Best of AIIM
By the staff of Imaging & Document Solutions
“E-business” was the mantra endlessly chanted at last month’s AIIM
show in New York, April 10-12. Levitating information management to
a more strategic plane, vendors of every description cast document
technologies as the enabler of business processes on the Web.
Though some were longer on vision than real e-biz experience,
vendors collectively made the case that evolved capture, workflow,
report and document management solutions will support employee-,
supplier- and customer-facing applications as they move to the
Internet. It’s a valid argument, and it was underscored in mid-April as
dot-com stock values plummeted on the NASDAQ while
brick-and-mortar businesses (BAMs) returned to favor. The pure
dot-coms will continue to lose money, some argue, because they
must invest millions in infrastructure—such as fulfillment and
customer service—that “old-economy” businesses built long ago.
The next phase will see vendors put deeper meaning behind
buzzwords like “portal” and “XML,” but this year’s Best of AIIM
selection includes solutions and technologies that present real value
for dot-coms, dot-BAMs and click-and-mortar wannabes alike.
New technologies are bringing document-intensive processes online
while established technologies are being adapted and enhanced for
the Web. Color and sheer processing power are conquering age-old
paper processing headaches like document capture, classification,
indexing and data extraction. Storage options are not only better,
faster and cheaper, they’re more intelligent, supporting ambitious,
data-intensive applications that would not have been imaginable just
a few years ago. Read on for a look toward the future.
Transaction-Oriented Document Portal
Tower Technology
(www.towertech.com) brings a
Web-centric solution to
transaction-oriented business
processes with its IDM Corporate
Document Portal. Automating more
than just paper-based transactions,
Tower has integrated HTML-, PDF- and
XML-based electronic forms linked to a
choice of workflow engines. A new
Web capture feature records all page views seen during a Web site
visit and then commits them to archive upon the completion of a sale
or transaction. This supports customer service and dispute resolution
while meeting legal requirements.
Tower’s solution works with any browser, and it requires no plug-ins
to view color or bitonal images, faxes, electronic documents, emails,
COLD reports or captured Web pages. Documents are stored in their
native format and rendered in bandwidth-friendly PNG or JPG format.
Interfaces can be customized for customer self-service.
Content Management For E-Biz
Rich media management, Web content
management and federated searching
are the key advantages of Content
Manager from IBM
(www.ibm.com/software/cm). The
solution combines IBM’s Digital Library
media asset management system with
its VisualInfo imaging system through a
Web content management module with
a common set of APIs. You get unified
Web-based management of more than 200 file types including
images, emails, COLD reports, databases, HTML and XML content,
voice mails and rich-media content including streaming audio and
video and high quality photos and graphics.
Content Manager supports eight types of servers. Object repositories
remain separate from the library server for flexibility and scalability,
yet you can perform federated (single-request) searching across all
data types. IBM is integrating Content Manager with its own
Enterprise Information Portal as well as with ERP systems, legacy
systems and solutions from partners including Documentum, Vignette,
Open Market and Plumtree.
Report & Document Portal
Quest’s Vista Plus software is a
back-end repository for electronic files
and report data streams. Traditionally
they’ve offered access to these
through a Web browser. An
e-Purposing Engine converts traditional
documents and print streams to HTML
or PDF format. A new PortalVue
Connector lets users access reports and documents through any
portal interface. Quest’s first portal partner is TopTier. Users can log
in to the system through a Vista Plus client, through a standard Web
browser, via email using Microsoft Outlook or through an Adobe
Acrobat Reader. A TransVue Client lets users create a universal
repository to store report output from enterprise resource planning
systems such as SAP R/3, PeopleSoft, Lawson, Baan and Oracle
applications as well as electronic documents created in Word, Excel
and AutoCAD. Quest also announced a partnership with Kofax Image
Products to connect Vista Plus 4.3 with the Kofax Ascent Capture
solution for scanning and capture of paper-based documents, which
can then be added to the Vista Plus data repository.
Content Management ASP
CyLex was one of the first companies
to become a document application
service provider. They started hosting
their own CyLex Express imaging
software in 1994. Now they’re also
offering a hosted version of
Documentum’s 4i document and
content management system that
mid-size companies and departments
of large organizations can rent. CyLex
has built a middleware layer on top of
4i that integrates with more than 350 other products. They store and
manage images, documents, emails and other content, providing
revision control, document check-in and check-out and other
features of the 4i product. They’ve worked out the necessary details
for a reliable ASP. An industrial-strength physical facility is provided
by EMC. CyLex manages transaction logs and provides billing through
software from Daleen. They provide Web-based account activation
and self-service. The pricing is based on a combination of volume,
number of users and retrieval rates (fed through a pricing algorithm).
