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advertisers’ index Altek S y ste m s.......................................31 Anacomp ..............................................31 Automated Resellers ...........................31 Documation

......................................... 28

Genus G roup..................................3.5,21 Inotec..................................................... 13 MicroVue ..............................................22

storage

M S T C .....................................................31

digital to microfilm

nextScan...................................................7

compliance

OIT ....................................................... 23

6-18

Pegasus Im a g in g ..................................27

product news

19-25

trade news

26-28

people

29-30

Western Micrographics........................ 31 Solar Imaging .......................................25 SunRise ................................................ 15 Wicks & W ilso n .................................... 32

info ireland

31 THE GREEN SHEET TEAM

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Cost (US$)

Double page spread

2 7 5 x 400

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138 x 190 or 2 7 5 x 9 3

£ 400.00

$ 720.00

Quarter page

138 x 93 or 69 x 190

£ 250.00

$ 450.00

Eighth page

69x93

£ 150.00

$ 270.00

F.O.C.

Extended Entry (100 words in bold type) Advertising within Directory

£

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Five Step Storage Strategy Microboard's storage specialist

Wayne Hall discusses some of the key points to address when planning your organisation's storage system

Storage is a complex business these days.

Businesses face an almost overwhelming choice of differing technologies and vendors, and it can be very difficult to separate marketing hype from fact and decide which systems are the best fit for your organisation's requirements. The situation is exacerbated by the increasingly complex raft of corporate governance legislation and industry regulation that businesses must comply with, since much of this involves a large degree of data retention which requires a robust long term storage solution.

Before rushing into a decision about which solution to invest in, and potentially making a costly mistake, it's wise to assess the company's specific requirements, in a stepby-step process taking into account: business needs, the regulatory environment and the budget available. Here are some points to consider:

1. Can you afford to be locked into a proprietary system or a specific supplier?

Not all storage devices make it easy to transfer their media to an alternative device.

If the hardware you are considering fails, how easy will it be to remove the physical media, or data, and load it onto a replacement device? W orse still, if the hardware supplier should ever go out of business, will it be possible to transfer your backup media to third party hardware?

2. How long do industrial or company regulations require data to be held?

Longevity is a serious issue. Systems which rely on magnetic media such as tape or hard disks are prone to corruption caused by electromagnetic interference, and occasional mechanical failure. This means that the data they store will have to be migrated to new systems at regular intervals, two or three times per decade in order to maintain data integrity; this can add significantly to the total cost of ownership. DVD storage systems offer a far greater lifespan, once data is committed to disc there is practically zero chance of corruption and the media can last 50 to 100 years.

3. Where will the hardware reside?

Server rooms are often in basements that

may be vulnerable to flooding, or physical storage areas where they are susceptible to being knocked around. W hat would happen if the data storage unit w as physically damaged - would the data survive? Server rooms can also generate a lot of heat and if they are inadequately cooled, the risk of a system failure is significantly increased, so they require air conditioning systems which can be expensive to install and run.

4. How quick and easy does the retrieval process need to be?

This can be influenced by a number of drivers, from compliance requirements to simple business logistics. How often is it likely that stored data will need to be retrieved, and how quickly does the retrieval request need to be fulfilled? Tape backup systems can be slow at the best of times, and a high volume of retrieval requests can really grind things to a halt. Hard disks and DVD libraries on the other hand offer much faster data retrieval and are better at handling higher volumes.

have their own advantages, but DVD libraries can provide a cost effective solution that offers a good compromise of cost and performance.

W hile RAID systems undeniably offer faster retrieval speeds, they are not ideal long term solutions and have higher total cost of ownership, as do tape based systems. DVD libraries on the other hand offer solid, reliable long term storage, faster retrieval times than tape based systems, and, because they're based on such a ubiquitous media format, there are no worries about future compatibility problems.

JOB VACANCY S E R V I C E ENGI NEER

5. What is the budget available?

Genus Group (incorporating The Microfilm

W ill the budget for the project be enough to buy the right kind and the necessary volume of storage?

While tape and hard disk based systems can become very costly when you need higher data volumes, but DVD storage libraries, for example, are comparatively inexpensive. A single DVD device offering almost two terabytes of storage can cost less than ÂŁ7k.

Shop) require additional Service Technicians

All of the various storage formats each

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to cover our rapidly expanding Equipment range. Experience required on Production Film Scanners, Film Writers, Large Format Scanners and Networking Software.

