a business solution for the future!
Cheers. I look for many of you at AIIM 2013 Conference.
Last month, I ran this article on Canon's WU10 appliance, which can be used to power a Canon mobile scanner, and contains a wireless radio that can transmit scanned images directly to a smartphone. In the article, I mistakenly described some of Visioneer's technology which accomplishes the same thing. Visioneer's Xerox Mobile Scanner contains a custom built Eye-Fi card that enables it to capture multi-page PDFs and transmit them wirelessly to smartphone. I was only familiar with an older version of the Visioneer mobile scanner, and I apologize because apparently this new version has been on the market for more than a year.
Visioneer President and COO John Capurso pointed out my mistake. This let to a discussion on smartphones and their role in the capture and printing space, which was predicated by a previous blog post: Document Scanners, MFPs, and Mobile Phones. My premise in that post was the tablet computers and smartphones pose a bigger threat to the MFP market than they do to the document scanner market (you really have to read the post for that to make sense.)
John does not see smart phones as a threat to either set of devices. His position is that mobile devices are (going to be) the new PC. "Mobile devices are going to be the focal point of a lot of usage of MFPs and scanners," he said. "They are going to be the peripherals that we utilize with our mobile devices, just like they are the peripherals that we utilize with our PCs today."
Great point. Basically, here's the use case he defined. If I receive a document on my mobile device that I need to print, I wirelessly access my network through my smartphone/tablet and print it on the most convenient printer. Conversely, depending on what type of document I need to capture to my mobile device, or to the cloud by passing it through my mobile device, I connect wirelessly (presumably utilizing some sort of capture app) to a dedicated document scanner or MFP (or if it's a single page document just maybe use the camera on the mobile device), drop the paper in the feeder, and drive the scanning process through my app.
Does that all make sense? It's all about creating paper capture options for the end user, which are mobile, wireless, and hopefully easy to use. Then, of course, you need to combine those paper capture options with some other data capture options on the smartphone/tablet and you've got yourselves a business solution for the future!
Cheers. I look for many of you at AIIM 2013 Conference.
Friday, March 15, 2013
A Look at Kofax's First Mile Marketing Strategy
Just got back in the office from another Kofax Transform event. Don't know many years I've been covering this event - at least since 2006. This year's event was in San Diego, and the weather was fairly awesome. The event itself was strong too, with close to 600 attendees from 25 countries.
One of the themes was Kofax's introduction of a new marketing message that is being built around the idea of building out the First Mile (TM) of customer interaction:
That picture is Martyn Christian, CMO of Kofax, presenting on "Delivering on the First Mile." Basically, Kofax's message is around connecting "systems of engagement" with "systems of record," and it was a good thing that John Mancini, president of AIIM, and Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm and other books, were around to help explain this marriage. Both Moore and Mancini have spoken and written on this topics for several years. But, from my standpoint at least, Kofax is the first vendor I've heard that has developed a coherent strategy for really connecting the two.
And this strategy is built around SPAs, or smart process applications. I'm not going to get into a huge explanation of what SPAs are right now, but Forrester's Craig LeClair does a pretty good job of it in this article that appeared in last week's premium DIR.
Basically, the First Mile message is that businesses need a set of technologies to connect their evolving set of customer interactions with their back-end line of business systems. In other words, customers are communicating with businesses in an increasing number of ways - paper, e-mail, social media, call centers, etc. And businesses are under increasing pressure (due to the potential speed and ease-of-use of properly executed digital transactions) to process these communications in an efficient and customer friendly fashion. Capturing paper communications effectively is certainly one avenue to this, but so is capturing e-mail and mobile interactions - and not only capturing these communications, but enabling customers to input them in a way that is intuitive and user friendly. Kofax is attempting to deliver on this promise with a combination of multi-channel capture, BPM, and analytics technologies
All that was pretty cool, and there was a lot more that went on at Transform that I will be covering through various avenues (multi-channel communication?) over the next few weeks. Also, next week I'm headed to New Orleans for both the Canon's ICS Division (formerly IFS) national reseller meeting and the annual AIIM Conference, as well as a stop in at Microsoft Dynamics Convergence. Let me know if you are going to be in town and want to connect.