Customers share servers to gain of economies of scale.
E-Forms Integration With IDM
Unisys (www.unisys.com) has
browser-enabled and upgraded its
entire suite of imaging and workflow
components, but the real “solutions”
story behind e-@ction Business
Process Solutions is best-of-breed
partnerships. At AIIM, Unisys
announced new integrations with
PureEdge for electronic forms,
Voice.com for fillable forms and
Readsoft for forms processing
solutions. This adds to existing partnerships with Kodak for scanners
and Plasmon for storage.
The InternetForms Commerce System from PureEdge provides a
legally binding Web/XML-based replacement for traditional paper
forms with provisions for security and electronic signatures.
Voice.com’s FormFiller technology lets customers fill out forms online,
but it prints out a barcoded version of the form that can be mailed to
the customer for their signature. The returned document is
automatically matched with the original data, saving extraction and
entry expenses while also providing a legal record. When paper forms
can’t be avoided, Unisys has experience integrating ReadSoft’s Eyes
& Hands forms processing solution. At AIIM, Unisys announced its
successful completion of a forms system at the Minnesota
Department of Economic Security, where the tax branch copes with
2,500 forms per day.
Unisys has upgraded its own workflow and imaging technologies with
fully browser-based clients, multi-domain administration for
enterprise-wide deployment and more robust workflow time and event
triggers. The integrator has DOD-certified technology for records
management.
Web Content/ Data Capture
Bringing content and data capture to
the Internet, Mitek
(www.miteksys.com) has developed
WEBrowz, an automated tool that lets
you select elements on a Web page
and capture them at a specified
interval or period in time. The system
can poll and capture the same page or
elements within a page using multiple
user inputs. Stock brokers, for example, could query and capture
data from a Web-based financial analysis engine using a pre-defined
list of stock symbols. It’s applicable to any application requiring
historical or trend analysis or point-in-time records.
Mitek says WEBrowz differs from Web crawlers in that it lets you
capture elements of pages or multiple selected pages instead of
whole pages or sites. The system also applies Mitek’s ICR and
document understanding technology to otherwise non-readable text
embedded in GIF or JPEG images. The WEBrowz interface uses dialog
boxes, drop-down menus and other familiar GUI features to make
capture and delivery of data and images point-and-click simple.
Information is stored to user-defined text files or databases.
Web Input For E-Business
ActionPoint Designer and ActionPoint
Dialog Server from ActionPoint
Technologies (formerly Input Software)
let you create interactive forms and
insert business rules into the process
of filling out forms. The Designer
creates extensions to XML that hold
information about relationships among
elements within the schema. You could
set up “if, then” sequences so that if a
customer chooses a particular product, accessory choices for that
choice would pop up. HTML pages with embedded JavaScript are
pushed to the browser. When a customer goes through an
ActionPoint dialog, they encounter an interactive Web page through
which they can make calculations and product choices without
feeling like they’re filling out a form. The dialog responds to their
choices and skips questions and fields that don’t apply. The system
can output a traditional form including the customer’s data in a PDF
file that can be archived or printed, signed and returned to meet the
requirements of a legally binding form. You can connect the
ActionPoint product to InputAccel Enterprise Server (also shipping in
the second quarter) in order to connect these interactive forms to
back-office databases, workflows and line-of-business applications or
ERP systems.
Personalized Forms Response
This software leverages the
technology Cardiff (www.cardiff.com)
acquired when it bought Adobe spinoff
AudienceOne in February. AudienceOne
software delivers personalized
documents via the Web and
print-on-demand systems. Cardiff’s
new AudienceOne Personalization
Server is a combination of Cardiff’s
Teleform HTML+Forms, which lets you
design and process HTML forms, and the AudienceOne Publisher,
which converts existing documents created in Word, Quark, Adobe
InDesign and other publishing products into personalized content. As
an example, a bank could offer a short loan form on their Web site
and upon receiving entered data, instantly send the customer a
customized loan packet. Pricing starts at $25,000 per server.
Color OCR & Forms Processing
ReadSoft (www.readsoft.com) trained
its internal OCR engines to read color
JPEG images (as well as traditional
bitonal TIFFs) for the 5.0 version of
their forms processing software.
ReadSoft says this results in up to a
20% improvement in accuracy over
OCR of bitonal images because of the
extra information provided in color
files. Another advantage of color is
that the system can automatically identify forms based on the colors
they contain. ReadSoft Eyes & Hands for Forms 5.0 lets you create a
form in Microsoft Word that automatically generates a form definition
and a printable form. You can later add attributes like verifications
and database lookups within Eyes & Hands. The template you create
in Word can also be turned into a Web form. That collects data in
XML format. This version of Eyes & Hands has a COM-based
architecture and an optional SQL 7 database.