Apply in confidence with CV to: Paul Negus, (Managing Director) Genus Group, 15 Flammond Close, Nuneaton,

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P R O V ID IN G A C C E S S T O Y O U R IN F O R M A T IO N

STORAGE

A new twist: going from digital to microfilm Lots o f suppliers are getting into the act to meet growing dem and

Until relatively recently, when document and records managers talked about film conversion systems, they inevitably were referring to microfilm-to-digital systems.

These represented an expanding business practice that has kept microfilm relevant in a digital world. It also reflected the fastest and, perhaps, only growing segment of the microfilm world.

Now, however, the other half of the conversion equation - digital-to-microfilm - is showing new strength and drawing lots of attention. The number of suppliers and users of digital-to-microfilm grows larger and larger.

In both situations it's because users recognise the value of, and need for, hybrid systems, because of the key, but separate, roles that film and digital play. Digital makes the most sense for easy (desktop) and immediate access of information by any number of interested parties, while film provides an inexpensive, proven reliable, long-term storage medium. And it can always be digitised when and if that becomes necessary.

Government agencies and financial institutions are the biggest users of the growing number of digital-to-microfilm systems. Service bureaux also rank high on the list, generating large volumes of work as they cater to the needs of smaller users whose individual work volumes don't warrant having their own installations.

For the better part of the last decade, Eastman Kodak's Archive Writer was the only commercial game in town. It still is, by far, the biggest player with approximately 1,500 installations around the world. Kodak also offers a Reference Archive Services Network M IC R O F IL M

with 72 participating bureaux. But Kodak now has competition from at least five other companies producing their own versions of archive writers. Three of these companies have operational installations and another two this year announced products for which they have high expectations.

clients get special desktop software (Kodak Digital Reference Archive Creator) that helps identify digital documents they want written to film. Clients use the software to transmit selected documents to the RASN member service bureau, which does the film writing and returns film to the user customer.

Kodak's offerings

Fuji enters the scene

Kodak's latest generation of Archive Writers is the i9600 series, successor to the i4800 series. The current Archive Writers come in two models, the 9610 and the 9620.

These offer 9 600 pixel im age quality (explaining the series name). When introduced in 2003, the 9610 operated at the same speed as its 4800 series predecessor but cost considerably less. The 9620 offers double the speed of the 9610, but at only a 25% higher price. At a 24X reduction, the 9620 produces 170 images per minute, a total of 7,225 images per roll of film. At 40X reduction, it produces 400 images per minute or 17,000 images per roll of film.

To go with the 9 6 0 0 series, Kodak formulated a new 16mm high quality microfilm that is IS O /A N S I certified for a 500 year life expectancy when processed and stored under controlled conditions. j Called Kodak Reference Archive Media, the | film is said to produce images that will yield the highest image quality when images are scanned from the film for delivery back into a digital imaging system. Media loading is facilitated by the Kodak Smart Cassette Model 100 and Model 215. For automatic redundancy, two cassettes can be used at once to produce two sets of output with no reduction in throughput speed.

At the 2006 AIIM show Kodak debuted new software for the i9600 Archive Writer series, Application Software, version 2. The new software requires fewer steps in the write-to-file process and provides a friendlier use interface. Features include an adjustable dialogue box that enables adjustment of the main screen's size; improved multi-roll processing, whereby header and trailer images automatically appear on a job's subsequent rolls; and increased support for international languages.

In addition to hardware and software, j Kodak has a Reference Archive Services Network (RA SN ) available to users.

Introduced in 2005, RASN utilises a group of outsourcing partners to provide digital-to-film j writing services to end user clients. RASN members use Kodak Digital Archive Writers and Reference Archive Media. The end user

Two years ago Fujifilm Document Products debuted a prototype of the A R -1 0 0 0 Document Archive System for the US market, based on technology that Fuji had been using commercially in Japan. Delivery of production units began last year with the service bureau field being the original targeted market. Fujifilm is just now rolling out its reseller programme. Direct sales to the service bureau market is the first objective and Fuji expects resale activity to pick up as the service bureau/resellers get the word out to their end user market. Distribution in markets other than the US may ultimately follow but there is no decision to date.

The A R -1000 Input is by TIFF format, single or multiple page, compressed or noncompressed. Business-sized records can be recorded at about 110 pages per minute and the A R -1000 features parallel processing of jobs for greater throughput. Resolution is 200 dpi. Index frames are automatically generated from film name and/or assigned from text file. Approximately 5,000 businesssize pages can be recorded per roll of film.

