The Green Sheet 025

THE INCORPORATING THE M ICROGRAPHICS MARKET PLACE AND THE MICROGRAPHICS NEW SLETTER

Issue NO. 25

JAN / FEB 2004

ISSN 1476 3842

Review

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coNtext pages 16 - 17

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ADVERTISERS' INDEX IN A LP H A B ET ICA L ORDER

Cardamation........................................................................................... 31 Connecticut Micrographics................................................................. 31 Crowley Micrographics........................................................................ 11 Dass Laboratories.................................................................................. 31 DSS U K ...................................................................................................... 2 Genus........................................................................................................ 21 GG Baker.................................................................................................... 5 Imaging Systems .................................................................................. 31 Indus ...........................................................................................................8 Kodak.................................................................................................. 19,32 Mercury Visuals...................................................................................... 31 MicroVue Products................................................................................ 27 MSTC......................................................................................................... 31 nextScan.................................................................................................. 23 OITUK........................................................................................................ IS Penny Imaging Exchange .................................................................. 31 Precision Microproducts....................................................................... 10 Solar Microfilm Equipment................................................................. 24 TMSSequoia..............................................................................

22 Trans Media Technology..................................................................... 25 Virtual Image Technology.................................................................. 24 Western Micrographics Systems...................................................... 31 Zeutschel....................................................................................................9

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2 0 0 3 : tHat was tHe yeaR tHat was As seen through the pages of The Green Sheet, a disappointing year.

For many in the micrographics/imaging industries, 2003 is a year they are glad to see gone. This was particularly true in the US, where it was pretty much a replay of 2001 and 2002, and marked a three-year economic slowdown that affected all business.

It was another year of poor hardware sales, except for film scanners and certain hybrid system components. Once again it was also a year marked by consolidations and exits from the field by long-established names. Crowley Micrographics acquisition of the Mekel, Houston fearless and Extek lines was the biggest straight micrographics deal of the year. The combination of Minolta and Konica was the biggest merger.

Service companies had a mixed record. Many of the national roll­ ups continued to have deep financial troubles with some, like Ima^eMax, just skirting bankruptcy. Others, like ACS, did better than ever. Overall, outsourcing continued to do well as economics drove many users to close in-house operations and go outside.

A month-by-month recap of noteworthy and significant developments of the 2003, as seen in the pages of The Green Sheet, follows.

JANUARY Just before yearend 2002 Konica and Minolta, two worldwide Japanese manufacturers of cameras and office equipment with significant distribution in the US and Europe, announced a plan to merge. The new combination was to be known as Konica Minolta and its micrographics/imaging entity Business Solutions. The company made slow progress on consolidating its activities throughout the year, but even as it did also continued to make its presence (largely its Minolta microfilm equipment influences) felt in the marketplace.

In Europe, Kodak announced it entered into an agreement with Star Coating AG, Switzerland, to be the supplier for diazo duplicating materials under the Kodak label.

John Mancini, AIIM International president, gave The Green Sheet an interview in which he outlined the association’s direction, finances, and international goals. He explained AIIM’s stress on “enterprise content management” (ECM) as the umbrella under which all technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver information fall and said AIIM’s direction is to advance all these technologies, both individually and in their totality. He also said AIIM was going on a two-year budget planning process that anticipated breakeven in 2004. The association planned to continue its presence in Europe, largely in the UK, through its acquisition of iTs Marketing Services.

FEBRUARY Anacomp continued its financial improvement, reporting considerably reduced losses for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, 2002. It said most of its business segments improved, the sole exception being COM related revenues which continued to decline, a fact that would continue to be true all year.

The US Film-based Imaging Association (FbLA) released two major pieces of literature aimed at advancing knowledge and usage of film-based imaging. The items were a “Buyer’s Guide”

that listed US sources of micrographics products and services and “Looking at Information Preservation from a Different Angle....”, a booklet that introduced the Corporate Data Archiving (CDA) concept to the US. CDA is based on a system introduced in the UK by Microfilm Shop’s subsidiary, Archive Imaging.

An analysis of sales of image-based capture software in the US done jointly by Harvey Spencer Associates, a US consulting firm, and Strategy Partners, a European consulting firm, said that North American capture software broke the $US 500 million barrier in 2002 and forecast worldwide sales of $US 1.34 billion by 2005, with the majority coming from North America.

MARCH The CeBIT show in Germany was the major world event of the month. Surprisingly and happily there was an extensive array of new microfilm products introduced and/or demonstrated at the show.

Among these were the Omniscan 1000 16/3 5mm scanner system from Zeutschel, Kodak’s i7300 replacement for the Intelligent Microimage Scanner and the new 9600 series of Archive Writers, and Saude’s Multi-Fly film scanner. Also shown or discussed were Canon’s MS 300 film scanner, Minolta’s ACF-7 automatic aperture card carrier, Wicks and Wilson’s new line of scanners, and two prototypes from Staude, the Allfilm production microfilm scanner, and a digital film reader.

The US firm, e-ImageData, was the new name and face for what had been InfoGraphics microfilm retrieval equipment. Its first new product was announced, the ScanPro Direct, an enhanced version of the Microfilm ScanPro scanner. It debuted later in the year.

The US Congress promised $US 100 million for the Library of Congress to carry out a plan for collecting and preserving digital information.

Earnings reports by US imaging-related companies showed mixed results. Some did very well in the last months of 2002 and first ones of 2003. Others didn’t. ACS was among the big winners. Anacomp lost less than it did a year earlier. Kodak made money but was down while ImageMax and Lason were losers.

Houston Fearless and Fuji Photofilm, which were in acrimonious disagreement, announced that HF’s agreement to be the distributor of Fuji microfilm products in North America was

Anacomp announced the Anacomp Document Preservation Programme, a turnkey approach for companies that need to preserve and archive critical information on unalterable microfilm or microfiche. Under the approach Anacomp in the US will place its equipment and software at a customer’s location, bundle maintenance and supplies, and simply charge based on monthly usage. Pricing would be based on the number of documents a customer preserves on a monthly basis.

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APRIL AIIM International held its annual conference and exposition in New York in early April and drew surprisingly good crowds, especially in light of an opening day snow storm and the fact that the Javits Convention Center is one of the least hospitable major US. conference centers - i.e. no adjacent hotels, no on-site parking and no public transportation.

Trends seen at the show were continuing supplier consolidation and exit of one­ time well-known names; a very quiet hardware scene except for film scanners; a very sluggish film market; COM’s escalating decline; and crowing by service bureaux about outsourcing business they were picking up as in-house shops closed.

In the equipment arena, nextScan made its public debut at the expo, introducing two new film scanners. The firm was organised by executives who had once been at SunRise Imaging. nextScan also announced that Ilmage Retrieval was appointed the official US reseller for nextScan’s scanners. Also at AIIM the Zeutschel, Wicks and Wilson, and Kodak lines debuted at CeBIT made their first US appearances.

The conference and exposition was the first one organised by Advanstar, which acquired the event from AIIM a year earlier.

Expo exhibitors generally liked the show. AIIM continued to organise the conference portion of the event for Advanstar.

The Green Sheet expanded its editorial coverage to include happenings in Australia by adding Laurie Varendorff, a wellknown records management consultant, as its source for news from “down under”.

The Law Library Microform Consortium (LLMC), a non-profit library cooperative with more than 900 participating library members in more than 22 countries, announced it was adding digital access to its collection of microfilmed worldwide legal materials. Over the next decade LLMC-Digital, the new product, will give participating clients access to some 100 million page images, both on-line and on film.

Kodak, which announced structural changes throughout the year, merged its Document Imaging Group into a new Commercial Imaging Components Group within Kodak’s wider Commercial Imaging Group.

MAY-JUNE Internationally, Canon announced a partnership with eCopy, the US largest provider of document distribution technology.

Together the two firms would offer a solution that can turn any paper document into a digital file {an “eCopy”) that can be emailed, stored or manipulated like any PC-generated document.

In the UK, Micro-Business Solutions (MBS) acquired the assets and goodwill of Automated Document Retrieval Systems (ADR).

The latter was to continue operating as ADR Systems, a division of MBS. Kodak named Antonio Perez as its president and COO. Among the day-to-day operations reporting to him is the Commercial Imaging Group. In addition, Kodak named Louis Lebergue as the new general manager for its capture and Imagelink business in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Following its disagreement with HF, Fuji Photofilm USA resumed direct distribution of Fuji microfilms in US on its own. Ascendant Solutions International, which had been an HF subsidiary, was dissolved by HF, which was rumoured to be getting out of the microfilm field entirely.

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The Microfilm Shop purchased the OIT UK division of Graphic Data Ltd. OIT UK was the exclusive UK dealer for Optical Image Technology as well as other document management software products.

Paul Negus, Microfilm Shop managing director, said the acquisition represented “a key strategic step in our aggressive plans to offer a complete suite of records management, document and workflow products to the whole end user market.”

Statistics released by the US Library of Congress revealed the institution at yearend 2002 held 13,532,501 microfilms within its holdings.

JULY-AUGUST Canada, looking forward to the digital future, said it is contemplating combining the National Libraiy of Canada and the National Archives of Canada. The combined institution would be the permanent repository of all Canadian government publications as well as government and ministerial records of archival value. This would include, of course, microforms.

At a meeting on long-term preservation of records held by the US House of representatives Subcommittee on Technology Information Policy, representatives of the Film-based Imaging Association and key members of the industry asked for consideration by NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) of hybrid digital/microfilm systems. NARA is noted as a proponent of technology-driven archiving and for being negative on microfilms and hybrid systems. NARA is funding multi-million dollar research on a proposed “400 Year Digital Archive”. It was asked to look at the Census 2000 hybrid system as a potential sample of what can be done. No decisions were made and the Subcommittee put off first until Autumn 2003 and then into 2004 further deliberations.

A Global Concepts 2002 Payments Study forecast that by 2005 more than 90% of bank cheques will be imaged, further accelerating the loss of cheque filming business. The prediction was that the greatest impact of the new initiatives would be to move cheque imaging from a back office to a front office procedure, with capture at a local rather than a regional or central location.

Konica Minolta signed an agreement with KIP America to directly market the Starprint 2000 Series of large format printers in conjunction with the Minolta MS7000 Digital Microfilm Scanner.

Image One Corp. announced the acquisition of Shell Office Systems. Both are US service firms and the move continued the consolidation trend within the field.

SEPTEMBER The major US consolidation of the year was announced. Crowley Micrographics, a US-based equipment distributor of microfilm and imaging equipment and systems, acquired Mekel Technology as well as the Houston fearless and Extek micrographics product lines from HF Group. Crowley formed a new subsidiary, Mekel Technology, Inc., to operate the Mekel film scanner business. The

Houston Fearless product lines (film processors) and the Extek product lines (a variety of microfilm products) would be operated as new divisions of Crowley.

HF Group said it was exiting the microfilm and motion picture fields to devote itself to water purification and waste water treatment systems.

The meeting of the Midwest States Micrographics Conference demonstrated that US state imaging/micrographics departments were surviving despite the poor financial conditions of state governments. Through 2003 the impact of the US economic downturn hadn’t been as drastic as expected since many states have fiscal years that end in June or September and were working off budgets that had been approved a year earlier. But by yearend, the story was worse. However, the departments were holding on and doing relatively well with the old staple, microfilming for other state agencies, and a surge in demand for electronic imaging.

On the other end of the world the Records Management Association of Australia’s annual RMAA Conference drew 700 registrants to a smaller show. At one of the presentations on “Reference Archiving, Capturing Moments in Time” the speaker noted that the Singapore government requires all official e-mails to be captured on archival microfilm. If such procedures were adopted elsewhere it could be a worldwide bonanza for microfilm.

Genus was announced as the name for the new firm that grew out of The Microfilm Shop. The new organisation has five divisions: The Microfilm Shop, manufacturer and distributor of microfilm hardware and consumables; OIT UK, which distributes specialised document management software products; The Microfilm Factory, manufacturer of microfilm jackets and other microfilm-related plastic and polyester products; Graphic Press, a commercial printer and stationer; and the Genus division, that offers services for hybrid document management systems.

Eastman Kodak celebrated the 75th anniversary of Recordak, the first commercial bank microfilming system.

OCTOBER ARMA International had a successful but relatively quiet conference and exposition in Boston, with a total attendance of 4,335 who were able to roam through 100,000+ Sq. ft of show space, comprising 190 booths from roughly 200 companies.

Of these approximately 20 featured micrographics-related products or services. Truly “new” products were the exception. Most had been seen earlier in the year at the CeBIT and/or AIIM shows. However, to many of the records managers who came from across the US and Canada, plus a handful from overseas, the products were new. Among the debuts were e-ImageData’s new ScanPro 3_5 aperture card/rollfilm scanner; Mekel’s new M625 rollfilm production film scanner; and Anacomp’s Image Express service. The latter is a one-stop solution for creating indexed images and storing them on microforms for archival purposes.

