Document Imaging talk

ACS--Vertical Focus Success

2009-07-08T14:15:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-08T09:38:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-06T15:01:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-02T10:15:00.005-04:00

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

2009-06-30T15:06:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-29T10:57:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-26T12:43:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-25T16:52:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-25T09:48:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-24T11:27:00.004-04:00

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

public and private sector organisations. This research follows-on from a similar survey carried-out by Version One which highlights that two-thirds of

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

2009-06-23T11:36:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-09T14:28:00.002-04:00

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.

Earth Class Fail?

2009-06-08T15:43:00.002-04:00

It seems our favorite digital mailroom vendors has changed CEOs. We ran a feature on Earth Class mail last fall in DIR. They are a very ambitious company, but I'm not sure their customer value proposition can meet their infrastructure costs. Part of the fun of covering this company was checking out the TV show that was made about them. I do love their plan of taking an end-run around the USPS if they can't forge a partnership with them and offering digital mail services through a Kinkos or something.

Distributed Capture Wave

2009-06-03T15:53:00.004-04:00

We recently came across a couple of stories discussing distributed capture installations that reflect favorably on Kodak's efforts in this segment of the market. This announcement comes out of Kofax and discusses the sale of more than $1.5 million worth of i1220 and i1320 scanners through Kofax's distribution business to an Italian partner that is doing a distributed installation with a division of the Italian police force. Then, there's this story about a distributed U.K. sales operation that is using some 90 Kodak i160s at distributed sites to capture orders and upload them to a centralized site for processing. (It's a fairly detailed story and worth reading.) The U.K. installation is using Kofax's distributed capture software.

In total, that's something like news of 1,100 Kodak scanners being installed in distributed scanning opertations within a week. Pretty cool stuff for Kodak. Both applications are also examples of net new imaging installations- meaning centralized capture was probably not a realistic offering. Just more evidence that distributed capture (after years of discussion) has finally arrived.

Capture reseller channel

2009-06-02T14:21:00.003-04:00

Word out of Kofax, as you'll see in our upcoming issue, is that while its direct sales business continues to grow - now making up like a third of enterprise software sales, sales through its channel partners is on the decline - at a rate that has pretty much offset the revenue gain brought through increasing direct sales. In a recent interview with CEO Reynolds Bish, he indicated that he thinks mid-market sales, those historically perpetuated by the channel, are being affected more by the economy than the higher-end direct sales. As a result, Bish presents the transition to direct sales as pretty much having saved the company some significant revenue shortfalls.

This is, of course, a perspective that makes him look like a hero, and there is nothing wrong with that. On the flip side, however, it's quite possible to blame Kofax's increasing direct sales as negatively affecting channel sales because it has potentially alienated some VARs that have been very loyal to Kofax, because, in part at least, Kofax has always been very loyal to the channel. So, are Kofax VARs' capture sales really declining, or are these VARs just moving towards other capture products and away from Kofax?

Any feedback is appreciated.

Ralph

ACS Moving more personnel offshore

2009-05-21T09:52:00.002-04:00

Interesting story here about Dallas-based outsourcing giant ACS wanting to more 50% of its personnel to offshore locations. At the end of last year, about 32% of ACS's 63,000 employees were offshore.

Metastorm

2009-05-20T10:38:00.003-04:00

Metastorm is a BPM player that has played on the fringes of the document imaging space for more than 10 years. Heck, we wrote about them in 2000, when their market was still called "workflow." At that time, Metastorm was touting revenue of around $30 million, up five times from two years previous. While its growth hasn't maintained that level, it has still been impressive. We recently came across an article that said Metastorm is anticipating $90 million in revenue in 2009 compared to $77 million in 2008. This is projected organic growth (what recession?). The company is also seriously involved in aquisition talks.

We're not sure what sort of company Metastorm would be buying, but we have heard rumors that Global 360 is up for sale. On the flip side, apparently (according to the prior referenced article), Open Text is considering a BPM acquisition.

Anyhow, that's just a brief Metastorm update. Oh yes, apparently Metastorm filed an S-I last year before thinking better of going public and pulled back.

Open Text Acquires Vignette

2009-05-07T09:48:00.003-04:00

I've seen quite a few analyst criticisms of Open Text's recent announcement that it plans to acquire Vignette for $310 million. Apparently, Vignette got killed last quarter, seeing its license sales drop 29% and its overall revenue drop 24%. Vignette was clearly in trouble, and as Open Text likes to do, it came in and bought the company when it was down.

People have questioned what Open Text really got, as Open Text has most of the technology is picked up already. I think these people are missing the point. First off, Vignette apparently has big-time WCM technology with several big-name Fortune 2000 users. Vignette is a market leader in this area, and it's always good to pick up a leader in a market that is not going away. Heck, Open Text, has even been known to pick up leaders in declining markets... Open Text also picked up some solid records management technology with Tower Technology stuff that Vignette picked up a few years back. Once again, I think this is an upgrade for Open Text in an area they have clearly targeted for future growth.

Finally, because of the market it's in, it is imparative for Open Text to continue to grow. Competing with the likes of IBM and EMC, size does matter. Open Text seems to understand this, and this latest acquisitoin should now have it approaching $1 billion in annual revenue. As long as it stands alone - and it is one of the last major ECM vendors standing - Open Text has to keep pushing forward so its Global 2000 customer base will not hesitate about doing business with it.