Zoom of up to 100X, division and rotation can be done simultaneously during image editing. Separate processing of film is required as is a control PC with at least Pentium4 CPU Fuji has installations in Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Texas. One successful installation, IMA Im aging & Microfilm Access, a service bureau in Bohemia NY, is a very enthusiastic fan of the AR-1000. Mitch Davis, IMA, says, "We have had excellent results delivering large format images on 16mm film. This includes successfully filmed drawings with an original size of 9 feet long.

While the A R -1000 offers the unique option of zooming and splitting such images into halves or quarters, customers are finding this isn't necessary. The images are so clear that this method is reserved for very poor quality source image only. Users with large format images have typically had to pay more money to convert them to 35mm. The AR1000 offers an excellent alternative that can translate into significant savings."

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5

Crowley/Zeutschel: A Vigorous competitor Zeutschel, the well-known German manufacturer of digital and analogue systems for scanning and microfilm technology, introduced its Archive Writer O P 500 at the 2005 CeBIT show in Hanover, Germany.

Subsequently, Zeutschel's North American distributor (US and C an a d a ), Crowley Micrographics, presented the product at the 2005 AIIM Show in Philadelphia.

The O P 500 is primarily focused on users at archives and libraries to guarantee long­ term preservation for digital record files. O f course, it is also being marketed to banks, insufance companies, government agencies, and hospitals. For the latter, text documents, e-mails, C A D data and complete patient files including radiographs can be output onto microfilm. Not to be forgotten as a market are service bureaux.

Unlike competitive archive writers, the OP 500 uses standard, non-proprietary black and white and colour microfilm. It takes input from all standard file formats (TIFF, JPEG, JP2, PDF and others) and offers 82 MegaPixel optical resolution, claimed to be many multiples more than competitors' units.

A major selling point for the O P 500 is its capability to easily do documents up to E size (36" X 48"), maintaining traditional microfilm standards for density and resolution. This is contrasted to competitors whose effective limitations are A 2 / C size. Zeutschel also claims higher resolution than many of its competitors (using a patented micro stepping technology). Output is on 35mm archival microfilm.

Zeutschel has been quite successful in placing the O P 500 around the world.

Japan, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and Germany are among the countries said to be going for 35mm archival film. Many users are said to be using the color capability for greater quality and archival renderings. These users also prefer the quality of the O P 500's grayscale imaging capability.

Two newcomers At the 2006 CeBIT show in Hanover, two more German companies leaped into the digital-to-microfilm market, Microform GmbH and Micro Archive Systems.

Microform GmbH took the occasion to present the Digital Film Writer, which allows

users to easily transfer digital images to microfilm. The unit produces standard 16mm microfilm in either simplex or duplex mode with the user deciding whether he or she needs positive or negative images. The generated images can be marked with blips to facilitate automated retrieval. Additional information, such as film index data, can also be stored on the image.

The system works with encased film cassettes, each with a feed and take-up spool.

A s a safety backup, the system also makes it possible to generate a parallel film without affecting processing speed.

Micro Archive Systems has developed two new systems for storage of digital information on 35mm microfilm. Its Archivelaser converts digital images to 35mm while its Storagelaser is said to archive any digital data film through a binary code system for long-term migration-free storage. Operating at a signif­ icantly higher price level than its competitors, Micro Archive Systems says that marketing for its units will concentrate on supplying the service to distributors, presumably as a service or to service bureaux.

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Equipment - KIP Large Format Scanners, Extended Duplicator range, Wicks and Wilson Production Film Scanners, Film EtFiche Writers EtBook2net industry price beating A2 Book Scanners.

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- Capture Software, off the shelf Document Management Software, Bureau Management Software, Workflow, ASP, Drag Et Drop Film Writing Software, Records Management.

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HAMMOND CLOSE • NUNEATON • WARWICKSHIRE • CV11 6RY • U.K. T: (024) 7625 4955 F: (024) 7638 2319 E: info@genusit.com www.genusit.com E: info@microfilm.com www.microfilm.com Visit our Directory on www.green-sheet.net/directory

M IC R O F IL M

6

An ever increasing burden for all companies - however large or small.

There follow a few pages of advice, examples and suggestions as to how compliance in its various guises may be dealt with.

Always preparing for the unexpected: the reference archive approach Unfortunately, in the world of information technology and records management, what you don't know can harm you. And you may not know the importance of a missing record or report until a customer complains or a subpoena arrives and the subject of compliance arises.