Exhibitors told The Green Sheet that they generally found the show a good place to show their wares and meet users.

Ilmage Retrieval UK was appointed the exclusive reseller in the UK and Ireland for nextScan, the film scanner company that

debuted in 2003. Ilmage Retrieval had been and remained the US distributor.

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER Wicks and Wilson in November celebrated its 30th birthday, making it one of the longest lived manufacturers and sellers of microfilm-related equipment and probably the oldest purveyor of film scanning equipment in the world.

A survey, cited in The Green Sheet’s annual roundup on film conversion, noted the resemblance between the US budget deficit and the number of microfilm images that exist in US corporate, organisation and government record files. Both are in the trillions but the latter create a tremendous market for film conversion.

In November the major event was AIIM International’s 28th annual Service Company Executives Forum (SCEF) held in San Francisco. The two-day event featured 15 sessions, and a Technology Et Solutions Showcase by 19 vendors, and had roughly 130 registrants from around the world, though most were from the US. The event showed its evolution from being a strictly hands-on “how to...” affair to its emergence as a management conference for bureau executives looking for information and ideas on managing multi-application projects and customers.

Attendees said it was the best SCEF meeting in years.

During the meeting, members of the executive committee of the Film-based Imaging Association met with John Mancini, AIIM International president, about possible reabsorbtion of FbLA by AIIM. Before recessing for the year in December, the US Senate’s Appropriations Committee voted to defer for one year the $US 36 million requested by the National Archives for its electronic record keeping project. During the year NARA was asked to address management problems on the e-Archives project that were raised in a report to the General Accounting Office, Congress’ financial watchdog agency.

ACS, the giant US business process outsourcing firm, opened a new services center in Fiji. It will support outsourcing services for clients in the Pacific Rim as well as some from the US. Anacomp evidently was making enough progress in improving its financial position that it was able to announce a new $US 22.5 million credit line. Lason reported its best quarterly results since July 2002, a great improvement for the troubled service provider.

ImageMax, on the other hand, continued to show operating and net losses as it sought financial help.

A N D SO THE YEAR ENDED.

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Executives review 2003 - expect 2004 to be better Analogue continues to decline but hybrid seems to hold its own.

Once again The Green Sheet, as did its predecessor, Micrographics Newsletter, began the new year by asking leading m icrofilm ing/im aging industry executives to sum m arise w hat they saw as the key events and developments of the year just ended (2003) and to give us their thoughts on what 2004 might bring. The contributing group of senior executives from vendors and service companies included: John Glover, director, MDS/SourceCorp.

(US distributor of Agfa microfilm); Ken Kopald, executive vice president, Virtual Image Technology, Inc.; Urs Kopp, president, ALOS Micrographics Corp.; Jon Reardon, senior vice president-m arketing, Konica M inolta Business Solutions USA; Bob Zagami, vice president, ImageMax, Inc; Andy Lawrence, Eastman Kodak; Colin Dean, ITESOFT UK Ltd; Mike Davies, Managing Director of Graphic Data UK Ltd; and Matthew Stilwell of Solar Microfilm Equipment Ltd. What did they see looking back at 2003?

Overall, our survey group concluded that it wasn’t as good a year as expected when it began. Growth was less than anticipated and the sluggish world economy affected all segments of micrographics and imaging. Sales cycles were slow. In summary: ★ There were no technology breakthroughs or even major innovations because there was no market for them among users nor a desire to invest among manufacturers. ★ The executives found that outsourcing continued to grow and COM continued to decline. At the same time, conversion services proved to be good for service bureaux. ★ Analogue equipment sales - with some exceptions noted below - took a hit. Most analogue sales represented replacements, rarely new installations. However, hybrid system sales did hold up. Other notable exceptions were Kodak’s Digital Archive Writers as a product and film scanners as a group. ★ Among service bureaux, used and refurbished equipment continued to be popular, much to the distress of new equipment manufacturers.

And what does the crystal ball show for 2004?

An improving business economy - the US stock market finished 2003 “up” for the first time in four years - may give confidence to users and manufacturers and the overall business climate should improve, including all aspects of document management. But sales cycles should still be slow.

Specifically: ★ States - traditionally big users of micrographics and imaging services - will recover more slowly than the private sector. States are affected later on both ends of the business cycle, going into and out of recession. Most US state governments are still in deep financial troubles so micrographics and other services will be held down until an improving economy starts to generate more tax revenues that can translate into greater spending and services. Vendors who serve states reported that many

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state agencies have a backlog of documents to be microfilmed but no staff or budget to do the conversions so projects were put on hold in 2003. When these become active - not likely in 2004 - there will be improved activity.

There likely will be more consolidations within all areas of the micrographics/imaging industry. The only exceptions might be more start up local service bureaux, continuing a trend seen in 2003. These new firms are arising out of the decline of some rollups in serving local businesses.

No new technology or major innovations are expected in 2004. Business opportunities will arise from the integration of existing products and technology into document management systems.

Reference archiving on microfilm may be a growth area as will be internet storage.

2003 Specifics: film Scanning up, analogue (but not all of it) down “From a Kodak perspective 2003 went just about as expected when we began the year.” reported Andy Lawrence, Eastman Kodak. “Depressed economic conditions, the War on Terror and SARS had an impact on the performance of companies that purchase IT products. This coupled with increased global competition and shareholder performance demands have forced companies to take cost cutting measures to keep the proverbial boat afloat. In the area of technology expenditures it has led to continued scrutiny on these types of purchases for internal use and the continued uptake of IT outsourcing.

Products and technologies like CRM and wireless that demonstrate quick ROI and lend a significant competitive advantage were on the uptake. Longer horizon projects involving IT with longer ROI timeframes took a back seat.

“The other significant dynamics at work were the further enactment of new regulatory requirements like Sarbanes Oxley and HIPPA. With the exception of the highly regulated industries, the market is still struggling with how to address theses new requirements. For the time being it has placed document/records management projects back on the list of initiatives that companies need to consider.

“Vendors took notice and we have seen continued consolidation of vendors in the market place. On one hand it’s a matter of survival of the fittest. On the other hand, the customer buying dynamic of having multiple links in their value chain addressed when making purchases drove this consolidation as well. Vendors are evolving their product portfolio to provide one stop shopping for customers and moving away from niche technology plays. The quickest way to achieve this is to buy it rather than build it and so we

witnessed several acquisitions and partnering arrangements occur. It will take some time for these new mergers to settle and evolve."

On the subject of film scanning, John Glover, MDS/SourceCorp., said, “One surprise was the continued increase in the number of devices that are available to convert microfilm images to digital images. Also the conversion cost continues to decrease as the equipment’s ease of use continues to increase. We deal with a lot of service bureaux and there is a high interest among bureaux for used microfilm scanners. I see this as having a positive impact on film-based imaging.”

Urs Kopp, ALOS, and Jon Reardon, Konica Minolta Business Solutions, concurred on scanners and hybrid technology in general. Kopp noted, “Microfilm scanners are clearly replacing analogue printers.” Reardon added, “Hybrid sales continued to do well and the analogue system sales declined as expected.”

Both cited surprising improvements in some segments on non­ hybrid equipment as well.

Kopp added, “After years of decline, microfilm camera sales surged in 2003 to a volume even better (for us) than in the early 1990s. Although these cameras are mostly replacements, based on the interest we’ve seen, we expect this trend should continue into 2004.” Reardon commented that despite a general decline in analogue system sales, “we noticed strong planetary camera sales to service bureaux. This is an encouraging sign for the future of microfilm, as we believe these sales indicate that service bureaux are confident enough about the future of their business to make the investment in new equipment. In a larger sense, this indicates to us that film-based imaging still has legs and will be around some time.”

Bob Zagami, ImageMax, agreed with both, saying conversion services were strong all year. He said hardware sales were off the first half of 2003 but picked up in the second half, giving hope for 2004.

Some 10 years ago Mike Davies, M.D. of Graphic Data UK, predicted “...the inevitable demise of microform on the altar of a digital alternative. I recall a lively exchange of letters in your publication at the time. The reality has been that the decline in the use of microforms has taken rather longer than predicted, however it is now upon us and we have experienced a reduction of 70% in our microfilm revenues in the last three years. Happily much of that business has been migrated to scanning although I would comment that we have noticed a developing trend to in house scanning. The scanning bureau market seems to have followed the pattern that dogged the microfilm industry for many years in that it has become a commoditised service. The consequence of this has been a significant softening in prices.

“We do see the potential to deliver the best of both worlds in the form of hybrid solutions, however proposals to our financial services sector clients to produce a microfilm surrogate of valuable records or those requiring long retention has been met with a mixed response.”

Ken Kopald, Virtual Image Technology, was the most pessimistic. “Last year all film-based lines of business continued to decline. Bank cheque filming and processing continues to move to digital imaging. Major banks, like the Bank of America, completed the transition in the third and

fourth quarters of the year. In addition, COM business continues to decline as companies look at new technologies and discontinue using COM. The once-perceived value is no longer there and users are seeking better solutions as their storage costs go down.” He noted one major exception, going from images to film (using the Kodak Archive Writer) as a major growth area. “The volume and applications continue to grow. Kodak has said the film used for the Archive Writer has increased by over 40% in the past year. This tells me that people are thinking about their long-term storage requirements and microfilm’s place.”

On a more optimistic note Matthew Stilwell of UK based Solar Microfilm Equipment commented “One could have been excused for feeling disheartened at the start of 2003 after a challenging 2002 however the year proved to be a good one with orders for microfilm readers recovering strongly and the demand for digital capture equipment growing. If the Russians liked our football clubs they certainly took a shine to the Solar Ultrasonic Splicer and gave us probably our best year yet for that product.”

“2003 was another hard year for the microfilm industry.”

According to Paul Negus, M.D. of the Genus Group. “I think even the document scanning industry had a hard time with bureaux either snowed under or struggling for work. The main trends in the microfilm industry seem to be organisations with a ‘distribution mainly’ need for their information taking the logical route of switching to a digital solution. Those with an ‘archive mainly’ need, and in light of Sarbaines-Oxley, other legislation, Enron, MCI WorldCom, the very recent Parmalat and others, are very much sticking with microfilm as their ultimate back up copy.”

2004 Specifics: more outsourcing, more consolidations John Glover suggested, “The ongoing loss of people with microfilm experience will push more microfilm work to outsourcing. Service bureaux thrive in an environment where it is too costly for their customers not to outsource. In fact, AIIM recently held a service bureau survey which indicated those companies that continued with microfilming as they expanded into digital imaging recorded a higher fiscal success rate than those service companies that dropped out of Bob Zagami agreed. “In the end, it’s still basic document conversion services with microfilm and digital scanning services that drive our business. We expect to see this area of our business continue to increase in 2004. Scanning is a larger portion of our business, but we’ve still got a strong presence in source document and engineering applications. Although microfilm capture applications are decreasing, microfilm output applications are increasing. We particularly see an upward trend in microfilm output solutions with business documents on roll film and engineering drawings on aperture cards. More and more customers are looking to preserve critical information in a non-electronic format after the information has outlived its electronic life cycle. Evidence of this is the number of software vendors who are now providing the programmes and utilities that allow their digital

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clients to archive information on microfilm. It’s okay to say ‘microfilm’ again without feeling like the class clown who will be sent to the corner with a dunce cap.”

Ken Kopald added, “We find the client who is willing to outsource moves quickly versus the one that believes if it isn’t in-house, it won’t work.”

Another area of general agreement was on more consolidations. Jon Reardon said, “So long as margins are thin and customer demand remains flat, we expect businesses will consolidate when it makes business sense. But the level of consolidation activity can vary by market segment. For example, we think the level of consolidation at the dealer level has pretty much run its course. And, while we’re confident that the big players in film-based micrographics will still be around, the level of consolidation in the traditional document imaging companies will probably result in the creation of more conglomerations.”

Urs Kopp saw consolidation of providers continuing on the electronic side of the industry. “After the consolidations in the US micrographics industry in 2003 (Crowley absorbing Houston-Fearless, Mekel and Extek and Indus acquiring Maple Development and ScreenScan) it will be difficult to consolidate even more.”

Bob Zagami felt that there will have to be significant

S u p e r C a r r e l M ic r o f il m R e a d e r

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consolidation of software companies in 2004, “or many of them will simply pack it in and cease operations. Customers are concerned about the number of vendors...and they are questioning the survival of many. The decline in high-end software sales that many companies experienced in 2003 will continue in 2004."

2004: the outlook is for improvement Still in optimistic vein Stilwell continued “For 2004 we anticipate another good year for Solar 16/35mm library readers and even more exciting are the digital market prospects for quality overhead scanning. In particular, niche products should do well such as the Solar Advanced Paper Imaging System, invented by Dr Ian Christie-Miller, which is already in action discovering the hidden finger prints of handmade paper in Madrid and soon Cairo. High quality at high-speed digital capture of large formats is the technical challenge for 2004.”