Automated Document Indexing
Capture vendors have automated
structured and even semi-structured
documents, but SERbrainware from
SER (www.serbrainware.com) looks like
the next wave in classifying and
indexing paper-based information with
minimal user intervention. Using a
combination of full-text OCR and
artificial intelligence, SERbrainware can
analyze even completely unstructured documents and automatically
classify and extract data for indexing or transaction processing.
The SERbrainware technology is trainable, but you teach it on
document types instead of specific examples of every document
you’ll encounter. Rather than relying on traditional recognition zones
or barcodes, the technology takes advantage of today’s high-speed
processors to examine the entire document. If you train it on an
invoice, for example, it is designed to classify and extract the crucial
data elements from any invoice, even if it wasn’t trained on that
specific form. Validations, lookups and quality assurance features
ensure accuracy. The end result is a system that will minimize
pre-scan batch preparation time and post-scan classification and
data entry costs.
SER is a leading workflow and document management vendor in
Europe. It entered the US market last year by acquiring Macrosoft
(now SER Macrosoft). SERbrainware is currently in beta testing in
Germany, and it is expected to be integrated with the Synergy 2000
integrated document management system by late summer.
Electronic Signatures For The Web
ForThe ePersona wizard from Silanis
Technology (www.silanis.com) lets
people create electronic signatures in
a simple way and use them in many
common applications. The user can
create a signature once by signing a
piece of paper and faxing it to a Silanis
server. Silanis emails the signature
back to the user’s desktop as a TIFF
file, encrypts it on the user’s PC and links it to an audit trail that
confirms who created the signature and when, and that it’s
authentic. Users of Silanis’ ApproveIt electronic signature host
software can sign a synchronized Palm Pilot or Windows CE device
every time they need to approve a file. A pen pad can also be used
to generate a vector signature. These signatures can then be
embedded in any Microsoft Word, Excel or Outlook, Adobe Acrobat,
JetForm FormFlow, HTML or XML file. The signature is
password-protected - you can’t use it unless you type in the right
PIN. Once you’ve put a signature on a document, the signature will
become invalid if the file is changed. This makes digital signatures
viable and secure over the Web for electronic commerce. You can
test it by getting a free electronic signature at www.OnSign.com.
Toolkit For Linux
With Rastermaster Version 9.0,
Snowbound (www.snowbnd.com) has
ported their imaging toolkit library to
Linux. This will let imaging application
developers port their products over to
Linux without having to write their own
versions of imaging libraries or obtain
alternate sources. Rastermaster
libraries come complete with sample
applications and their source code.
Rastermaster for Linux ($3,000) has
been tested under Red Hat Linux and should work on any big-endian
Linux hardware.
Snowbound has also updated Rastermaster Java, bringing it in line
with the native Rastermaster toolkits and making the Java code fully
reentrant, which is important for multi-threaded applications. With
fully re-entrant Java code, developers can now make Java
applications that can approach traditional executable binaries for
stability and utility.
Snowbound is selling licenses to fully coded Java applications. Called
Snaplets, these are full applications written in Java that can be
customized for the user. The applications enable image file viewing
over the Internet by any Java-enabled client.
High-Speed Color Scanner
The FasTrac scans an incredible 200
pages per minute (400 ipm duplex) at
200 dpi in color. Doubling the speed of
the ImageTrac scanner from IBML
(www.ibml.com), the FasTrac scans
mixed and uniform documents in 24-bit
color. We like the open vacuum
transport, which keeps mixed
document types on track. An
easy-to-use touch-screen control panel eases operation. The
FasTrac includes IBML’s SoftTrac software, which lets you specify
what types of images (JPEG, TIFF or both) and data (OCR, ICR,
barcode) you want to capture. From one scan you can generate
three images: a color JPEG, a bitonal and a form with red, green or
blue color dropout. This meets all your archiving and data capture
needs in one step. A simplex, single pocket FasTrac starts at
$255,000 for hardware, software installation and training.
Mid-Range Color Scanner
The Digital Science Scanner 4500 from
Kodak (www.kodak.com/scanners)
offers duplex color scanning at an
affordable price. Where its
predecessor, the 3590C, scanned
documents in color on one side and
bitonal on the other, this scanner
outputs color and bitonal images on
both sides. The color image can be
used for archiving while the bitonal is
suitable for optical character recognition. Output of four images per
page in duplex mode is made possible by a bundled ISIS driver
developed by Pixel Translations and Picture Elements. Incorporated
into the scanner is Perfect Page technology, which starts with
Kodak’s advanced CCD arrays for better image quality. The software
performs contour tracing around each document for more accurate
deskew.