Suddenly you must look for a sensitive exchange of e-mails and find they're not there. O r a spreadsheet that was used to prepare for a government filing. O r a sensitive exchange of correspondence, including e-commercial transactions. While they don't seem to be immediately available you still have to be able to produce them, and usually within a limited period of time. If not, your organisation faces unpleasant consequences, whether they are from government regulatory bodies, courts, or other business organisations with whom you deal.

How did the records disappear? They might have been accidentally deleted or corrupted. O r they might just not have been saved. Business and government regulations put in place over the last half-decade, to assure rapid retrieval and divulgence of critical records, make managers and organi­ sations increasingly liable for civil actions and even criminal charges for flawed record management systems.

Taking necessary steps No matter how records might go astray,

there are ways organisations can comply with increasingly more complex regulations and requirements, protect themselves, achieve long-term cost savings and add operating efficiencies. These involve automat­ ically applying hybrid technologies that use multiple storage media.

Most conventional storage and records management systems were devised to support event-driven, paper-based business processes. These systems started coming apart in the rush to satisfy the digital world's requirements for digitisation and speed. To be compliant, the growth in the volume and diversity of records requires a re-evaluation of basic information storage systems.

An effective compliant information system usually accepts multi-media input, uses standards-based technology, provides legal evidence, and is sustainable and costeffective over time. It also must remain digitally accessible. Today's expanded storage options include servers, hard copy vaulting, off-line tape and CD libraries, and an innovation pioneered commercially by Eastman Kodak, the multi-dimensional filmbased Reference Archive.

Different preservation times, criteria In such a system, electronic records can remain online for near-term processing; then highly compressed copies of records are secured on ISO-standard archival media. The system accepts digital files, organised by

client-selected records management criteria.

These can be by class, date, destruction schedule, etc. All the information included in the original record is presented in context.

Non-volatile analogue im ages are accumulated in an easily accessible off-line archive (microfilm) with a 500-year life expectancy. During creation of the system there are built-in audit trails. The analogue record can be redigitised and served back to the host server on demand to provide immediate validation, permanent legal evidence, and a foundation for deep disaster recovery.

Archiving strategies should be based on what drives a business: the legal requirement to provide documentation to meet regulatory filings; the need to provide proofs of contracts; the obligation of properly collecting and disbursing funds; the mandate to protect the com pany or government agency from litigation. With such goals in mind, managers from business as well as government, often working with outside RM specialists, can identify records that require archiving and for how lengthy a period of time.

Some will be forever, others for years,, some for as little as months. But for whatever the period of time, having a Reference Archive "snapshot" of records "at the moment of creation or transaction" offers the best evidence needed for compliance.

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nextStar nextScan by

Revolutionaiy NextStar software is designed to provideyou the best in capture and conversion of microfilm and microfiche to digital image NextStar's innovative patent pending design enables users of nextScan film and fiche scanners to scan, capture and store an entire roll of film or whole fiche as one image. Everything is captured, enabling the operator to view, audit and Q A all images at once.

Ease of use - Increased Productivity - Powerful Processing for Difficult Im ages With NextStar, just load your film or fiche for scanning and go. NextStar scans, detects and displays at once the entire roll of film or whole fiche. NextStar automatically detects the individual frames, then superimposes the detection rectangles on the image of the entire roll/fiche, allowing the operator to modify or correct any errors. The user can then define the image processing that needs to happen on each image, a group of images or the entire roll/fiche. As a result of these intuitive features in NextStar, minimal operator training is required.

To save time and ensure accuracy, operators no longer have to view and correct one image at a time.

As NextStar displays all images on the roll/fiche at once, it allows the user to quickly perform audit and Q A review before output. There is no need for rescans or reloads, allowing one operator to handle multiple scanners. NextStar is Internet and Intranet aware, offering the flexibility of having management functions and auditing to be performed remotely.

NextStar can detect varying image size and density automatically and includes a wide range of image enhancement features. NextStar is perfect for tackling even the worst images to be scanned, ultimately achieving the best image possible for digitization. NextStar maximizes scanner throughput through its distributed processing model - it won't slow down for even the largest images.