John Glover was succinct in his outlook. “The demand for a higher level of scanning of paper documents and printing to microfilm comes from the increased need to provide a true archive of images. The ability to convert these ‘new’ COM images back to digital images will create new business opportunities.”

Urs kopp added, “The general significantly improved awareness of document management technologies, combined with mandatory legislations, will expand sales opportunities as general economic conditions improve.”

Jon Reardon chimed in that Konica Minolta “is confident there is a future for film-based and hybrid imaging systems.

Companies that thought they would eliminate these systems continue to use them because they provide a very stable, long­ term document storage option. So long as hybrid systems enable easy document retrieval and sharing in a networked computer environment, we believe this long-term storage medium will be a valuable part of the office environment.”

Bob Zagami summed up. “2004 will be a good back-to-basics year. The economy is improving. Interest prices remain low.

Gasoline prices have stabilised and in the US it’s an election year. All of these things work in our favour to get customers back into a buying mood.... Slow and steady is the course for 2004 and we’re all looking forward to increased sales and profits.”

Paul Negus added “The two growth areas in our industry appear to be microfilm scanning and digital to microfilm writing. The former is very much in a boom period with a lot of the bureaux doing well. The latter is still in it’s infancy and I predict that will be the sector to watch over the next 3 years. Consolidation is still on-going with the larger players with the wider ranges and the firmer financial standing doing well. Also those in a niche market will continue to do well. 2003 started very well then went very quiet in the third quarter only to finish on a huge flourish in December of all months. I feel quite confident about 2004, as I know I have my first quarter in already, but 1 think it will be another roller coaster ride!”

Andy Lawrence kept his predictions brief, “The increased need for compliance and continued need to digitise paper drove equipment, media and service sales for the business. In generaF I expect that 2004 will bring more of the same things we witnessed in 2003. The outlook for the imaging business is good and Kodak intends to remain a leader in it.”

Speaking on behalf of ITESOFT, a leading UK software house, Colin Dean commented “As shareholders begin demanding to see real audit trails and access to documentation following the

8

Higgs report, there will be an increasing need for transaction transparency.The capture of information quickly and accurately will become key for many organisations with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) and Basel II in 2006. The main beneficiaries will include eforms providers, EDI portals and data capture vendors. egovernment focus will shift from implementation to data quality and delivery. Overall, customer emphasis will move from product selection to vendor selection based on grasp of business and process issues. Integration with existing systems will remain uppermost in customers’ minds and those vendors with a good implementation track record will prosper.”

Mike Davies concluded “In 2004 we believe that the smart mopey is on the automation of document centric business processes. This can be achieved through the use of workflow, the creation of exception queues delivered into the business environment using web based technologies and the use of automated data capture applications.

“The added value is significant and the price model that applies can then be related to the cost benefit to the client and not the aggregation of individual commoditised prices which characterises bureau based pricing today. Such an approach also builds a stronger client supplier dependency.”

According to Eddie Nelson, Sales Manager of NORD-PLAN Ltd., a top UK manufacturer of document storage systems “Organisations are under increasing pressure to make the most

of space as they seek to reduce accommodation costs.

Document storage is a major user of floor space so is always high on the agenda. There is a better understanding of mobile storage concepts. A few years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for people to think mobile storage referred to under-desk units, or was just for libraries and archives: that isn’t the case now.

“The use of imaging and scanning technology is altering the dynamics of paper storage: different types of office storage and archive systems come into play as the volume and nature of paper records change. It isn’t paper-based or paper-less but how best to use the whole range of storage media. Ideally organisations should look at digital and paper storage as complementary issues, but as responsibility is sometimes separated between IT and Facilities, the opportunity to make strategic changes can be missed.

Paraphrasing Dickens, Batsheva Lerner, Export ft Sales Manager for MicroVue Products of Israel, quoted “‘It was the worse of times, it was the best of times’. 2003 started out slow for MicroVue Products, mostly smaller orders for our motorised microfilm readers. But then things started picking up with orders, big and small, spread across the globe - Western Europe, Eastern Europe, China, Russia, South Africa, Australia, Korea and, of course, the U.S. This demand for readers continues to prove the frequent use of microfilm, even on the day-to-day basis and not simply for storage. With the world economy on the road to recovery, we expect that this trend will continue throughout 2004.”

Stored for eternity?

If you need airtight solutions for securely archiving precious cul­ tural artifacts and documents, talk to us. We have been providing state-of-the-art solutions since 1961, and offer complete digital and analog systems for scanning and microfilm technology.

Zeutschel, the future of the past.

Distributed in USA by:

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Mr Christopher W. Crowley.

C R O W LEY M icrographics, Inc. 5115 Pegasus Court - Suite E. Frederick. Maryland 21704. USA Phone: (301)631 6825 Fax: (301)631 9466 infoOcrowleymicrographics.com www.crowleymicrographics.com

Mr Brian Graham. B E S T -T E C Ltd..

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Berkshire. RG12 1WA. Great Britain.

Phone: 07000 - 785368 Fax. 020 - 7691 9661 infoObest-tec.ttd.uk www.best-tec.ttd.uk

ZEUTSCHEL Zeutschel Gm bH • Heerweg 2 • 72070 TObingen Tel.: (0 70 7 1 )9 7 0 6 -0 Fax: (0 70 7 1 )9 7 06 44 infoOzeutschel.de - W W W .Z6U tSChel.de

9

Intelligently optimise your

large format solution BypmiJonesoidssuk The use of large format digital multi-function systems makes powerful control software an absolute must. The possibilities opened up by the acquisition of a modem digital multi-function machine should be exploited.

High automation and a clear cost structure of the production of single plot, right through to collating sets of documents, the application of stamp and distribution information, as well as the various demands placed on folding, are all part of the range of functions that are called for.

PLOTBASE meets all these requirements rapidly and cost effectively.

It provides a management facility for handling both local and de­ centralised output.

From single plot through to individually collated sets of documents, stamping, marking with circulation lists, and flexible folding capabilities. PLOTBASE can be scaled from medium to large outputs, and in conjunction with the PLOTCLIENTs offers the potential for considerable savings.

The demands made on automated and therefore low operator level output management systems for technical documents grow continuously. CAD workstations are being asked to handle ever more powerful output equipment for print jobs distributed locally and decentrally.

Production, Purchasing, Work Preparation and Sales are all to be able to access digitally stored approved document files, and to have the information they seek provided at their desks, rapidly and without problems. The physical concentration of technical expertise, required on cost grounds, makes it necessary to have a concept for distribution information through rapid and uncomplicated output management systems in particular.

Today, in addition to outstanding output quality, the new generation of plotters and folders offer a variety of processing functions, and through the digital network connection, allows round the clock operation with low staffing levels.

The PLOTCLIENTs organise the compilation of output jobs. They allow searching of databases, permit access to file level, support the user by displaying the results of searches, and they carry out the compilation for the tasks of output and distribution.

PLOTCLIENTs offer network users (CAD, Purchasing, Production, Sales, etc) access at any time to the services available without an operator.

SCANBASE is a control software package for scanning single documents as well as high volume scanning. For the professional backfile conversion of high volume drawings and scanning of aperture cards and single documents.

The integrated editor allows image improvements and manipulations on the raster file basis. The opportunities for scan-to-file, scan-toset, scan-to-net, scan-to-arcbase-archive, scan-to-plotbase and scan-to-copybase offers a wide range of solutions to fit your needs.

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ekel

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NEW MODEL 625GS ROLL FILM SCANNER Scan 1,000,000 images per minute !!!!

Not really, however, the new model 625GS rollfilm scanner from Mekel offers true production speed and quality scanning of your microfilm at 150 images per minute. And can output upto 300 files per minute.

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ekel Technology The Microfilm Shop 15 Hammond Close Attleborough Fields Ind. Est. Nuneaton, Warks CV11 6RY Tel. +44 24 76383998 sales@microfilm.com

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Catching up with the latest CC Data developments Green Sheet Editor, Tim Nixon visited CC Data in leafv Hertfordhire to interview Sales Director, Phil Mead Tim Nixon: Hi Phil, good to see you. I hear there have been some exciting new developments at CC Data. Tell me about them.

Phil Mead: Hello Tim. Well, we’ve spent the last few months re-branding and repositioning the company under the ‘Information Managed’ banner, basically broadening the scope of our product offering and creating new opportunities for resellers, systems integrators and bureaux. You can get an immediate flavour of the new-look CC Data on our new Web site www.ccdata.co.uk TN: I get the impression that there is a lot more than cosmetic changes at CC Data.

PM: Quite right. We’ve invested a lot of time and resource into researching opportunities, getting new products on board and putting some serious marketing effort into place to capitalise on market opportunities.

TN: Sounds interesting, but before you talk about the new stuff, let’s set the record straight regarding your distribution of IMR’s Alchemy. What’s the current situation?

TN: So what have you come up with?

PM: We spent many months researching the market and we believe we have come up with a very exciting new product.

It’s called windream.

PM: Well, as you know, IMR have made new arrangements to handle the distribution of Alchemy in the UK.

TN: Sounds interesting. I’ve not heard of it before, is it new?

TN: You were involved with Alchemy distribution for over 8 years, so how does this affect you?

PM: It’s new to the UK. windream is based in Germany and the software is already proven and established at over 500 installations worldwide.

PM: We are no longer a direct distributor of IMR products, and it was also very difficult for us to remain a reseller, as that would have precluded us from supporting our direct partners.

TN: So you see yourselves as distributors, rather than resellers then?

PM: Yes, our strategy has always been to sell through our partner channel. We supplied over 50 resellers and bureaux who were selling Alchemy-based solutions. We offered extensive support to them all, with training, installation and telephone helpdesk services, and often helped with providing integration and customisation projects. We even provided a regular web check service for one major bureau.

TN: Is it like Alchemy?

PM: There are some similarities, but we believe windream has a lot more to offer.

TN: What makes it different?

PM: Well, when you have been so entrenched with software like Alchemy for so long, you often overlook or disregard the real needs out there in the market. We’ve had the opportunity to re-assess those requirements and look at ways ‘outside the box’ of meeting them. Bureaux are a classic example Alchemy is a very successful and useful tool for them, but it’s not always required.

TN: What do you mean?

TN: So has all of this come to an end now?

PM: Not entirely, we will continue to support those partners who have maintenance agreements for Alchemy with us. We have a very good relationship with all our partners - they rely on us to support them in many ways and they have said they would like this to continue.

TN: So in terms of product distribution, where does that leave you?

PM: In a very exciting position, actually. We’ve been able to focus on our existing product range outside of Alchemy and, perhaps more importantly, look at new products that provide exciting opportunities for our partners.

12

PM: Well there are some trends in the marketplace that make the underlying database less im portant as a delivery mechanism. Alchemy was designed initially to take advantage of the ‘new’ CD-R technology and included all the tools for a self-contained database on CD(s). This aspect is undeniably a winner with Alchemy, so if you need self-contained CDs, that’s the software to use.

TN: So what trends have you gleaned from your research of the market?

PM: There are two main trends: firstly, most users now install files on workstations or networks, perhaps using CDs/DVDs as

back-ups, but not as the primary storage or retrievable location; secondly, more and more services are web-based, where users access files through browsers.

TN: So what changes?

PM: Well, if the files are now stored on networks or workstations, the users don’t need the application to be sent to them each time an update is delivered. Raw files, such as scanned images and indexes in a CSV file, are all that are required. If the retrieval is web-based, users don’t care what the underlying technology is, as long as it delivers!

areas, now being specifically termed Records Management and Document Management. For Records Management, it offers ‘lifecycle’ management, so that files are automatically kept in a ‘live’ state, then archived and finally destroyed at specific time periods, windream also keeps track of who sees what files and what they have done, etc. For Document Management functions, it offers check-in and out, Revision Control and File Locking.

TN: How about workflow?

TN: OK, so where does windream fit into the equation?

PM: A windream partner in Germany has written an integrated link so that windream and Lexign (workflow) work together seamlessly. We can offer this as part of a solution.

PM: Well, let’s start with the user perspective. The software appears to be completely integrated with the Windows Operating System. This means that any user who uses Windows can use windream.

TN: It sounds like a very comprehensive system. What value will CC Data be adding?

TN: So, in terms of retrieving document files, is it like using Windows Explorer?

PM: Well, to find a file, you simply click ‘START’, ‘SEARCH’, ‘WINDREAM’. You are presented with a Search Dialogue that presents the fields that you can find a file by - say Invoice Number, or Dates, or Type of Document, etc. These are completely customisable for the specific application. You complete the fields with the criteria of the file you wish to view, and the system responds with a list of files meeting the search terms. To look at the file (remember you are using Windows conventions) you can either double-click it to launch the application associated with the file-type, or use the Preview Window supplied with windream.