Per its history, we're confident Open Text will figure out how to cut costs at Vignette and fold it into its profitable growing business. Open Text has certainly come a long way in the 10 years we've been covering them- outlasting a ton of competitors, and a key part of its strategy has been acquisitions just like the Vignette buy. We expect to see more as well.

Electronic Medical Records

2009-05-04T15:07:00.002-04:00

There sure has been a lot of buzz on this topic since the stimulus package with passed promising like $30 billion for doctors to move to electronic healthcare records. Here's a chat that showed up on Yahoo Finance with the CEO Aethena. Fairly brief. Fairly interesting.

Mitek Signs Deal with NCR

2009-04-28T11:18:00.002-04:00

A little over a year ago, we ran an article discussing Mitek's release of technology for capturing and processing check images through mobile phones. Well, today Mitek announced a deal with NCR, which will offer Mitek's ImageNet Mobile Deposit to complement its APTRA Commercial Passport-- remote deposit capture software that allows deposits using check scanners from their businesses directly to the financial institution or via online banking web site.

This definitely seems like a step in the right direction, which might be a bit ahead of its time with this type of software- but as a toolkit vendor, also needs to anticipate the needs of its customers. NCR's offering both scanner and phone-capture based solution is indicative of where the market for mobile capture currently stands. It's a great idea, and probably will pick up momentum as phone cameras and processors continue to improve, but for now, the superior image quality of a scanner still offers many advantegous - if not the convenience and ubiquity of mobile phones.

Kofax Appointments - Book Scanner from Trash

2009-04-22T11:39:00.002-04:00

There is no question Kofax has made a lot of changes over the past year, as CEO Reynolds Bish has really put his stamp on the company. One of Bush's main prerogatives has been to increase Kofax's average deal size by creating a strong direct sales force. Of course, this has created concerns about Kofax's dedication to the value-added reseller channel, which has historically served as its primary sales force. That's why it was refreshing to see today's announcement about the Irvine, CA-based software vendor hiring two industry veterens with substantial channel experience.

Dan Lucarini, who has been named senior director of business development, was for years a big advocate and marketing director for the Alchemy reseller channel. He left Captaris after its acquisition by Open Text. And Barbara Lanci, who has been named senior director of partner strategy and development, was a director of channel development for Kofax in the late 1990s. Both will report to Jim Vickers.

Also, a friend of ours sent us this cool link/video from a guy who basically built a DIY-type book scanners from some new cameras and 100% recycled materials. Check it out.

Ralph

CMS Watch Offers Valuable Advice

2009-04-08T17:50:00.003-04:00

This is actually really funny. Good to see some humor related to ECM..

Article on Scan settings for OCR

2009-04-07T18:14:00.004-04:00

This is a pretty insightful piece by OCR/data capture consultant Chris Riley of Living Analytics. One additional comment I'll make is that the scanning hardware vendors continue to introduce more versatile machines that address some of the demands that Chris mentions in his article. For example, Kodak has come out with a whole new series of scanners that capture in 300 dpi at the same speed as 200 dpi, and color speeds have almost caught up bi-tonal speeds.

We've also had many interesting conversations with vendors that specialize in the separation technology that Chris mentions and claim it can introduce OCR results on certain types of documents. As we've said before, we are entering a brave new world for recognition technologies.

Fujitsu Computer Products of America's Kevin Neal contributed these two helpful links on the same topic:

Increase ECM Automation Processes With Higher Resolution Scanning

Trends Towards Higher Resolution Scanning

Ralph

eCopy signs Chinese distributor

2009-03-23T16:59:00.002-04:00

eCopy signed up a fairly large Chinese office equipment dealer as a distributor. Interestingly, they will be selling eCopy ShareScan along with Ricoh hardware. Good sign for the contiued diversification of eCopy, both in terms of hardware partners and geography.

Looking at TIS and Adobe numbers

2009-03-18T10:29:00.003-04:00

Yes, Top Image Systems and Adobe are very much on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to publically traded document-imaging related stocks. Adobe is one of the largest software companies in the world with a very diverse portfolio that contains either a lot or a little bit of document imaging - depending on how you define the sector. And Top Image Systems (TIS) is very much a niche player, soley focused on image-based data capture (utilizing OCR), had annual revenue of around $30 million, and is very thinly traded on the Nasdaq. However, their financial reports shared a common theme: While the numbers may have looked bad at first glance, they were apparently better than what Wall Street was expecting... I think.

Both companies saw steep drop offs from the third quarter, but both also seemed prepared for this. Adobe saw its stock value rise 7% after reporting after seeng its revenue drop 12% and its earnings 29% from the previous year. Is this the first sign of an economic rebound. TIS situation was even more confusing as its revenue dropped 2% from the previous year and 23% from the third quarter, but a discontinuation of some lower-margin/unprofitable operations contributed to this, and all in all, TIS seems to have made money on the quarter, with a $5 million gain related to "financing income." Anyhow, I think you almost need to be a banker to understand what is going on in the market now, but my overall impression is that neither Adobe or TIS suffered as much as some other people in the fourth quarter, which is a good sign for our industry, as recently (the last week at least) macro-economic conditions seem to be on the rebound.

Alright, that's about it. But, if anyone can help me further understand this stuff, please post comments.

Ralph