EASY and POWERFUL

NextStar Redefines How Microfilm and Microfiche Scanning is Done Easily, Quickly, Accurately, Economically www.nextscan.com nextScan, NextStar, Ellipse, Mercury and FlexScan are trademarks of nextScan. All other company and product names are trademarks pr registered trademarks of their respective holders.

nextScan The Next Generation in Scanning Technology

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Once an Operational Opportunity, Nov Adaptability and Agility are

In the beginning - which in this case is the late 1970s - mainframes ruled the day and more time was often spent creating and distributing reports than reading them. In that dark and dismal past, each report had to be custom programmed, forests of trees and mountains of paper were consumed, armies of staff members had to manually burst and hand carry reports to internal end-users, and untold sums were spent on courier, postage, copying, and fax delivery.

And let's not overlook the acres of file cabinets and storage boxes, huge warehouses and their enormous real estate costs, the fire, flood, and access control risks, and the difficulty of auditing the distri­ bution of all those paper reports.

Run the clock forward to this century and many companies still find themselves linked to this antiquated approach of processing and disseminating information. Even at companies where migration to distributed platforms is well underway, the paper-based report distribution model still dominates.

The prim ary reason is certainly not that companies are unaware that a better w ay exists. The obstacle to innovation in most cases is the simple fact that until recently there was no compelling strategic business reason to promote change. Furthermore, even if companies wanted to streamline report distribution for operational reasons, early technologies left much to be desired.

For starters, the earliest electronic reporting systems demanded wholesale re­ engineering of proven legacy applications and business processes.

Secondly, the technology w as, at the time, bleeding edge - which meant new applications were often priced well beyond the means of all but the largest companies.

Thirdly, as early technologies evolved, they were still limited by an inability to leverage all existing output formats from these legacy applications. A s a result, companies could, at best, afford to update only a few of their most critical reporting applications.

Finally, for all of the above reasons, early technologies left com panies unable to C O M P L IA N C E

completely address the report distribution problem from an enterprise perspective. In other w ords, w hat com panies had to struggle with w as a static system for a problem that was dynam ically changing as new applications came online, as users came and went, and as new reports were created.

Electronic Delivery: Now A Strategic Business Necessity Increasingly, companies are realising that this operational mode is not only a handicap, but strategically unacceptable in a world driven by Internet-based killer apps - a m essage being brought home by customer demands. With Internet access on virtually every office desktop, and in the majority of living rooms, customers, both internal and external, have become accustomed to having real time access to the information they want, when they want it.

No longer content to w alk to a library, they hop on the Net. N o longer satisfied with waiting for brokerage and bank statements in the mail consumers vote with their feet and switch to institutions that give them electronic access to this information. No longer content to adjust their financial planning activities to anyone else's billing timetables corporations seek vendors and partners who can deliver this information to them through Internet portals or directly, using standard electronic trading protocols like EDI. Against this new backdrop, companies must ask themselves not whether they need to enable electronic access to the information customers, vendors, and partners to more efficiently and effectively conduct their businesses. Instead, the question being evaluated should be how to meet this strategic imperative. And, while they're asking that question, they might as well consider that solving this problem can also enable them to address the ongoing internal operational inefficiencies of paperbased information delivery.

Technology has evolved; The wait is over Killing both birds with one stone -

operational and strategic issues - requires more than a simple solution that converts documents to electronic formats such as PDF files. For while these applications are certainly an important first step in the evolution of enterprise-strength electronic delivery solutions, they only address presen­ tation requirements, not delivery ones. On the flip side, solutions that streamline delivery to local printers, help get reports to the right hands faster, but they do nothing to address the electronic presentment issue.

Furthermore, neither of these alternatives enables reports to be personalized for specific end-user requirements, nor do they facilitate the repurposing of information contained within a traditionally static report.

Although some newer client applications do enable electronic view ing of output information, the cost of the proprietary systems client licenses is unreasonable high for those users that demand pure viewing privileges. Another problem with this approach is that in environments where end-users access information from multiple disparate systems, multiple and often time consuming log ons are required to find required information—and repurposing is still not addressed. The reason is that without extensive re-programming by IT staff to tailor outputs, report recipients still have to wade through voluminous reports to identify the specific nuggets of information pertaining to their need. They then may have to manually copy that data into other analytical applications like spreadsheets or data warehouses should further analysis be required.