One of the themes was Kofax's introduction of a new marketing message that is being built around the idea of building out the First Mile (TM) of customer interaction:
That picture is Martyn Christian, CMO of Kofax, presenting on "Delivering on the First Mile." Basically, Kofax's message is around connecting "systems of engagement" with "systems of record," and it was a good thing that John Mancini, president of AIIM, and Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm and other books, were around to help explain this marriage. Both Moore and Mancini have spoken and written on this topics for several years. But, from my standpoint at least, Kofax is the first vendor I've heard that has developed a coherent strategy for really connecting the two.
And this strategy is built around SPAs, or smart process applications. I'm not going to get into a huge explanation of what SPAs are right now, but Forrester's Craig LeClair does a pretty good job of it in this article that appeared in last week's premium DIR.
Basically, the First Mile message is that businesses need a set of technologies to connect their evolving set of customer interactions with their back-end line of business systems. In other words, customers are communicating with businesses in an increasing number of ways - paper, e-mail, social media, call centers, etc. And businesses are under increasing pressure (due to the potential speed and ease-of-use of properly executed digital transactions) to process these communications in an efficient and customer friendly fashion. Capturing paper communications effectively is certainly one avenue to this, but so is capturing e-mail and mobile interactions - and not only capturing these communications, but enabling customers to input them in a way that is intuitive and user friendly. Kofax is attempting to deliver on this promise with a combination of multi-channel capture, BPM, and analytics technologies
All that was pretty cool, and there was a lot more that went on at Transform that I will be covering through various avenues (multi-channel communication?) over the next few weeks. Also, next week I'm headed to New Orleans for both the Canon's ICS Division (formerly IFS) national reseller meeting and the annual AIIM Conference, as well as a stop in at Microsoft Dynamics Convergence. Let me know if you are going to be in town and want to connect.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Document Scanners, MFPs, and Mobile Phones
Mobile capture is a hot topic. A couple years ago, Harvey Spencer Associates projected a 50% CAGR for the mobile capture software market through 2015 - at which time it would reach $1.5 billion. Last time, I talked with Harvey, he wasn't backing off that figure. Capture market leader Kofax, whose Transform conference I am currently attending in San Diego, has also been bullish on capture opportunities - and probably with good reason. If you remember, it was by far the hottest topic at last year's event. And I'm looking forward to the breakout session on "Creative Uses of Mobile Capture."
But this column is not being written to argue whether or not mobile capture will take off, let's just assume it does - even with some help from oddball products like the Scandock. The question is will it cut down on the sales of document scanners? I think the answer is no, as most people will consider any mobile capture being done as additive to the batch scanning that is done with document scanners. After all, not many people are going to do batch scanning with a smartphone, which is typically what you do with a document scanner. Of course, I guess mobile capture could potentially reduce the size of the batches that need to be scanned.
However, it's my opinion that MFPs are the hardware that is in real danger with the continuing penetration of smartphones and tablets. Tablets especially are great devices for viewing documents - meaning you don't have to print the docs - which directly impacts the MFP space (and potentially hurts the document scanning space as well but less directly- because there still has to be governance built around any business documents viewed with anything, which is why multi-channel capture becomes so important to ISVs and VARs going forward).
What prompted this post was a conversation I had last week with someone who was doing ad hoc scanning on their MFP and couldn't figure out why MFPs just weren't going to replace document scanners. I tried to explain that this was a conversation we'd been having for years...but he was not convinced. And that got me thinking about smartphones and why they wouldn't replace scanners either...but MFPs.
Let me just draw one picture for you. In today's computing market, people want to do more with less. You want 100 apps on your smartphone, not 100 computing devices. And for the past 10 years, document scanners have done nothing but pack more functionality into a smaller footprint. Document scanners are sleeker, simpler to use, and higher quality than they ever were before. Can the same really be said about MFPs? I don't know the MFP market as well, but I've certainly seen a few devices in recent years that looked a lot like Frankenstein's monster due to their having so many add-ons and moving parts and pieces.
The bottom line are living in an increasingly digital world, and document scanners have always been about promoting that digitization. In contrast MFPs are still pushing printing as the primary driver. And, although they do a great job at printing, it's a dying market. Lexmark has come to this realization and that is why it has invested so heavily in software - led by its investment in long-time imaging leader Perceptive Software.