TN: You can then print, fax or e-mail it?

PM: Yes, the usual functions are available for users once they have retrieved a file.

TN: OK, but how do you get the files into windream?

PM: There are some integrated functions like scanning, COLD management etc. But users can ‘drag and drop’ files, and, even better, save files directly from their native applications.

TN: How do they do that?

PM: windream is represented to all users as another drive on their system, typically a ‘w:’ drive. This is actually a ‘virtual’ drive to represent the file structure as easily as possible to a user. So just as you would normally save a file to a drive, you simply save the file into the ‘w:’ drive. The actual storage media and location is transparent to the user.

TN: How do you get scanned images into windream?

PM: There is a simple scanning module that works with any TWAIN or ISIS-driven scanner. Alternatively, the scanned files can be imported from any other scanning application. There is also a directJCofax Ascent module.

TN: So a bureau could send files to a windream user?

PM: Yes, they would just have to send the scanned image files with the associated indexing.

TN: What else can windream do?

PM: This is where it starts to extend the offering into other

PM: We will continue to establish and support a channel including resellers, systems integrators and bureaux - for this new software and other complementary software we supply.

We will also continue in the areas of integration, customisation, training and on-line support for all users of the software, as well as continue our parallel development of complementary modules that suit any type of database.

TN: What does that include?

PM: We have developed e-MARCTM - an email archiving solution that takes a copy of all messages as they pass through a Microsoft Exchange Server. The files can be passed to any document management system. We have developed our own scanning and indexing software for specific bureau-type operations; a web front-end that can be used to access files in any, or many, DM systems; an Office Archiver module to make the saving of files from MS Office applications very easy; and various methods to interact or fully integrate with line-ofbusiness applications.

We’re very proud of these developments and now offer them as part of our ‘package’ to Integrators for their own solutions, to our Resellers as part of a solution based on windream, and as an OEM arrangement with other DM vendors.

TN: You mentioned other complementary software, any specific details?

PM: We always look for software that can work with the core software we supply, often integrating the systems for clients.

Specifically, we supply an Invoice Processing package to extract data automatically from Invoices, and an Advanced Searching tool (using ‘Concept’ Search facilities), both of which provide extra functionality for users.

TN: Well, it seems that with your new profile, products and developments, CC Data obviously intends to remain an active player in the market.

PM: Absolutely Tim. This year will be very exciting for CC Data and our partners!

TN: Thanks, Phil, for your time and your hospitality - I expect we’ll be seeing more about windream in the coming issues of The Green Sheet, in both editorial and advertising form.

For further information, contact Phil Mead at CC Data on + 44 (0) 1582 761400, email info@ccdata.co.uk or visit the CC Data Web site www.ccdata.co.uk

13

Pushing EDM intothe Business Process Dr. V. Magon, Technical Director - OITUK Ltd Introduction The dream of a truly paper-less company" may be traced back as early as 1969, to a Texas-based insurance company which invested in a large-scale Document Image Processing (DIP) system. The objective at that time was to minimise the amount of paper that flows around and to gain quite substantial savings in the cost of paper storage.

Since then, the Electronic Document Management (EDM) marketplace has changed dramatically. The original objectives of the Texas insurance company are still relevant. However, with lower costs, a more mature technology, higher expectations, and a greater hunger for the competitive edge, the requirements for integrated business solutions have become more apparent and complex.

Companies - Finance and others, large and small - are feeling the pain of their inability to manage their unstructured content across the enterprise. Content includes text-based documents, email messages, scanned images, pictures, illustrations, and tables, received from the outside world and generated internally, necessary to run their business.

OITUK believes that enterprise content management (ECM) environments are likely to become as ubiquitous, and as pervasive a part of a company’s enterprise application infrastructure in the coming few years, as database management systems have been over the past two decades.

Statistics on the ‘value’ of the EDM market, paper consumption, and the information revolution are revised and updated almost every quarter. The number of EDM suppliers continues to increase, and the technology harnessed within their products improves by the day. Yet, the numbers of EDM success stories are few and far between. The enterprise-wide benefit of EDM is still largely un-charted.

This can be directly related to the ‘traditional EDM model’ - the capture and use of documents after the business process. Given the trend towards ‘push technologies,’ the emphasis is shifting significantly from document capture/process to use, control and flow of information.

This paper summarises the limitations of the traditional EDM model and examines new trends in implementing enterprise-wide business solutions.

The Traditional Model Most of the systems implemented thus far have one common element : document capture and indexing after the business process, ie. document storage. The reasons for storing the documents vary, are quite common amongst the companies, and have provided the justification for ‘imaging systems.’

14

This ‘traditional EDM model’ is based on the capture and use of documents after the business process - Figure 1.

There are a number of reasons why this model needs to be reviewed: ★

the emphasis is shifting significantly from document capture/process to use, control, and flow of information;

★

with lower costs, a more mature technology, higher expectations, and a greater hunger for the competitive edge, the requirements for integrated business solutions have become more apparent and complex;

★

companies are increasingly identifying EDM requirements in terms of solutions which fit into their business strategy and IT infrastructures - the over-riding need to provide a better, more responsive, service (internal and external).

This amounts to rapid processing of business information and its timely delivery to relevant users/consumers.

The ‘EDM Marketplace’ is evolving from being document-centric to process-centric, ie. from ‘... how do I scan and index...’ to ‘... how can I use the image to complete my work ...’. The need to use and flow information is shifting the document capture operation into a back-room service while business applications dominate the increasingly sophisticated users’ desktop with on-demand access to image repositories.

While the technology continues to improve at a remarkable pace, the use and management backing for this technology lags behind.

The chief problem with the traditional EDM model is that most EDM implementations have focused on storing and managing documents which have passed through the business process, eg. convenient storage of purchase invoices, to comply with legal requirements, after processing payments. The moment that document passes through the business process, its ‘value’ to the business drops sharply. Consequently, its ownership and responsibility shift from the core business to ‘document archiving’ ie. it becomes a SEP Someone Else’s Problem !

The limited role and growth of EDM within organisations may be directly attributed to the SEP factor. The core business, quite rightly, takes priority and management backing drops with document ‘value.’

The Integrated EDM Model The desktop revolution demands a fresh approach to EDM which will enable companies to meet their strategic business requirements.

This is being achieved by pushing the ‘document’ into the business process at an early stage (while it retains a high ‘business value’) instead of capturing it after the event (when it represents a cost to the business).

EDM systems span the full range from basic ‘electronic filing' to enterprise-wide document management with workflow. All these systems provide the basic facilities for document capture, storage and retrieval. Not all, however, meet the stringent criteria imposed by companies which have more strategic objectives in mind. Some of the more ‘important discriminators’ between systems include: ★ ★

Open, client-server architecture.

Integration with the environment and other business applications.

★ ★

Full object management with life-cycle support.

Workflow and Business Process Re-engineering.

ie. the emphasis is shifting significantly from d o c u m e n t capture and process to use and flow of information.

These system discriminators are crucial to the survival and growth of EDM systems within organisations. These allow documents to be captured much earlier in their life-cycle and retain their ‘value’ to the enterprise. The ownership and responsibility for the documents and, consequently, their management remain within the core business.

The ‘traditional EDM model’ is inverted, ie. capture the document and feed it into the business process Figure 2. It offers several distinct advantages:

★ ★

Isn't it time you found out about

OIT's Total doco Solution for Document Management? "

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Doc r i n l t y

DocFinity solutions, based on the award-winning software from Optical Image Technology Inc., have been installed in the UK since 1995. We have provided many systems ranging from small departmental systems to enterprise-wide systems with full electronic document management (EDM) and workflow.

Minimal paper handling - documents are handled once.

The ‘electronic document’ is better managed and controlled from the outset, with scope for much wider flow and distribution.

More options for integration with the business process and standardisation.

Lower overheads in managing the document lifecycle.

DocFinity solutions are installed across several industry sectors including finance, local government and health. Our implementation approach is to develop close partnerships with customers to design, install and support integrated EDM and workflow. DocFinity modules include OptiFICHE (COLD/ERM), OptilMAGE (DIP) and OptiFLOW (workflow).

As an example, the inverted EDM model fits well within the rapidly evolving electronic desktop, particularly in the GroupWare domain. Most GroupWare systems, while message based, contain sophisticated flow and agent technologies which are being harnessed to generate complex business applications.

Cost-saving and revenue-enhancing technology to make information more manageable, people more productive and organisations more successful.

★ ★

In practice, the Integrated EDM approach has been given a real shot in the arm through the rapidly developing and lower cost Intemet/Intranet - based technology. This has given rise to portal-based systems which unify data across the enterprise and empower users with more control over the presentation space.

The integration can be readily achieved using any number of tools: ★ ★ ★ ★

Component based interfaces - OLE, DLL, ActiveX. Internet tools - ActiveX, JAVA Applets.

RDBMS interactions - robust two-way links via a shared SQL engine.

Direct code exchange between EDM and in-house applications

The returns from investments in EDM are being realised through careful application of this technology to address strategic business requirements rather than short-term measures to solve paper problems.

Possibly, for the: first time, by managing the document while it retains a high business value, deployment and use of EDM and Workflow systems will benefit from the long awaited executive attention and backing.

In summary, therefore, the document adds value as a contributor to the core business process, rather than remaining a cost as a consequence of that process. Without this change in mind-set, document management risks remaining as a mere backwater.

O ptical Im age Technology UK provides: Jts. Migration to web-based business Ab. Improvement and enhancement to current business streams ASk Scalability to address corporate/enterprise needs J A The product suite to meet all aspects of enterprise COLD/ERM, document imaging, workflow, Internet access, hierarchical stor age management (HSM), print/fax server and enhanced data mining AV Assured service levels A l Operational efficiency J lV Standardisation User benefits include dramatic cost savings, increased productivity, disaster recovery, increased audit and control, reduced paper handling and process efficiencies.

iV O IT U K

LTD

Hammond Close • Nuneaton • Warwickshire • CV11 6RY • U.K. Telephone (024) 7625 4940 • Facsimile (024) 7638 2319 E-mail sales@oituk.com • Web-Site www.oituk.com

Putting Records Management Legislation W hat are all these initiatives about?

Before we look at the legislation that impacts on the way we manage records today, it may be worth while looking back to the earliest times of business records and think about what has changed. In Mesopotamia (that area between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers that is now modern day Iraq) in about 8,000 BC, early agriculture led to the development of early settlements, then cities and, of course, a need to measure, trade and record activity. Yes, you’re right! It was the accountants who got there first!

By 2,500 BC the system had developed into a complete written language but, perhaps more interesting than the development of the language itself, is the information recorded. The most prolific time for the production of cuneiform tablets was around the period referred to as Ur III (about 2,100 B.C. to 2,000 B.C.). From this era, tens of thousands of cuneiform inscribed clay tablets have been preserved which give a fascinating insight to the society Reproduced by kind permission o /J A A R S _ . . _ . .

Museumof theAlphabet (*i) of the day. The vast majority of records are administrative and bureaucratic in nature and contain a wealth of information on daily life, government and religious practices. They cover such as: - economy (business, administrative records, purchase and rentals), - politics (treaties), - law (witnessed and sealed contracts of marriage, divorce; codes of law), - history (chronological text, census reports), - letters (personal, business and state letters), - religion (prayers, hymns, omens, divination reports), - scholarly texts (language, word lists, history, technology, mathematics, astronomy) and - literature (narrative poetry, recounting myths, epics).

Looking at this list you may well wonder what’s different today, and it’s probably true to say that there’s been very little difference in the type of content until the last century.

Increasingly legislation has been brought in relating to industry and the associated changes in society. Laws were brought in to protect society. Regulations relating to civil and maritime engineering were first. A classic example was the introduction of the Plimsoll line on ships. Today every merchant ship afloat carries the “signature” of Samuel Plimsoll, a politician from Derby, a part of England closer to horse racing and Robin Hood than to the sea. Subsequently laws were introduced in aviation and the pharmaceutical industry.

All these changes had one thing in common; they broadened the spectrum of recorded information. But, in the last two or three decades, we have seen a computing and information

16

explosion which is changing the whole way our society works.

The drivers are: Technology: - Yes technology had brought us the mainframe computer capable of handling all those accounting, banking and processing activities which produced tons and tons of paper, but then Gordon came along! Gordon Moore, co­ founder of Intel, is widely known for “Moore’s Law,” in which he predicted that the number of transistors the industry would be able to place on a computer chip would double every couple of years. In 1995, he updated his prediction to once every two years. While originally intended as a rule of thumb in 1965, it has become the guiding principle for the industry to deliver ever-m ore-powerful sem iconductor chips at proportionate decreases in cost. The introduction of the desktop computer and telecommunications has had the most profound impact. Along with this has come the ability to easily generate, capture, process and save information of all types (paper, microfilm, voice, movies, specialist geographical and medical formats and electronic forms, record and e-mails) in some form of electronic filing system.