The 4500 scans 45 ppm at 150 dpi (color) in portrait page
orientation. With duplex scanning and simultaneous color and bitonal
output, you can capture as many as 180 images per minute. The
4500D (duplex) is priced at $31,990. The optional (pre-scan)
imprinter brings the price to $34,990.
Bitonal Production Scanner
Fujitsu (www.fcpa.com) announced a
new production scanner at AIIM, the
high-speed M4099D, which handles 90
ppm/180 ipm at 200 dpi (bitonal,
portrait). It comes with ScanRight
IPC-3D, the latest version of the
manufacturer’s built-in image
processing software. ScanRight offers
five pre-scan settings that let you
adjust the scanner for categories of
image types: Normal, Background/Foreground, Clean-up Noise, Forms
and Magazine. We thought the image quality in the demos looked
very good. The scanner comes with length and width multifeed
detection, duplex red, green and blue dropout, a one-year onsite
warranty and an optional post-scan endorser. Best of all, the M4099D
is priced at $20,995.
Partitionable DVD Jukes
Asaca (www.asaca.com) has fielded
an impressive array of new features on
their DVD-RAM jukeboxes, adding
significant value to products
introduced last year. The AM-250DVD
($30,000) holds 200 to 250 discs and
one to six DVD-RAM drives. The
AM-750DVD holds 600 to 750 discs and
up to 12 DVD-RAM drives. The
AM-1450DVD ($90,000 - $200,000)
holds 1,100 to 1,450 discs.
The two largest jukeboxes offer pass throughs that allow up to eight
boxes to be
connected side-by-side and discs to be moved from one cabinet to
the next. Dual picker robots flip the discs to take advantage of
double-sided DVD-RAM discs. Other features include an electronic
system for quickly identifying disc magazines, SCSI and fibre channel
connectivity and extra space for installation of the jukebox server.
Asaca jukes now feature a QNX (embedded Unix-based) control panel
complete with an Apache Web server that lets you modify and
monitor the jukebox over a network. It can send alerts in case a fault
appears in the jukebox. The library can be partitioned into separate
logical libraries that can share slots and drives. This simplifies library
management across multiple departments.
Value DVD Jukebox
Kubota has long been a manufacturer
of magneto-optical libraries sold
through companies such as Maxoptix
and Globalstor. Now Kubota will be
selling DVD-RAM jukeboxes in the US
under its own name.
The SA-1600, DJ20 and DJ40 are all
based on Kubota’s proven MO designs.
DVD-RAM discs are kept in their hard
plastic cases, and the robotics flip
discs to make use of their double-sided capacity.
Kubota (www.kubota.co.jp/storage) has upgraded their robotics by
moving the motor and electronics from the picker to the base for
faster exchange times. The DJ20 and DJ40 ($5,125 and $9,000) have
20 and 40 slots, respectively, with an average swap time of 2.5
seconds. The SA-1600 ($33,400 - $97,200) is a large jukebox with a
rotating picker.The base unit has 2 to 16 drives and 382 to 436 slots.
Integrate up to four base units to reach a maximum capacity of 1840
discs for more than 9.5 terabytes.
Rimage DVD-R Duplicator
Rimage (www.rimage.com) brings the
4.7 GB-per-side DVD-R format to the
duplication market with the Producer
2000 Protégé DVD-R ($45,000). This
120-disc automated duplicator
features two Pioneer DVD-S201
recorders that have been ruggedized
and fitted with extra cooling for
reliability in production environments.
You can make identical or unique discs
at the same time, and a Prism thermal printer lets you add custom
labels.
The Protégé DVD-R duplicator is built on the same platform as
Rimage’s CD duplicators. The software runs on a dedicated Windows
NT computer. You can execute duplication jobs from this computer or
submit them over a network from a remote machine. The recorders
each take about 60 minutes to create a full 4.7-GB DVD (recording
about as fast as an 8x CD recorder).
The Protégé will take on storage-hungry applications such as audio
and video, medical images and large document collections. It’s
perfect for firms that need to widely distribute large amounts of data
that can’t be efficiently transmitted over a network.
Network-Attached Mass Storage
Grau’s Infinistor Virtual Disk System
combines their Infinistore Tape Library
with a dedicated Windows NT server
and specially optimized tape archive
software to offer a complete network
attached enterprise storage appliance.
The system ranges from 2.5 TB
($100,000) up to 20 TB ($400,000),
with costs as low as $0.02 per
megabyte (uncompressed).
The library hardware holds 200, 250 or 340 AIT-2 tape cartridges and
up to 16 drives. The library’s controller uses a Java application