No, MFPs will never replace dedicated document scanners - but smartphones/tablets could replace MFPs.
But this column is not being written to argue whether or not mobile capture will take off, let's just assume it does - even with some help from oddball products like the Scandock. The question is will it cut down on the sales of document scanners? I think the answer is no, as most people will consider any mobile capture being done as additive to the batch scanning that is done with document scanners. After all, not many people are going to do batch scanning with a smartphone, which is typically what you do with a document scanner. Of course, I guess mobile capture could potentially reduce the size of the batches that need to be scanned.
However, it's my opinion that MFPs are the hardware that is in real danger with the continuing penetration of smartphones and tablets. Tablets especially are great devices for viewing documents - meaning you don't have to print the docs - which directly impacts the MFP space (and potentially hurts the document scanning space as well but less directly- because there still has to be governance built around any business documents viewed with anything, which is why multi-channel capture becomes so important to ISVs and VARs going forward).
What prompted this post was a conversation I had last week with someone who was doing ad hoc scanning on their MFP and couldn't figure out why MFPs just weren't going to replace document scanners. I tried to explain that this was a conversation we'd been having for years...but he was not convinced. And that got me thinking about smartphones and why they wouldn't replace scanners either...but MFPs.
Let me just draw one picture for you. In today's computing market, people want to do more with less. You want 100 apps on your smartphone, not 100 computing devices. And for the past 10 years, document scanners have done nothing but pack more functionality into a smaller footprint. Document scanners are sleeker, simpler to use, and higher quality than they ever were before. Can the same really be said about MFPs? I don't know the MFP market as well, but I've certainly seen a few devices in recent years that looked a lot like Frankenstein's monster due to their having so many add-ons and moving parts and pieces.
The bottom line are living in an increasingly digital world, and document scanners have always been about promoting that digitization. In contrast MFPs are still pushing printing as the primary driver. And, although they do a great job at printing, it's a dying market. Lexmark has come to this realization and that is why it has invested so heavily in software - led by its investment in long-time imaging leader Perceptive Software.
No, MFPs will never replace dedicated document scanners - but smartphones/tablets could replace MFPs.
Monday, March 04, 2013
OCR/ICR Survey Highlights Infographic
We originally highlighted the results of this AIIM survey, (sponsored by Parascript) when it first came out last summer. (Download the entire report here).
Some interesting outtakes, some of which have been highlighted below in an outstanding infographic:
Some interesting outtakes, some of which have been highlighted below in an outstanding infographic:
- 55% of respondents who were scanning documents were key entering data
- Only 32% were using OCR with ICR and cursive recognition utilization significantly lower
Friday, March 01, 2013
Kofax Acquires BI and Analytics ISV - Altosoft
It's a move Kofax has been talking about for about a year now - at least since last year's Transform Conference when CEO Reynolds Bish told DIR, "One technology we may be looking at is analytics that can be embedded in our solution.” This morning's announcement of the acquisition of Altosoft is the realization of that vision. Based in Media, PA (just west of Philadelphia), "Altosoft’s software provides rapid, no-coding development of near real
time reporting and dashboard applications through the use of a data
integration and analytics engine utilizing in-memory techniques."
Basically, here's how I see BI and analytics fitting within the Kofax capture and BPM platform (and some of this was laid out at Transform 2012. Kofax has a full suite of technology for capturing data from paper, electronic documents, e-mails, and mobile devices. With the acquisition of Singularity, it also has a BPM framework of building and executing processes related to captured information. The BI and analytics fit in between these two pieces and help the Kofax platform execute these processes more intelligently because users can now better make sense of the data being captured.
This all ties into Kofax's new focus on Smart Process Applications (SPAs), an emerging space defined recently by Forrester. In a recent conversation with Craig LeClair of Forrester, he described SPAs as combining technologies like capture, analytics, and BPM to address specific pain points for business - rather than providing broad infrastructures like ECM and ERP systems. LeClair basically said the time for infrastructure systems has passed and businesses now care more about addressing specific applications with multiple technologies than about installing the technologies themselves.
LeClair gave me the example of a coffee shop improving its incident report process by replacing paper forms with e-forms on tablets, as well as utilizing the tablets picture taking capabilities. From a Kofax press release, "SPAs automate both structured and unstructured work activities in support of collaborative processes. SPAs contain all or most of the following core features: document and content capture for incoming documents, forms, and faxes relevant to the business activity; embedded analytical tools designed for the business activity; collaboration capabilities for people to create content needed for the activity; and BPM tools for executing the steps involved in the activity."