Government Initiatives: - Governments worldwide have not been slow to recognise the importance of the information revolution in making their respective economies more competitive. Words and phrases such as “joined up”, “modernising government” and “e-Governance” with a liberal smattering of e-Eveiything are commonplace in positioning papers. Early positioning papers concentrated on setting up a common infrastructure. Typical of these were the British Governments Modernising Government White Paper published in March 1999. A parallel European Union exercise culminated in the Lisbon Summit in March 2000, at which the Heads of State and Government committed themselves to a number of measures, including target dates, to bring e-Europe forward. e-Europe initially identified 10 areas where action at European level would add value. The plan was based on three main objectives: 1) A cheaper, faster, secure Internet - With the objective, first of all, of reducing the cost of broadband communications, setting an example by improving the speed of the institutional backbone and putting in place security tools and standards.

2) Investing in people and skills - By putting in place policies and procedures to make the internet safer but also friendlier. Ensuring that the populace would be more computer literate by introducing initiatives in schools and the workplace so that Europe would be better placed to survive commercially in a knowledge based economy.

3) Stimulate the use of the Internet - By government example in introducing technologies such as e-commerce, online electronic access to public services, health online, European digital content for global networks and intelligent transport systems.

Given the infrastructure, the next set of initiatives, set in Barcelona in 2002, expanded the initiative into a number of specific areas - “e-Govemment, e-Leaming, e-Health and e-

into Context

By David Aspinall, Datum Solutions Limited

Business”. The initiatives cover all aspects of dealing with central government, local government and all associated services such as health, education, library services and cover not only the provision of information but also the ability to carry out transactions (e.g. a new dog licence, completing tax forms) over the web.

I

As aforementioned, the EU is not the only government initiative. There are m any other initiatives worldwide including the USA, Canada, NZ, Australia, Hong Kong, etc.

Look at www.info.gov.hk for a good example of how a relatively small government is operating.

So examining government initiatives globally we can note that: ★ All governments are taking electronic services seriously. ★ Advanced economies are obviously ahead of the third world. ★ Most early applications were related to the collection of revenues (mainly taxes and social contributions). ★ It was easier to get the involvement and returns from companies rather than individuals so, in general, these applications are more advanced. ★ Every EU government has developed in-country initiatives based on the e-Europe paradigm.

r.

Legislation: - There has been an associated seed change in the EU relating to the responsibilities of organisations and the right of the individual. The EU initiatives include legal objectives covering Freedom of Information, Electronic Commerce, Copyright and Criminal Justice which we have seen introduced into both English and Scottish law. These are in addition to strengthening the data protection laws and the introduction of Human Rights legislation. All public bodies from central government departments to nursery schools (about 88,000 in the UK) have to introduce a publication scheme, which specifies the standard information that they will make available and how people can access it. Further details of the act, publication schemes and suggested model publication schemes can be found on the Information Commissioner’s web site at:http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/ Individuals requesting information for standard material can then be referred to the publication scheme and no further action is then required.

The legislation is by no means restricted to public bodies. The Financial Services Act in the UK gives considerable powers over financial organisations which act improperly or fail to keep appropriate records of, not only what business they did, but how they did it! For example, on the 15th January, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined Bank of Scotland pic (BoS) £1,250,000 for failing to keep proper records of customer identification as required by the FSA’s Money Laundering Rules.

Further legislation can be expected in the next few years relating to the disclosure of environmental information in the EU. New international accounting rules are in the offing and the Basel 2 international accord on corporate liquidity in financial institutions will have a massive impact on the way

financial services firms carry out their business. The lack of appropriate records management procedures, accounting and audit failures in the corporate world as evidenced by Enron/Andersen and, more recently, Parm alat have strengthened the resolve of many governments to bring in laws to effect better corporate governance and responsibility.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in the USA is probably only the beginning.

In Conclusion Perhaps the biggest change will be one of attitude: from the chair downwards employees will need to implicitly understand that all information requests must be treated as reasonable and change their attitude from one of “we don’t usually disclose that information” to one of “is there any reason why we shouldn’t disclose that information”. This change of culture to one of “openness” does not come naturally. It requires a concerted effort from the executive down to any employee who has dealings with the public.

Experience in other countries would indicate that this change requires comprehensive training of staff, with the full endorsement of all management.

The implications for business, particularly those in information management, also need to be recognised.

Technology support for these initiatives is not just about expensive CRM and EDRMS solutions. At a nursery school level the technology may be a Lever Arch file, and access to a photocopier. The technology has to be appropriate and within budget.

There are also implications for the solution providers. Many smaller companies may well find that, if they are not able to transact business electronically, they will be excluded from sales opportunities to public and many commercial bodies.

Are we ready to m eet that challenge?

David Aspinall, Datum Solutions Limited, Datum House, 4 Priory Close, Fleet, Hampshire, GU51 4ED, Tel: 01252 612805, E-mail: daspinall@datum-solutions.co.uk *1. JAARS Museum o f the Alphabet, visit: http://www.jaars.org/museum/alphabet/sitemap.htm

THE INFORMATION CULTURE CHANGE A Regional Seminar Programme The Freedom of Information Act affects anybody in public service, from central government to nursery schools and doctors’ surgeries, who deals with the public.

ARE YOU READY FOR THIS CULTURE CHANGE? Seminar price includes BSI literature (worth £25), training and guidance notes, 6 months subscription to The Green Sheet and LUNCH

First 2004 Seminars at Hinckley Golf Club 24th March (Targetting Local Government) 25th March (Targetting Health Authorities) Tel: 024 7638 2328 or visit www.green-sheet.net 17

Kodak’s Service fit Support business continues to grow Kodak to support nextScan scanners Agreement to cover distribution of scanners in selected European regions, the Middle East and Africa. the provider of the next generation in film scanning technology, today announced that the company will partner with Kodak for the sales and support of their 300 images per minute Eclipse microfilm scanner in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The partnership, say nextScan, is further evidence that nextScan scanners are the leaders in innovation and superior technology for high speed film scanners.

“Our agreement to sell and support the nextScan scanners was based on extensive research for the best high speed film scanner available today. We chose to put our name behind this product based on its speed, reliability and the new, up to date components being used in the production of the scanner.

The scanner is the perfect fit for those wanting to scan large volumes of film and derive superior image quality. As always, Kodak wants to deliver outstanding products. The nextScan Eclipse was the clear choice,” said Richard Broden, worldwide product manager, of Eastman Kodak Company’s Document Products ft Services group in Europe, Africa and Middle East.

Said Steven Butterfield, President and CEO of nextScan, “We are proud to partner with Kodak, a company whose name is naturally associated with quality products and services. It is clear to us that Kodak will provide outstanding service and support to Eclipse customers and we look forward to a long and successful relationship.”

The Eclipse Production Level Rollfilm scanner from nextScan was designed for the most challenging of conversion projects.

The true benefits of the Eclipse scanner are realised when large scale projects are time critical, cost sensitive and require superior image quality. The Eclipse scanner was built for demanding users, scanning 16 and 35 mm microfilm for multiple applications. The Eclipse scans up to 300 images per minute, creates greyscale and bitonal images at the same time, without a reduction of output speed, provides auto focus and straight line film loading that optimises operator setup time and features Adaptive Speed Control to optimise the scanner speed.

For more information on nextScan products and services, go to http://www.nextscan.com.

Kodak to provide On-Sito Service for next generation DINIEDA Storage Solutions Ciprico Inc., a leading provider of storage and system solutions that simplify and accelerate digital media workflow, today announced its selection of Kodak Service ft Support, a business unit of Eastman Kodak Company, as its U.S. service provider for Ciprico’s line of DIMEDA Storage Solutions.

Ciprico’s award-winning DIMEDA Products facilitate real­ time file sharing between multiple workstations, speciality servers, and archival systems - ideal for data-intensive applications, such as video production, news editing, and medical imaging picture archival and com munications systems (PACS).

“We’re delighted about the opportunity to serve Ciprico’s customers with Kodak’s extensive service capabilities,” said Dolores Traxler, Vice President, Kodak Service ft Support.

“Keeping equipment up and running is a critical component of our competitive advantage. With Kodak Service ft Support’s expertise in the broadcast, medical imaging and enterprise storage markets, we are able to provide quick response and a level of professionalism that customers can count on to support their business success.”

Under this agreement, Kodak Service ft Support will provide three levels of 24/7 and Help Desk support for Ciprico’s DIMEDA family of products, including its newest offering, Advantage On-Site. For those customers requiring round-the-

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clock on-site service and support - like news stations and hospitals and clinics - having immediate service is crucial.

With Advantage On-Site, Ciprico’s North American customers will receive on-site service and replacement parts in four hours or less. Ciprico and Kodak Service ft Support expect to expand this coverage to additional markets for Ciprico’s European and Pac-Rim customers.

“We are excited about our partnership with Kodak Service ft Support,” said Paul Tsuchiya, Director of Customer Services for Ciprico. “Our customers need the security of 24/7 on-site service, allowing them to focus the bulk of their time and resources on their core business, not repair of their systems.

Kodak is well known in the industry and is respected for delivering high-quality service. By working with such a strong, well-recognised partner, we can provide a real valueadd to our customers while generating new revenue streams for Ciprico.”

Included in this service agreement will be the recently released DIMEDA 3600 and DIMEDA 1700 Products. More information about the DIMEDA family of products can be found at www.ciprico.com/pDiMeda.shtml.

Contact: Paul Tsuchiya, Ciprico Inc., Tel: 763/551-4000 Email: ptsuchiya@ciprico.com

KODAK IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE EXCLUSIVE SA LES & SERVICE AGREEMENT* FOR nextScan ECLIPSE 16/35mm FILM SCANNER Microfilm scanning just got faster....!

• UP TO 300 PAG ES PER MINUTE • SIMULTANEOUS G REY-SCA LE AND BITONAL OUTPUT • DESIGNED USE 24HRS A DAY, 7 DAYS A W EEK • KODAK SERV ICE & SUPPORT

For more information please contact:

Kodak Commercial Imaging TEL: (44) 1442 844791 EMAIL: gb-scanners@kodak.com

URL:

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COMMERCIAL I M A G I N G

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*The agreement covers UK, Europe, Africa, The Middle East, Asia and Latin American countries only.

One-time rights

HNI Land Registry moving to Electronic Conveyancing

By Lesley Hill, Harvey Spencer Associates When the land beneath our feet shifts, we become instantly and acutely aware; but equally seismic events dealing with land registration can pass virtually unnoticed.

Just such events have been occurring at the UK’s Land Registry. HM Land Registry (www.landregistry.gov.uk) guarantees the title to registered land in England and Wales and holds the records for land ownership and interests. The world of land registration, title records, and conveyancing of property impinges on most people’s lives only when they are involved in purchasing or selling property.

This is no longer true for the English and Welsh - two recent events have catapulted their land registrations firmly into the 21st century. The first of these occurred in June 2000, when the Lord Chancellor launched the ‘Land Registry Direct’ service which, in keeping with the UK’s e-govemment initiative, gives fast electronic access to some 17 million registers and title plans, and 10 million filed deeds and documents. The second was the new Land Registration Act 2002, which came into force on October 13, 2003. The aim of the new Act is to simplify, improve and modernise land registration law. It makes significant changes, particularly with regard to the protection of third party interests; overriding interests; what interests in land may or may not be registered; and the adverse possession of registered land; but it also builds on the Land Registry Direct initiative by providing the framework for the development of electronic conveyancing.

The Land Registry deals with a broad array of documents forms, titles, correspondence and maps. Maps, showing the exact location and dimensions of the registered land, are an important element for Land Registry and, historically, have proven the most difficult to convert and manipulate in an electronic environment. Maps are detailed, complex and, when scanned, produce large image files. These files, particularly when aggregated into the millions, are expensive to store, but more importantly to an agency wishing to make them available to others, require large amounts of time (and cost) to download, even over high-speed Internet linkages.

Another fundamental problem is scale. Many uses of maps, such as obtaining directions, do not need the scale - but for Land Registry it is crucial. For a conveyancer to accurately measure the land held under title, he must be able to duplicate the scale of the original map. A map accessed over the Internet may give the scale, but will not necessarily be displayed to scale.

HM Land Registry conducted an Internet search for help and found one vendor who was able to offer the speed and functional performance they required - Onstream UK (www.onstreamsystems.com), who implemented a customised version of their web-enabling Trapeze technology. The system allows the end user to use the title plan images almost as if they hold the original in their hands. Trapeze allows for speedy (up to 10 times faster than other technologies) down loading of maps by creating a multi-layered file from the coloured image maps which are a fraction of the size of images in the usual format. The files are small, clean to view, and very quick to transmit on-line. Additionally the viewer can ‘zero-in’ on the area of interest, and have just that area

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down-load rather than waiting for the complete map to download before working on the required area.