Fortunately, newer technologies are now availab le that empower com panies to completely reassess the w ay they distribute and repurpose reports and other documents for internal and external consumption. The key to making these technologies work cost effectively is an ability to electronically capture and process information from any legacy ap plicatio n—with no change to those applications. Intelligent electronic information delivery solutions can only meet

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Strategic Business Imperative to a Dynamic and Responsive Delivery Solution

By Jeff Mills, EMEA Managing Director, Xenos

current and dynam ically changing end-user evaluate whether the solution will enable requirements with an architecture that sits on | personalised access to segments of reports top of the existing IT infrastructure and is based on pre-specified security rights of non-disruptive to the existing environment. end-users. Be aware that availability of a W ith this architectural integration the centralised repository for all reports and internal political and budgetary obstacles to documents will facilitate this capability while adoption are significantly reduced. also stream lining the audit processes The good news is that such technology required in this era of increasing corporate exists today. The bad news is that not all governance regulations.

O f equal importance is ease of use in offerings are equally adept at fully meeting the challenge. Some solutions, for example, terms of administrative tools and end-user can only address a single specific interfaces. End-user satisfaction and solution proprietary output protocol such as PCL or adoption will also depend on the visual AFP. Others may support a broader range of fidelity of presentations, language locali­ protocols but may not be able to support sation, and the ability to consolidate the modern structured data formats such as access of corporate information assets in XML. Still others m ay enable secured real time.

W hat a modern intelligent electronic delivery over intranets but not extranets, or via email but not via fax. And others may information delivery solution should offer is not allow data outputs to be transformed to a rules-based engine that enables users to protocols, such as EDI or EDIFACT and control how information is captured, intelligently routed to trading partners and identified, transformed, processed, indexed, | delivered, stored, accessed, and audited. In vendors. addition, it should be able to do all of these Choose Carefully things in real time to ensure that end-users The objective of an intelligent electronic have instant access to the current information delivery solution is to meet new information they need to complete whatever and evolving market demands for internal business task is at hand. and external access to all kinds of The business world has changed. inform ation, from row and data style Com panies can not solve new problems with presentations to formatted summary reports, outdated technologies. Information is power, and from PDF formatted customer statements but only if it is accessible and current. And, to XML structured vendor invoices. This goal the only w ay to keep it current is by can be fulfilled with the right technology, processing it and delivering it electronically and the process of identifying this and in real time. technology should not be taken lightly. After W hat it comes down to is this:all, electronic information distribution can slash internal operational costs, while also "Intelligent Electronic opening new channels to customers, Information Delivery is no partners, and vendors that can significantly and positively impact profitability and top longer a choice—it's an line revenue. imperative driven by the W hen making a technology selection, consider the number of applications in your expectations of customers, environment and their existing protocols, the the demands of partners volume of reports, the number of end-users, J the types of delivery channels and the and vendors, and the protocols required for supporting them, and ongoing need to minimise whether integration with private portals will operational costs." be required for customer access. Also Visit our Directory on www.green-sheet.net/directory

Jeff Mills has more than 20 years' experience in the document industry and a firm background in software application development.

Joining Xenos in 1998 as a Technical Project Manager, Jeff was promoted to the role of EMEA Technical PreSales/IT Manager in 2002, before being appointed as EMEA Managing Director in November 2004. Based at the EMEA head-office in London he is responsible for implementing the strategic plan for the company.

Within the first year as Managing Director Jeff had increased Xenos software sales in the UK and Europe and opened a sub-office in Paris, France. He has also recruited a marketing and PR team to position Xenos as the industry's market and thought leader. Prior to Xenos, Jeff held positions at Southern Water PLC and print fulfilment bureau Hays Paperstream (now Hays DT) where he played a major part in the engineering of a billing machine that could be tailored for use by emerging telecommunications companies.

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C O M P L IA N C E

ECM: Not just compliance

By Ben Richmond, M anaging Director o f The Content Group Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technologies will underpin the compliance strategy of every organisation, from financial services through to public sector. But organi­ sations should beware the lure of a compliance-only route. ECM can deliver a wide range of benefits from improved productivity and cost reduction to competitive advantage. A blinkered, compliance centric ECM implementation will significantly reduce an organisation's chances of attaining longer term business advantage, maintains Ben Richmond, M anaging Director, The Content Group.

The escalation in compliance requirements, from FSA regulations and the Data Protection Act to the Freedom of Information Act, poses significant challenges for organisations around the globe but it has been an undoubted boon for many vendors of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technology.

From scanning and workflow to web content and email management, organi­ sations now perceive ECM technologies as an obvious means of solving all their compliance problems, addressing not only market specific legislation and regulation but also issues such as the Employment Act 2002.