Forrester is projecting the SPA market to grow from $600 million in 2012 to $3.9 billion in 2016.
Kofax, which had $87 million in the bank as of Dec. 31, 2012, paid $13.5 million for Altosoft, with additional earnouts available in over the next three years. Altosoft's 2012 revenue was $3.4 million with an EBIDTA of $500,000.
Basically, here's how I see BI and analytics fitting within the Kofax capture and BPM platform (and some of this was laid out at Transform 2012. Kofax has a full suite of technology for capturing data from paper, electronic documents, e-mails, and mobile devices. With the acquisition of Singularity, it also has a BPM framework of building and executing processes related to captured information. The BI and analytics fit in between these two pieces and help the Kofax platform execute these processes more intelligently because users can now better make sense of the data being captured.
This all ties into Kofax's new focus on Smart Process Applications (SPAs), an emerging space defined recently by Forrester. In a recent conversation with Craig LeClair of Forrester, he described SPAs as combining technologies like capture, analytics, and BPM to address specific pain points for business - rather than providing broad infrastructures like ECM and ERP systems. LeClair basically said the time for infrastructure systems has passed and businesses now care more about addressing specific applications with multiple technologies than about installing the technologies themselves.
LeClair gave me the example of a coffee shop improving its incident report process by replacing paper forms with e-forms on tablets, as well as utilizing the tablets picture taking capabilities. From a Kofax press release, "SPAs automate both structured and unstructured work activities in support of collaborative processes. SPAs contain all or most of the following core features: document and content capture for incoming documents, forms, and faxes relevant to the business activity; embedded analytical tools designed for the business activity; collaboration capabilities for people to create content needed for the activity; and BPM tools for executing the steps involved in the activity."
Forrester is projecting the SPA market to grow from $600 million in 2012 to $3.9 billion in 2016.
Kofax, which had $87 million in the bank as of Dec. 31, 2012, paid $13.5 million for Altosoft, with additional earnouts available in over the next three years. Altosoft's 2012 revenue was $3.4 million with an EBIDTA of $500,000.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Hyland Acquires AnyDoc
Well this is one that might have occurred 10 years ago...Document imaging-centric ECM ISV Hyland Software has acquired AnyDoc Software. It's always been a good fit, as both companies have sold primarily through reseller channels and certainly have complimentary technology. Hyland and AnyDoc, in fact, share several channel partners who integrate
AnyDoc's capture on the front end with Hyland's ECM on the back.
A couple years ago, Hyland made a move to go more aggressively after the capture space and even introduced some proprietary invoice capture technology that was designed to leverage its OnBase repository's integration with line of business systems. On top of that, there were rumors that Hyland was doing a fairly efficient job replacing AnyDoc capture technology with its own capture at some of the customer sites of Hershey Systems- a higher education integrator that Hyland acquired in 2010. But, our question for Hyland has always been, "Why re-invent the wheel when there is already a market full of great capture software out there?"
Of course, all that should be under water under the bridge now, as AnyDoc and its mature and proven capture technology are now part of Hyland.
Back in the mid-1990's, AnyDoc was one of the pioneers in automated data capture from documents. And, in the late 1990s, it was about the same size as Hyland. Since then, Hyland has grown to more than $230 million in annual revenue (per a recent article in the Plain Dealer), while our estimates have AnyDoc still at under $20 million. The reasons for this are likely multiple, but one definitely is that Hyland has done a much better job cultivating and growing its channel than AnyDoc has.
For example, while AnyDoc was one of the pioneers in automated invoice capture, it decided to go primarily direct with the initial version of its invoice capture software because it felt the technology was too complex for its reseller channel at the time. You can imagine the conflict that created. Meanwhile, while Hyland has introduced some direct sales into its mix, it's also done a good job moving upstream and really securing a lot of the top resellers in the document/imaging workflow space.
The synergies between the two companies should be great. AnyDoc's software, which was never its weakness, will now be available to the entire Hyland channel. Plus, Hyland larger support and development team will be able to help it move forward. In fact, there are already some ex-AnyDoc employees working for Hyland. Hyland gets a mature and robust capture product, which should only assist with their efforts in the ECM space - where leaders like Documentum, Open Text, and IBM, have also acquired capture ISVs.