Another unique feature of the Trapeze system is that users can easily set the scale on the plan and carry out measurements on-screen. If they wish, they can print out the map in its original size on any Windows supported printer. Should the map size be larger than the printer can accommodate (and many are) Trapeze segments it and prints it over multiple pages that can be laid-out to the original’s dimensions. The extraordinary accuracy - 99.9°/o+ - was obtained by using Trapeze when scanning the original maps.

Land Registry Direct (www.landregistrydirect.gov.uk) is an online service available to Land Registry credit account holders providing them with speedy electronic access to a range of Land Registry information, including titles, maps, indexes, and it retains a running total of fees for items downloaded. The site is currently undergoing major reconstruction, but a demo is available for download.

As Brian Barrett, Business Development Manager for Land Registry Direct, notes: “Land Registry Direct has been very enthusiastically received and is gaining interest from a number of organisations beyond its focus. Local Authorities, Inland Revenue, Police, Private Investigators and Central Government departments are just some of the new business areas that have identified the advantages and benefits of the system.”

But it is not only HMS Land Registry that is moving their maps to an electronic format. Land Registry is the only entity currently to make the service available over the Internet, but over one quarter of local councils in the UK are using Trapeze on local intranets to make maps for local planning, water and sewage departments quickly and accurately available. So engineers in offices in Newcastle, Winchester, Basingstoke, Kensington and Chelsea, and nearly 80 other districts, can measure, annotate, and share their maps and other documents with their colleagues with a few keystrokes from their PC’s.

Although not registering on the Richter Scale, there is a movement of seismic proportions of maps to electronic format in the UK.

PatiJI

J

This demo is available on the Land Registry site http://www.landregistryonline.gov.uk/direct/Default.asp7x~l 774, but it comes with disclaimers over scale (the ability to measure accurately to scale is the major selling point for the Onstream system) - the reason for this is that the maps carry two scales and Land Registry doesn’t want to be held responsible if someone uses the wrong scale!

tRaiNiNg

in

pReseRvatiON micRofiLmiNg

The National Library of Australia has launched its new training materials Training in Preservation Microfilming' The National Library of Australia, in collaboration with the State Library of South Australia and under the auspices of IFLA PAC, has produced a set of preservation microfilming training material consisting o f 10 modules, 6 wall charts, a logbook, a learning guide, a glossary/index and a small kit of practical training aids. The training material, “Training in Preservation M icrofilming”, is the result o f an IFLA PAC survey on microfilming training needs in the South East Asia and Pacific region conducted in 2001.

The National Library of Australia is distributing “Training in Preservation M icrofilming” to National Libraries and Archives in the region, including those institutions and individuals who responded to the IFLA-PAC survey. The content of “Training in Preservation M icrofilming” will continue to be available from the Library’s website.

However, the practical training aids are only available in limited quantities and the library hopes that you can make “Training in Preservation M icrofilming” and the practical training aids available to those institutions and individuals in your region th at m ay require it. A distribution list of institutions th at hold the m aterial will be available on the National Library’s website.

“Training in Preservation M icrofilming” was w ritten by Heather Brown, Preservation M anager at the State Library

o f South Australia. It conforms to the accredited Australian preservation m icrofilming curriculum and, when delivered by an accredited agency, m ay be used for form al qualifications or to recognise current competencies. The resource could also be used as a guide to m icrofilming basics for those not wishing to undertake formal training.

“Training in Preservation M icrofilming” was prim arily developed for use in the Asia Pacific region and is in English. It is available in several formats, including PDF and CD. See the following URL for more details: <http://www.nla.gov.au/preserve/trainm at.htm l>.

There are a limited num ber o f additional printed copies available and priority will be given to those individuals and organisations with no or unreliable access to the internet. Please contact M arian Hanley at the address below with the details o f your situation so th at copies can be reserved for you.

I f you require fu rth er information about the training material, please contact: Marian Hanley, Project Officer, Preservation Services, National Library o f A ustralia, Canberra ACT 2600. Australia.

E-mail: mhanley@ nla.gov.au Tel: +61 2 6262 1780 Fax: +61 2 6262 1653 Incorporating:TH E

MICROFILM

SHOP A

\. O I T U K LTD

PROVIDING ACCESS TO YOUR INFORM ATION

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TMSSequoia releases Prism Viewer VII New configuration and security options increase flexibility when viewing, annotating and printing TIFF, JPEG and PDF files TMSSequoia, the Imaging Solutions Company, has announced the immediate availability of the Prism Viewer VII, the new release of its browser-based TIFF image viewer, previously called the Prism plug­ in. The Prism Viewer allows users to view, manipulate, annotate and print document images and PDF files. The Prism Viewer is a Microsoft Windows application that extends the capabilities of Internet Explorer and Netscape browsers, allowing corporate, academic and government organisations worldwide to offer webbased access to their critical document image management systems.

The Prism Viewer overcomes limitations found in standard web browsers when displaying TIFF and other document image types, providing zooming, panning and rotation tools, as well as accelerated printing for both Postscript and general Windows printers. The new release surpasses other solutions by automating and enabling enhanced remote configuration of the viewer and the toolbar menu so that a single viewer can be deployed across the organisation in support of different viewing needs; providing cache security and encryption options as a means of supporting organisations with HIPAA and Graham-Leach Bliley compliance issues and accelerating deployment by providing the ability to detect previous versions of the viewer on end-user workstations.

The Prism Viewer reduces operational costs by increasing productivity and lowering the time spent accessing images and printing documents from the browser. It also enhances user satisfaction by making printing from the browser more like a standard desktop application, remembering printer and page settings, and significantly reducing user configuration.

to access images one hyperlink at a time. Best of all, the Prism Viewer opens large document images like well logs, engineering drawings and EKG or heart monitor printouts quickly and reliably.

“With the release of Prism Viewer VII, we have updated some of the underlying structure of the viewer, making it more flexible when used in secure environments, especially with proxy servers,” said Elspeth Bloodgood, TMSSequoia product manager. “We’ve also put in the architecture that will allow us to offer the level of security and encryption our healthcare, legal and engineering drawing customers have requested.”

Key new capabilities and features of Prism Viewer VII include: ★ Browser-based viewer detection. To make upgrades easier, especially in a fluid environment, the Prism Viewer now offers a set of sample HTML pages. End-users without the most up-to-date version of the Prism Viewer can be edirected to another page where they can install the current version of the viewer without exiting the browser. ★

On-the-fly configuration. The Prism Viewer now offers options that allow central configuration of viewer capabilities. Used in embed tags, object tags and Prism List Files these options allow companies to enable and disable Save As; Export; Copy to Clipboard; Print; Annotation Viewing, Creation and Saving; Image Information and Caching based on user permissions or departmental viewing needs.

★

Toolbar configuration. Based on user requirements, companies can now customise the Prism Viewer toolbar using embed tags, object tags and Prism List Files. This allows one version of the Prism Viewer to serve different departments with differing web-based viewing needs.

★

Cache Security/Enciyption. With new federal requirements detailed in legislation including HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and Gramm-Leach-Bliley, companies have to provide new levels of security in conjunction with corporate imaging systems. TMSSequoia now offers cache security and encryption as a way to help your organisation with these compliance issues. If you need to provide the speed of local cache access, but don’t want users to access document images from the system’s cache, the Prism Viewer now supports new Cache security. The Prism Viewer ships with a simple scrambling of the image/document in cache. Depending on your needs we can offer custom cryptography objects in a configurable encryption scheme.

★

Cache Configuration. The Prism Viewer also offers the ability to cache images in memory, on the local hard drive or based on your configuration needs.

When used internally to view and print document images, the Prism Viewer can save countless man hours by providing access to images using TMSSequoia’s list file technology, rather than requiring users

Prizin' Gray + High Volume M icrographics Scanner = Faster Throughput + Cleaner Images + Higher Quality If you have large volumes of microfilm or microfiche to process, getting a clean, straight, cropped image can really put a drag on your throughput. Enter Prizin' Gray - an application designed to enhance large volumes of continuous tone (grayscale and color) images. Not only does it crop, deskew, reduce noise, threshold, rotate and resize - Prizm Gray uses confidence values to catch exception images and send them to an image correction station for automated operator exception handling. We think you’ll agree that confidence values and TMSSequoia technology combine to give you imaging confidence.

P flZIT Y G R A Y

206 West 6th Avenue Stillwater, OK 74074 USA Phone: 405-377-0880

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UfiESequoia

Fax: 405-377-0452

The Imaging Solutions Company

www.tmsinc.com

E-mail: tools@tmsinc.com

Support for other platforms TMSSequoia also offers browser-based TIFF image viewing support for those companies who support multiple UNIX platforms including Sun Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, SGI and DEC Alpha. The Prism plug-in for UNIX is used largely to support engineering applications due to its unparalleled ability to open and print extremely large engineering drawings quickly and reliably in the Netscape Browser. Feature sets for the UNIX platforms are available on the TMSSequoia website at www.tmsinc.com.

Pricing and availability Available immediately, directly from TMSSequoia, the price of the Prism Viewer VII is $89.95 per user. To purchase, visit www.tmsinc.com or call 800-944-7654. An upgrade version is available for a limited time for previous purchasers of the Prism plug-in for $49.95 per user. Special pricing for government institutions and corporate licensing options are also available by calling 800-944-7654.

Ernstfried Driesen, CEO GID Group, says-.

“There still is a worldwide market for COM business.” environm ent. IDS@0PEN comprises of a library of programmes to yield a modular approach to fit a variety of output needs.

GID’s policy as COM producer and system integrator is to provide a reasonable mix of analogue and digital technology.

So that the customer can secure his long-term archive on the one hand, and on the other profit from the digital technologies - i.e. get the best of both worlds.

For microfiche output on the COM-System 6880, the IDS@0PEN COM programme processes alphanumeric data while the IDS@OPEN Image Handler processes both alphanumeric and image data.

Yet, it is a fact that very large, long-term archiving tasks are being output on COM systems and microfiche, especially in the financial sphere. Microfilm is still the securest and cheapest solution for long-term archive, even if the whole IT community call for online. That applies to the US as well as Europe. France is the example for this reversal policy, leaving behind the insecure CD-technology and returning to microfiche.

This offers the widest spectrum of fiche form atting possibilities. Windows NT permits easy integration into a client-server-environment, which is the backbone of the other IDS modules, including the IDS spooling systems.

Image COM 6880

GID fully confirms this policy. In October, GID presented a digital and analogue approach at the Proseg fair in Paris: unchangeable COM fiche for archiving and “intelligent copy” on digital media. The core of this approach is GID’s own IDS@ OPEN Software, able to provide two different output media from one data stream. This solution was presented in an impressive way to various service bureaux.

Germany, the domestic market of GID, is stamped by some major proprietary users. There, GID offers its solution countering the trend of declining duplicates. The two major data centres of the German saving banks invested in the future of microfiche by employing GID’s Packaging Systems 6899 beside the GID COM Systems 6880. They enable direct enveloping of produced masters and duplicates to forward to all branches. The source of this solution is - again IDS@0PEN Software.

The COM System 6880 is GID’s latest COM Imaging Product.

The design of this system integrates hardware and software standards technology into a versatile and powerful product.

The modular concept and the open architecture offers expandability to meet changing customer needs and future requirements.

ADA Automatic docking station for developer set.

Clean, quick, easy for operator staff to change developer and less operator work, as working-steps are reduced from 6 to 1.

Higher efficiency of the developer set and increased automation of the COM system

The assessment factor lies in the coexistence of digital and analogue technology! This COM solution is independent of any technological alteration or influence, applicable to archive all business-crucial data (NCI and Cl) - long-termed and unchangeable!

GID provides in the COM field the following components :

Packager 6899 The packager 6899 envelopes microfiche masters and/or duplicates inline, from the production system into shipmentready envelopes. Includes automatic address printing and quality checking.

Process optimising through inline concept and autom atic labelling.

Integration into production environm ent offers space­ saving whilst the minimising of shipping errors is achieved Get the superior performance you've always wanted in a rollfilm scanner through barcode check and instead of die technology you have been forced to accept! monitoring.

• Scan 300 pages per minute to get the ultimate in production level rollfilm scanner The International GID Group performance with Eclipse, our next generation scanner. provides total integrated solutions in the DMS, storage • Scan 2Z0 pages per minute with Phoenix - a product designed to fit within and archive field. The slogan is the housing o f older S u n R isf scanners.

I-Management and the solutions Create grayscale and bitonal images a t the satne tim e are distributed, installed, and w ithout a reduction o f output speed with nextScan products. maintained, worldwide.

IDS@OPEN Software The IDS@OPEN (Information Distribution System) software package operates in the industry standard Windows NT

Quality, Speed, Reliability

See us a t A D M 2004, booth # 2273/ w w w .aiim expo.com nexiScon, Phoenix ond Eclipse ore trodemoriu of nextScon.