Yet there is an inherent danger in accepting the packaged 'com pliance' solutions increasingly being offered by bandwagon hopping vendors. Every vendor in the ECM space, from enterprise software or solutions to point products, has a 'compliance' solution. But just how much value are these packages offering?

Fundamentally, compliance is not the end goal. Instead, the end goal has to be to address compliance requirements while implementing and supporting processes that will also improve efficiency. And it is these processes which are unique to every organi­ sation; individual requirements that packaged solutions will not be able to address. Indeed, it is becoming patently evident that those organisations focusing purely on compliance will actually increase the complexity of their internal processes, adding business cost.

Missing the Point The primary question every compliance focused organisation must ask is: just how flexible are these packaged offerings? Can they evolve beyond pure compliance requirements to address pressing business issues, from streamlining sales and procurement processes to improving compet­ C O M P L IA N C E

itiveness through enhanced provision of information to clients?

If not, organisations are fundamentally missing the point of ECM. Yes, it will play a key role in achieving compliance to a raft of current and future legislative requirements.

But if organisations are to achieve both a viable cost base and access to information that will transform customer relationships and, hence, competitiveness in an overcrowded marketplace, they need to leverage that ECM investment in full.

Indeed, in the longer term it will be these same ECM technologies that will provide a platform for the exploitation of business critical intellectual capital. But all of these benefits can only be achieved if organisations are aware of the bigger picture when they make the initial compliance focused investment.

And, to be fair, given the penalties for non-compliance, some organisations may be tempted to opt for 'compliance in a box' simply to address an immediate requirement.

But, while valid, such a strategy is no excuse for investing in technology that cannot scale or extend in the future to deliver benefits beyond the initial requirement.

For those organisations that can achieve compliance within a scalable framework the long-term benefits will be significant.

Market Confusion One of the main challenges facing organi­ sations keen to achieve compliance within a technology framework that will enable longer-term benefits is the multiplicity of technologies that contribute to the ECM marketplace.

While many organisations may not be in a position to implement a fully integrated, enterprise-wide ECM solution, there is no reason why best-in-class, 'point-of-need' solutions, from document scanning to workflow, cannot be implemented in phases across a business to create an enterprise­ wide solution in the longer term.

Flowever, this will only be achieved if the technology meets three key criteria: it is invested in and implemented with the end goal of ECM in mind; it is tightly integrated into the existing technology infrastructure such as ERP and CRM applications - to provide easy, appropriate information retrieval, and it is scalable to support both larger user populations and increasing business requirements. And, while the introduction of the likes of .NET products undoubtedly eases the process of meshing

together best in class products, it is not a guarantee: product choices need to be made very carefully to ensure technology blind alleys are avoided.

Quantifiable ROI However, ECM is not just about cost or efficiency savings; in order to attain maximum value, companies need to fully embrace not just the power and flexibility of ECM technologies, but critically also the cultural and process changes that truly underpin a change in working practices. How many companies have, for example, invested in document scanning and workflow technologies to drive paper from the business, only to baulk at the final hurdle: shredding documentation? By failing to take that final leap of faith they are massively undermining the financial benefit that ECM can deliver, and unfortunately resigning the company to old, and now outdated ways of doing business.

And this, ag a in , is where a strong provider choice is key. ECM can deliver immediate benefits in enhanced productivity and cost reduction and, as a result, many companies left to their own devices, fail to really push the solution to attain even greater value. To maximise the ECM ROI requires the provider to guide, steer and mentor organi­ sations into making sure that appropriate follow-through is ensured.

In addition, the provider should be revisiting users regularly after the technology implementation is complete to ensure that the solution is delivering what they expect it to deliver; are benefits being achieved and measured; are those benefits being measured really the key benefits the company should be measuring? It is considerations such as these that ultimately drive improved information

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retrieval and authorisation processes that are critical to the long-term success of an ECM project and ultimately, can deliver significant competitive advantage.

Beyond Compliance With a raft of deadlines upon organi­ sations from financial services to the public sector, a significant number of current investments are undoubtedly compliance focused. And ECM solutions will play a major role in attaining compliance both today and to future legislative requirements. However, regarding ECM technologies only within a compliance perspective can be a major

mistake that will potentially add cost and complexity to the business. With the right approach it is straightforward to implement technologies that address compliance requirements while implementing and supporting processes that will also improve efficiency.

Compliance is not just about accounta­ bility and audit trails, it is about streamlining processes to reduce the cost of compliance.