A couple years ago, Hyland made a move to go more aggressively after the capture space and even introduced some proprietary invoice capture technology that was designed to leverage its OnBase repository's integration with line of business systems. On top of that, there were rumors that Hyland was doing a fairly efficient job replacing AnyDoc capture technology with its own capture at some of the customer sites of Hershey Systems- a higher education integrator that Hyland acquired in 2010. But, our question for Hyland has always been, "Why re-invent the wheel when there is already a market full of great capture software out there?"
Of course, all that should be under water under the bridge now, as AnyDoc and its mature and proven capture technology are now part of Hyland.
Back in the mid-1990's, AnyDoc was one of the pioneers in automated data capture from documents. And, in the late 1990s, it was about the same size as Hyland. Since then, Hyland has grown to more than $230 million in annual revenue (per a recent article in the Plain Dealer), while our estimates have AnyDoc still at under $20 million. The reasons for this are likely multiple, but one definitely is that Hyland has done a much better job cultivating and growing its channel than AnyDoc has.
For example, while AnyDoc was one of the pioneers in automated invoice capture, it decided to go primarily direct with the initial version of its invoice capture software because it felt the technology was too complex for its reseller channel at the time. You can imagine the conflict that created. Meanwhile, while Hyland has introduced some direct sales into its mix, it's also done a good job moving upstream and really securing a lot of the top resellers in the document/imaging workflow space.
The synergies between the two companies should be great. AnyDoc's software, which was never its weakness, will now be available to the entire Hyland channel. Plus, Hyland larger support and development team will be able to help it move forward. In fact, there are already some ex-AnyDoc employees working for Hyland. Hyland gets a mature and robust capture product, which should only assist with their efforts in the ECM space - where leaders like Documentum, Open Text, and IBM, have also acquired capture ISVs.
TIS Projects Strong Growth for 2013
As it pre-announced in early January, Top Image Systems' 2012 fourth quarter numbers were somewhat disappointing. For the the three months ended Dec. 31, 2012, TIS reported just a 1% increase in revenue to $7.4 million. This brought its year-end total $31.3 million - still a 9% increase over its 2012 revenue.
TIS CEO Ido Schechter seemed optimistic about the capture ISV's prospects for 2012. He is quoted in the financials press release, "For 2013, we are providing guidance of revenue growth between 13% and 20%, indicating revenues of between $35.3 million and $37.7 million. We expect non-GAAP operating income in the range of $4.6 million to $4.9 million."
As we reported, earlier this month, TIS has re-organized its sales force to better sell its entire set of solutions on the global level. In addition to its document capture software, which is popular in digital mailroom, invoice capture, census, and other types of forms processing applications, TIS recently introduced a suite of capture products for mobile devices.
Part of the reason for TIS' optimistic revenue projections certainly has to do with the potential of the market related to mobile transactions. From their financials press release, "Gartner estimated that the mobile transaction market was approximately $170 billion in 2012 with 200 million mobile payment users, and estimates it will grow on average 40% per year to approximately $600 billion in 2016 with 400 million users. The pipeline of deals, variety of viable, revenue-generating use cases and market potential we are seeing for mobile capture is enormous.”
Harvey Spencer Associates has also projected low double-digit growth for the document capture market annually through 2016. These two markets combined should put TIS in a good position to realize its 13-20% growth projections for 2013.
TIS CEO Ido Schechter seemed optimistic about the capture ISV's prospects for 2012. He is quoted in the financials press release, "For 2013, we are providing guidance of revenue growth between 13% and 20%, indicating revenues of between $35.3 million and $37.7 million. We expect non-GAAP operating income in the range of $4.6 million to $4.9 million."
As we reported, earlier this month, TIS has re-organized its sales force to better sell its entire set of solutions on the global level. In addition to its document capture software, which is popular in digital mailroom, invoice capture, census, and other types of forms processing applications, TIS recently introduced a suite of capture products for mobile devices.