A ll other compony ond product nomes ore trodemodu or registered trodetnorVi of their respective holders.

nextScan

The N ext Generation in Film Scanning Technology 925-831-3141 • www.nexhcan.com

The GID Group is located in Germany, France, UK and USA. www.gid-it.com and www.gidit.de

23

Is the world's largest user of microfilm abandoning it for digitalP The LDS Church may be starting off on a new direction for its genealogy collection.

An interview with Wayne Metcalf, director of acquisitions for the LDS Church (The Church of Latter Day Saints), published in the Nov. 24, 2003 edition of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, raises a startling question: “Is the LDS Church, probably the largest non-governmental user of microfilm (for its genealogical files) going to drop out of microfilm as the storage medium and go strictly digital?” According to the interview, Metcalf says the Church is definitely considering a move to digital imaging.

might revisit the original archives around the world from which records were gathered and make new images using digital scanning.

Since the 1930s, the Church has been sending teams around the world to film genealogical and related records. These are shipped back to Mormon headquarters in Salt Lake City where they are processed, catalogued and put into inventory. Over the years that inventory has grown to more than 10 million reels of film, that are available through duplicates from branches of the Church’s Family History Library.

The editor of Eastm an’s Online Genealogy Newsletter (www.eogn.com), who is clearly not a fan of microfilm, concludes, “Yes, we will have an all-digital solution some day,” suggested a 1-2 decade time frame.

Now, according to Metcalf, the Church is moving to digital imaging. It is testing sending out teams with a lap top PC and scanner rather than microfilm cameras. If the tests are successful the Church may convert to an all-digital data acquisition process. DVD disks, burnt from PC input, would be airmailed from the field to Salt Lake City or even sent across the internet if high speed connections are available.

W hat to do with 10 million existing films?

Under this scenario, the 10+ million films already in stock would be converted to digital images. Where microfilms particularly older ones - might not convert easily, the Church

V irtu a l Im a g e Technology,

Even if this were to occur, researchers around the world would still be using microfilm for decades and, in some cases, there might be a “blended solution” in which some records would be available only on microfilm while others would be in digital format only. Some might be available in both formats.

Our take on the situation, as it was reported by the Newsletter, is that as younger people are moving up in the administrative hierarchy of the Church, as is happening in many organisations, the mind set shifts to digital only. The newcomers, like their counterparts at NARA and elsewhere, are digital devotees and ignore anything else, giving little thought to upgrading costs over he years, technological obsolescence, and long-term risks. They should be looking at and going something like the Kodak 2000 Census type of hybrid system - scan and then film. That would allow the records to be scanned in the field, an admitted procedural advantage, and then be backed up on microfilm in Salt Lake City.

As microfilm industry leader Russ Burkel said, “Hopefully some of the ‘wiser and older’ Church elders will get involved.”

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Mekel Scanners to be distributed

\-y\

A * e k e l in Europe by Zeutschel J

Technology, Inc.

|

*

Mekel Technology, Inc. a leading light in microfilm scanning technology, announced that it has come to an agreement on the exclusive distribution of the new Mekel scanners in Europe by Zeutschel GmbH. Zeutschel will be offering the Mekel scanners direct and via its existing dealer network throughout most of the European Union and many other countries. Initially, Zeutschel will be the exclusive distributor in the following countries: Germany France Italy Greece India Austria Russia

Turkey Croatia Syria Belgium Slovenia Switzerland Slovakia

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w

» Q C R O W L C Y com p a n y

Syria Poland Romania Bulgaria Serbia Luxembourg Czech Republic

“It is very exciting for Mekel to have such a prominent manufacture as Zeutschel assume the distribution of the Mekel products.” said Patrick Crowley, president, Mekel Technology.

“Zeutschel is a very well known manufacturer with a extremely strong dealer and service network. Zeutschel is the leader in both the analogue and digital imaging marketplace.

This agreement brings together two organisations committed to all imaging technologies.”

■

ZEUTSCHEL

Zeutschel GmbH has set up a complete sales and service training centre at their factory in Tubingen, Germany. “We look forward to providing the primary service and sales support in Europe for the Mekel scanners.” said Mr. Jorg Vogler, president, Zeutschel GmbH. “Unlike most of the competition, we are engaged throughout Europe in both analogue and digital technologies and have developed strong ties to the imaging community for over 40 years. We are not a dot com or startup company.”

Mekel Technology is best known for its production volume microfilm scanners, but it also manufactures photo-citation systems, film transports, and does various contact m anufacturing. Mekel Technology is a wholly owned subsidiary of Crowley Micrographics, Inc. Several new models of Mekel film scanners were introduced for 2004. The new models offer increased speeds, improved image quality and many software enhancements. These new models will be on display at the upcoming Cebit Show in Hanover, Germany. (Zeutschel Booth Mar. 18-24, 2004) and A1IM in New York (Crowley Booth March 8-10, 2004).

For the benefit of our UK readers, the UK Mekel dealer is the Genus Group (The Microfilm Shop) on www.microfilm.com Contact: patc@mekel.com or info@zeutschel.de or visit www.mekel.com or www.zeutschel.de

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25

R O U N D <V A B O U T A closer look at companies and individuals on DASH DASH, the database of companies, directors and shareholdings, which is co-published by Bureau van Dijk (BvD), one of Europe’s leading electronic publishers of business information, and DftB, the leading provider of global business information, now includes new records for unincorporated businesses, companies’ branches and senior managers. The new information is available on the latest issue of DASH released in the first week of December 2003.

DASH now incorporates inform ation for 3.5 million companies, 5 million directors and 2.5 million shareholders.

The new information includes further details of over half a million unincorporated businesses, such as partnerships and sole traders, up to eight new management contacts per company (a million in total) covering job titles such as Sales Manager or Purchasing Supervisor plus three hundred thousand addresses for companies’ branches.

DASH includes the facility to identify the links between individuals and businesses; users can jum p between the reports for companies, directors and shareholders. Further functionality facilitates the identification of directors who are also shareholders of companies.

“The new scope of DASH, both in terms of companies and individuals, make it an even more practical and useful solution for our custom ers,” said Louise Green, marketing ft communications for BvD’s UK operation, adding, “Whether their interest is in investigating companies, uncovering links between directors, shareholders and businesses or creating lists for direct marketing projects, they will find the new data a positive supplement to their research.”

The new version o f DASH is available on free trial by contacting 020 7549 5000 or e-mailing london@bvdep.com.

Cardiff announces growth of LiquidCapture Cardiff Software Ltd., a leading global provider of document capture and eForm solutions for the enterprise, recently announced that 12 organisations across Europe have completed certification training to resell their Web-based document capture solution, LiquidCapture. LiquidCapture enables large organisations with distributed business environments to gather, assemble and index critical business documents over the Web. LiquidCapture is ideal for distributed organisations that are looking to streamline business operations to improve productivity and reduce costs. As a thin, client Web-based solution for the capture and indexing of paper and electronic documents, LiquidCapture saves time by eliminating the need to mail or ship documents between sites, which ends delays, long transaction cycles and lost documents.

26

Kenneth Pantzer, of Cardiff s Swedish partner Alcom System AB says, “We have seen interest in LiquidCapture in a number of key vertical markets, most notably banking/finance and insurance, government and retail. LiquidCapture is perfectly positioned to deliver significant cost savings and increase efficiencies within distributed organisations in these sectors.”

LiquidCapture provides significant timesavings, financial productivity and custom er satisfaction by enabling distributed organisations to quickly and easily capture and route paper and electronic documents into a workflow process. Utilising proven technology for Web services, Web scanning and Web indexing, LiquidCapture accelerates the flow and distribution of electronic and paper documents, providing workflow designed process and review stages before connecting to document and content management or archival systems.

Tim Dubes, vice president EMEA sales and marketing comments, “Uptake of LiquidCapture among the VAR community has been strong, driven by a growing requirement for businesses to automate document driven tasks with a Web-based structure into processes directly from the remote locations.”

The release of LiquidCapture represents a significant extension of Cardiff s established suite of BPA solutions that are offered to Cardiff OneSource Channel Partners. Cardiff s OneSource programme capitalises on the com pany’s integrated suite of business process automation solutions, which includes TELEform, LiquidCapture and LiquidOffice, providing excellent opportunities for service revenue and software margins for resellers and integrators.

Cardiffs powerful, standards-compliant suite of products enables organisations to realise a rapid return on investment through improved operational efficiencies, reduced manual data entry costs, improved information accuracy, automated routing procedures, and immediate, personalised communications to customers, partners and employees.

Cardiff offers two levels of channel partner certification; authorised and certified status.

More information on Cardiffs OneSource Channel Partner Program can be found at www.cardijf.com/partners.

Contact: Warren Daniels, Cardiff Ltd., 77a Boston Manor Road, Brentford , Middlesex, TW8 9JQ Tel: 020 8326 1107 F: 020 8326 1122 Email: WDaniels@Cardiff.com Mobile shelving makes most of office space A 50°/o reduction in document storage space is being reported

by ConocoPhillips at its Portman Street premises in London as a direct result of the use of a Link 51 mobile storage system. The installation has had a dramatic effect on storage efficiency for the organisation which holds a vast range of documents and associated material - primarily for administrative and legal purposes.

ConocoPhillips is a major international integrated energy company active in more than 40 countries. In the UK, ConocoPhillips markets fuels under the Jet brand name through a network of distributors and some 550 dealer­ operated filling stations.

“The Link 51 units have been installed in a number of locations on the 5th and 6th floors of the building which comprises our European headquarters,” says UK Facilities Project Manager, Chris Cleaver. “Apart from the mobile facility this includes extensive runs of static shelving which provide up to seven storage levels, primarily for manual and book storage in the tax library. Additionally, we also now have a number of tamber-fronted units from Link 51 which accommodate an extensive range of documentation and file boxes."

It is with the mobile storage facility, however, th at the major space saving benefit is noted. Because the system requires only one aisle to be open at any given time, the rast of the Link 51 mobile facility can be kept in a closed position. Back-to-back shelving runs are simply rolled along low profile tracks set into a raised timber floor with the use of an ergonomically designed handwheel - this also features a locking system for added security. The six moveable units each provide six shelf heights of Link 51 ’s Clearstor shelving system and have replaced a large number of cupboards with dramatic improvements in both capacity and accessibility.

With increasing pressure on office accommodation, particularly in central London, the need to ensure that space efficiency is maximised is clearly paramount. An increasing number of organisations are turning to the Link 51 mobile concept in this context and the facility at ConocoPhillips is an excellent example.

Contact: Link 51, Link House, Halesfield 6, Telford, Shropshire TF7 4LN Tel: 01384 472543 Email: enquiries@link51 .co.uk or visit http://www.link51 .co.uk M anual processing of Christmas invoice m ountain Christmas costs British business extra money and manpower because of the manual processing of additional supplier invoices, according to document management and data capture specialist ITESOFT. Major retailers like House of Fraser can expect to receive forty per cent the normal number of paper invoices in the run

□1 IB E H PRODUCTS

up to Christmas. Each has to be read, approved and manually keyed into the accounts system, creating an unwelcome administrative overhead as even a simple invoice costs £4.87 to process; eating into Xmas profit margins.

Colin Dean, Managing Director of ITESOFT UK commented: “Retailers and companies in the leisure market have the most to gain as they are most affected by the Christmas upsurge.

We have worked with companies like House of Fraser and night club operator Luminar Leisure to cut down the amount of time spent juggling paper instead of making money.

“With the advent of EDI people think that all invoices are electronic but paper invoices still make up 90% of transactions and cause a disproportionate am ount of administrative costs. ” Investment in automatic invoice processing can reduce these costs by up to half and, in many cases, up to 80%. With products like ITESOFT.Freemind for Invoices it is possible to scan invoices, capture and verify the financial data and then feed it straight into the business workflow system.

ITESOFT’s SAP Certified invoice software enables clients and users to evolve towards real-time management control, reduce processing times and costs, while at the same time significantly improve data accuracy and achieve measurable ROI. ITESOFT.FreeMind for Invoices automatically processes all invoices, irrespective of format, combining template and adaptive data capture technologies to achieve 100% first­ time processing of unstructured documents.

Invoices are automatically classified into homogeneous groups, whether the supplier is known or new. Once they are classified, it will automatically detect useful data and extract characters: line items; VAT number, invoice date, order reference number, net total, VAT, gross total and carry out detailed cost allocation and analytical accounting.

Christmas Facts and Figures The average person in the UK made five separate shopping trips walked 20 miles spent 15 hours looking for Christmas gifts, and spent two hours queuing to pay for them. This Christmas, according to Mintel research, Britons will spend £446 each on shopping and celebrating the festivities, generating huge amounts of revenue and paperwork.