Part of the reason for TIS' optimistic revenue projections certainly has to do with the potential of the market related to mobile transactions. From their financials press release, "Gartner estimated that the mobile transaction market was approximately $170 billion in 2012 with 200 million mobile payment users, and estimates it will grow on average 40% per year to approximately $600 billion in 2016 with 400 million users. The pipeline of deals, variety of viable, revenue-generating use cases and market potential we are seeing for mobile capture is enormous.”
Harvey Spencer Associates has also projected low double-digit growth for the document capture market annually through 2016. These two markets combined should put TIS in a good position to realize its 13-20% growth projections for 2013.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
A Closer look at Kofax's half-year numbers
Lot of interesting stuff in Kofax's report regarding its half year numbers .
First off, the Irvine, CA-based ISV's numbers were down fairly significantly:
Lot more interesting stuff that we'll get into some more details on in our upcoming issue of DIR, but basically Kofax hired Forrester to double-check some of Harvey Spencer Associates' numbers of the capture market. While Forrester's market size number were actually slightly larger than HSA's, their growth figures for capture were somewhat lower. And Bish blamed the Q2 software license decline squarely on Kofax's traditional capture business, while in the meantime spinning Kofax's future direction toward the newly defined SPA (smart process application) market.
SPA basically combines mobile and traditional capture with BPM and analytics to create high-end vertical applications. Forrester listed SPA as just a $600 million market in 2012, but with CAGR of close to 60% through 2016 - a much higher growth figure than it has for the individual capture and BPM spaces.
Bish concluded that he is optimistic in Kofax's immediate prospects for improving results, in part due to a revamped sales structure (we'll get into more detail in DIR), as well as, well, less than stellar Q3 2012 results that will be easy to improve on: "So, we certainly expect to report relatively significant year-over-year growth during the current quarter, expect that to continue into the half-year, and as a result of that, we have a pretty high level of confidence of returning to reporting more consistent software license and total revenue growth."
At last check, Kofax stock was trading at less than two and three-quarters British pounds per share on the London Stock Exchange, a drop of about 15% from what it was trading previous to the half year results being announced.
First off, the Irvine, CA-based ISV's numbers were down fairly significantly:
- total revenue for the quarter was $63.7 million, which represented a decline of approximately 8% in constant currency from the previous year's second quarter (Kofax fiscal year ends on June 30, so its 2013 Q2 ended Dec. 31)
- software license sales were down significantly - 24% - compared to the Q2 numbers for fiscal 2012. For Q2 2013, license revenue was just $25 million.
- Apparently 2012 fiscal first half was unusually strong. CEO Reynolds Bish. "We noted that the prior year period had a very significant record. So the revenues for the first half of last fiscal year were significantly ahead of anything we had reported for that period in the past."
- That said, Bish gave two reasons why Q2 2013 revenue was lower than anticipated:
- "We had a very large mid-seven-figure transaction slip out of the quarter into a future quarter. We still expect to close that at some point, but are not able to accurately forecast that."
- "Our software license revenues in the Americas was also lower than we anticipated, principally because of all the changes that we began implementing in our overall sales organization during October."
Lot more interesting stuff that we'll get into some more details on in our upcoming issue of DIR, but basically Kofax hired Forrester to double-check some of Harvey Spencer Associates' numbers of the capture market. While Forrester's market size number were actually slightly larger than HSA's, their growth figures for capture were somewhat lower. And Bish blamed the Q2 software license decline squarely on Kofax's traditional capture business, while in the meantime spinning Kofax's future direction toward the newly defined SPA (smart process application) market.
SPA basically combines mobile and traditional capture with BPM and analytics to create high-end vertical applications. Forrester listed SPA as just a $600 million market in 2012, but with CAGR of close to 60% through 2016 - a much higher growth figure than it has for the individual capture and BPM spaces.
Bish concluded that he is optimistic in Kofax's immediate prospects for improving results, in part due to a revamped sales structure (we'll get into more detail in DIR), as well as, well, less than stellar Q3 2012 results that will be easy to improve on: "So, we certainly expect to report relatively significant year-over-year growth during the current quarter, expect that to continue into the half-year, and as a result of that, we have a pretty high level of confidence of returning to reporting more consistent software license and total revenue growth."
At last check, Kofax stock was trading at less than two and three-quarters British pounds per share on the London Stock Exchange, a drop of about 15% from what it was trading previous to the half year results being announced.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