Contact: ITESOFT, Colin Dean, Tel : +44 (0)1252 741 500 Fax :+44 (0)1252 741 515

M ANUFACTURERS

For further information, please contact: MicroVue Products Tel: +972-4-6062171 Fax: +972-4-6062168 e-mail: info@microvue.co.il web: www.microvue.co.il

27

New i280 Scanner from Kodak Brings advanced performance and increased productivity to Desktop Production applications With advanced imaging and paper-handling features suitable for a wide range of applications, the KODAK i280 Scanner is the newest addition to the i200 Series Scanners. This modular desktop colour production scanner is now available from Eastman Kodak Company’s Document Products ft Services Group, bringing significant performance and productivity improvements to the market category.

The duplex i280 S c a n n e r delivers colour, bitonal and greyscale images at fullspeed—offering the fastest colour scanning speeds available in its segment at up to 60 pages per minute (ppm) or 120 images per minute (ipm) and up to 240 ipm in dual-stream mode (A4, 200dpi, landscape).

“Kodak’s i280 Scanner provides robust features and functionality at a competitive price point,” said Ken Chin, Gartner Vice President and Research Director. "The capability to scan colour, bitonal, and greyscale images at the identical speeds is significant for enterprises moving beyond black and white applications. Overall, it is a strong addition to Kodak’s line of departmental scanners.”

The i280 also features Perfect Page with iThresholding to deliver cleaner, sharper images at full processing speed. This reduces pre-sorting, rescans, and post-image processing to improve overall operator productivity.

Like all the scanners in the i200 Series, the i280 can be converted to a sheet-fed unit via the industry’s first-in­ category A3 dockable flatbed accessory, which easily snaps into the scanner for documents th at need special handling. Other options include a post-scan imprinter.

Kodak has loaded the i280 Scanner with the following advanced new features to maximise the capabilities available in this desktop production scanner: ★ 256 MB of memory to accommodate the scanning of non­ standard paper lengths. Customers can scan documents up to 6 meters (20 feet), which makes it a perfect solution for applications such as EKG or fetal monitoring charts. ★

28

Special Document Mode to scan a variety of exception documents, such as detachable coupons and environmental recording charts, which increases the productivity of the scanning operation compared to

scanners that require the use of a flatbed. ★

Colour-on-the-fly to easily switch from bitonal to colour scanning mode and back.

★

Relative Cropping, which allows users to save file space by capturing only a specific area of a document.

★

Electronic colour drop-out with greyscale output to remove irrelevant background colour without stopping to change lamps increases productivity.

★

Enhanced Adaptive Threshold Processing (ATP) to improve character reproduction for thick characters, such as logos or signature stamps.

Available with the new i280 scanner, Kodak offers a worry free PerformancePlus service contract, giving its customers a 3 year onsite service at an affordable price: ★

On-site Manufacturer’s Service ft Support

★

3 year total cover

★

Free 4th year if no call-out in first three years

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If unit cannot be fixed, a new replacement unit will be supplied

PerformancePlus service contracts will be offered through authorised distributors in European countries with a Kodak Service ft Support organisation.

“The new i280 Scanner is the flagship model of the i200 Series Scanners,” said Robert Bijster, Marketing Manager of Eastman Kodak Company’s Document Products ft Services group in Europe, Africa and Middle East. “This scanner is packed with features that will change industry expectations of what a desk-top production scanner can do.”

New for all the i200 Series Scanners is brightness and contrast control to customise colour output for different applications.

These scanners also feature: ★

3-D Ultrasonic Multi-Feed detection

★

VRS compatibility to offer more imaging options and convenience

★

IEEE-1394 (FIREWIRE) interface to speed setup and image transport

★

Energy Star compliant

The i200 Series Scanners are delivered with ISIS and TWAIN drivers and KODAK Capture Software, Lite, which supports all innovative features of the scanners. A new production version of KODAK Capture Software that supports all these new features will be available in February. KODAK Service ft Support is available worldwide with an all-inclusive service offering to meet every business need.

Visit www.kodak.com/go/docimaging.

IMPLEMENTING EREEDOM OF INFORMATION

THE

INFORMATION CULTURE CHANGE

'■*.»... _

w

23 - 24 March, Hinckley Golf Club, leic.

12 -13 May, IIMIST, Manchester

THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT AFFECTS ANYSODY IN PUBLIC SERVICE. FROM CENTRA1 GOVERNMENT TO NVRSERY SCHOOLS AND DOCTORS SURGERIES. W HO DEALS W ITH THE PUBLIC.

IS YOUR ORGANISATION PREPARED FOR THIS CULTURE CHANGE P The seminar is primarily aimed at councillors, managers and trainers in public bodies such as local authorities at all levels, hospital trusts and emergency services as well as smaller institutions such as further education establishments, schools, nurseries, doctor’s surgeries and pharmacies.

specific. Details of speakers, dates and streams can be found on The Green Sheet web-site at http://www.qreensheet.net/seminars.htm

Delegates will go away with a much better idea of what they need to do, how they can do it and the resources available to The seminars are in two streams on separate dates; one Seminar price includes:help them. stream is of a general nature and the other is health services Complimentary copies of associated BSI literature On the 1st of January 2005, the Freedom of Information Act comes into full force [worth £25.001 joining the Data Protection Act (DPA), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act

Training and guidance notes

(RIP) and Section 8 of the Human Rights Charter. All these acts relate in one way

FREE 6 MONTHS SUBSCRIPTION TO The 6reen Sheet (worth £65.00)

or another to the way in which organisations work with the general public. The effect of these acts is to demand that organisations know what information they

LUNCH

hold and to make complex decisions relating to its disclosure. Effective records

Full Seminar Notes

management strategies will need to become even more commonplace than accounting functions in public bodies if they are to be compliant.

All employees dealing with the general public, as part of induction training, will need to recognise requests for information and properly direct such enquiries.

Furthermore, business analysts and

1CT staff implementing

P lease v is it w w w .g reen -sh eet.n et w here y o u m ay sig n up on -lin e if y o u w ish

document

management and business processing solutions will need to have an overview of these laws and an understanding of records management from an application perspective.

or c o n ta c t T im N ixon at MICROGRAPHICS MARKETING LTD 65 WINCHESTER DRIVE BURBAGE, LEICESTERSHIRE, LE10 2BA UNITED KINGDOM

This Green Sheet Initiative in association with the BSI seeks to address the change that is required in corporate culture by highlighting the issues, explaining the

Tel: +44 (0) 24 7638 2328

associated changes which will be needed in staff perceptions, procedures and technologies and describing the available resources.

Fax: +44 (®)24 7638 2319 U.K. E-mail: gsinfo@green-sheet.net

A GREEN SHEET INITIATIVE WITH THE FULL SUPPORT OF THE BSI

British Standards

NARA begins search for vendor to develop electronic records archive.

The National Archives and records Administration (NARA) in December released the final solicitation for its Electronic Records Archive project. The potential eight-year contact could be worth about $US 122 million according to Washington observers.

NARA will select two contractors to perform a systems analysis and develop a prototype in the first year of the contract. This part of the project is worth abut $US 22 million. The agency then will select the prototype it wants for the remaining seven years of the contract.

Iron Mountain acquires rest of European joint venture.

Iron Mountain Inc., the US-based but worldwide records storage and management firm, signed an agreement with Mentmore pic to acquire Mentmore’s 49°/o interest in Iron Mountain Europe Ltd.. (IME) for £82.5 million in cash. IME is the European joint venture set up in 1999 by Iron Mountain and Mentmore to pursue records management work in Europe. It is said now to be the largest European records management company with more than 15,000 customer accounts in 38 markets in the UK and on the continent.

The deal is expected to close in February 2004, subject to the approval of Mentmore shareholders.

National Microsales names Kodak as services and support provider.

National Microsales, US distributor of Mini check scanners as well as a long line of microfilm products, named Kodak Service ft Support as its preferred US service provider for the Mini scanners. Kodak will provider both warranty and post-warranty service. The agreement gives Kodak the opportunity to expand its presence in the check scanning market.

ImageMax undergoes changes, continues to seek investors.

In an 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), financially-troubled national service provider ImageMax said that J.B. Doherty, its main subordinated lender, has taken control of the company by exercising warrants. Doherty will now be chairman and CEO. Mark Glassman, who held these positions, will be president and COO. ImageMax got a short term infusion of capital but is still working with investment banking firm Janney Montgomery to find a buyer or major investor.

Electronic archivists seek to keep records of fast-vanishing internet documents.

The Washington Post, in an article on research and researchers, notes that many scientists and researchers are finding their world is dissolving before their eyes. That world consists of footnotes, references and web pages.

More and more, footnotes to scientific papers refer not to books or journal articles but to web sites. And these web sites are disappearing at a rapid pace or moving to other locations from the ones where they were originally referenced. Today the prevalence of inactive web references goes up to 50°/o.

“It’s a huge problem," Brewster Kahle, digital librarian at The Internet Archive, is quoted as saying. “The average life span of a web page today is 100 days. This is no way to run a culture.”

But, with an estimated 7 million new pages added to the web everyday, archivists can do little more than try to play catch-up.

Some are creating new indexing and retrieval systems. Others are

30

printing out contents of web sites while they can. So far, none is known to be looking at microfilm or other backup.

It’s an intriguing problem and a unique one that flows out of the vaporous nature of the digital world.

CSC Does Electronic Signature right The CSC Group, a leading software development and services firm headquartered in Brecksville, Ohio, has signed another company to its E-Signature VAR programme. Microtek Systems, Inc. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the fourth company since September 2003 that has signed on to resell or integrate CSC’s ESignature, joining The Landmark Image of California, Integra Business Systems, Inc. of Florida, and SER Solutions headquartered in Virginia.

Michael J. Bernard, Vice President of Business Development for The CSC Group offered these comments: “We are pleased to welcome Microtek to our growing list of resellers. The rapid rate at which we have been signing on resellers for the E-Signature product further corroborates what industry experts have suggested, that ‘CSC gets Electronic Signature right!’”

Jim Dziak, President of Microtek Systems Inc. agrees and sees its new relationship with CSC as a strategic one. As a VAR, Microtek now has a proven electronic signature capture solution to offer its valued clients to help them automate manual processes and achieve compliancy for electronic authorisation. “Microtek selected CSC because of their broad experience, open architecture and history of delivering proven solutions to the technology industry. E-Signature is a vital technology that we can now offer our financial, healthcare and insurance-related clients who are privacy sensitive and need cost-effective solutions to improve their competitive positions.”

Contact: Michael J. Bernard, Vice President o f Business Development, The CSC Group. Tel: 440-746-5128 Email: mbernard@csc-groupinfo..com Repairs to Canon CF100 Cameras Connecticut Micrographics, Inc has announced that they have established the capability and spare parts to rebuild and repair the Canon CF 100 Planetary Cameras. The CF 100 is a heavy duty 16mm camera, used mainly in service bureaux. Canon recently withdrew spare parts support for the camera. CMI will also sell spare parts.

Connecticut Micrographics has been active for over 10 years in providing support for the Minolta MA-16 : B ft H FileMaster camera. CMI sells parts, used cameras and repairs/rebuilds units for both Canon and Minolta planetary cameras. Adding support of the Canon CF 100 is a logical extension of the CMI services.

Connecticut Micrographics is a manufacturer of film and fiche duplicators, the FlexWAND Frame Numbering Device, the AEC/P - Automatic Exposure Unit for Kodak MRD and MRG cameras, the MRS Microfilm Retrieval System for reader and reader scanners. In addition, CMI last year took over the Fiche Factory and now cuts and slits Diazo and Vesicular film to microfiche.

Connecticut Micrographics will be exhibiting at the AIIM show in New York City on March 8th - 10th - booth 1939.

Contact: Connecticut Micrographics, 280 Connecticut Ave, Norwalk, Ct 06854 USA. Email: info@micrographics.com Tel: 203 838-1013; Fax: 203 853-3749 or visit: www.micrographics.com

Rates are £35 ($50) per insertion with a limit of 25 words. Each additional 25 words or fraction are £35 ($50). There is an additional £10 ($15) charge for the use of Box number. For display (boxed) ads add £20 ($30). To place a classified ad, send copy to Micrographics Marketing Ltd, 65 Winchester Drive, Burbage, Leic LE10 2BA UK, or fax it to +44 (0) 24 7638 2319 or Email it to tim@green-sheet.net.

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the long and short of it: now you can scan extreme and everyday - documents with ease.

Talk about performance. The KODAK i280 Scanner can scan a milelong document. Which is ideal for special applications like ECGs and seismographs. But that's not all the i280 can do.

It can also scan really small documents. Plus, it's loaded with a host of fantastic features. Like Perfect Page Scanning with iThresholding for crisp, clean images automatically. The fastest colour scanning in its class. An IEEE-1394 (FIREWIRE) interface for speedy image transfer. Even a dockable flatbed option.

And on top of this, Kodak offers a worry free Performance Plus service contract, giving a 3 year onsite service*.

,

All of which means, when it comes to delivering a truly exceptional desktop production scanner, the others have a long way to go.

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