Too many organisations, particularly in the public sector, are falling into the trap of compliance-centric ECM implementations and, as a result, will struggle to meet other

key efficiency and cost savings performance targets that can easily be delivered via the right ECM solution.

It will be those organisations that can consider the broader implications of an ECM investment that will reap the benefits of improved productivity, lower costs and maximised intellectual property once the compliance issues have been addressed.

Contact: The Content Group, Content House, St James's Place, Cranleigh, Surrey GU6 8RP Tel: 01483 275588 Fax: 01483 273855 E-mail: info@thecontentgroup. co. uk Web: www.thecontentgroup.co.uk

Records Management Reduces Risk

By David V. Bowen, Audata Limited

Records are paper or digital documents or forms that provide evidence of the activities of organisations and individuals. They are created during normal business activities, and are maintained to comply with regulations and to support operations.

Capturing, maintaining and keeping records mean that essential information is available to safeguard the organisation's interests.

What is Records Management?

Organisations, public and private, create and capture records in the course of their routine activities. Legislation, industry standards or contractual terms require them to keep those records for defined periods.

Additionally, organisations may choose to keep records because the information they contain is useful to the operations of the enterprise.

Regardless of the reason they are kept, quick and accurate access to the information in records is critical to the organisation's success. Workers must be able to find the right record at the right time. If your staff cannot find the records they need, it will cost you time and money, and you may be in

breach of legal or contractual obligations.

While there is a cost in storing records, whether on paper or on computer media, the greater cost is almost always the cost of finding the records you need. The more records you have stored, the more you have to search through to find what you need.

Records Management is the skill to: ★ Store the records you need or are required ★

to have Destroy the documents and records which

★

you do not need to store Know where to file your documents and

★

records Know how to find your documents and

★

records when you need them Manage the access controls so sensitive information is only accessible to authorised people

What are the Risks?

The main risks from poor (or no) records management are: ★ Staff time wasted searching for lost or ★

mislaid documents Frustration and ill feeling (blame for losing

★

Failure to comply with laws, regulations or

★

contractual requirements Failure to comply with standards

★ ★

Poor quality and poor audit trails Inability to prove what you did or what you agreed

All of these risks lead to increased cost, delays, and anxiety among your staff. They may lead to loss of customer good-will, litigation, loss of product or process quality, and loss of business.

What are the benefits?

Good records management is the foundation of any storage strategy. Until you know what you should be storing, and what you do not need to store, you cannot develop a cost-effective storage strategy. Good records management is also the foundation of storage deployment. Every worker must know where to put documents and records and how to find them again.

These simple (but rarely achieved) principles are required for normal business, and for Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel 2, G*P, and most other quality regulations.

the documents)

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Email: A Best Practice Approach to Compliance and Information Management Glenn Perachio, European Sales Director at ZANTAZ, reviews the risks associated with business use of email and examines how organisations can adopt a bestpractice framework to manage risk and meet regulatory requirements ★

insecurely, when a user nears his limit.

Important emails may not be received if a users' mailbox is already full.

Regulatory Requirements

Email is fundamental to internal and external communication for many organi­ sations, with 87% of UK businesses highly dependent on electronic information.

The nature and sheer volume of information that is shared and stored on email today makes email management critical to IT and corporate governance.

To address the risk posed by email dependence, IT m anagers and board directors should view their email management responsibilities under three headings: ★ Operational Issues ★ Regulatory Requirements ★ Litigation Risk.

The key questions any organisation must ask (especially in the light of the current political email drama) are: once archived, what do you do with the information you have captured, and how can you prepare an organisation for disclosure requests?

Operational Issues

These risks not only pose operational disadvantages, but also constitute a severe weakness from a regulatory viewpoint.

Regulatory requirements in respect of email and information management are complex and fast changing. But while methods of compliance remain uncertain, penalties for failure are crystal clear making email management vital.

Every country in the world has legislation that governs organisations' retention, retrieval and disposal of information. Much of this pre-dates the Internet but requires that organisations retain all of their records for a specified period of time, which by default includes email. Many laws, for example the European Data Protection Directive, also require organisations to delete data when it is no longer needed for the specific purpose it was collected.

Clearly, allowing individual users to determine when to delete or how to archive their own email records could place a company in breech of all of these requirements. Equally, they will struggle to respond to requests for information which legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act requires companies to provide within a specific period of time.

In addition to data protection legislation, which applies to all organisations, most companies are also subject to sector-specific legislation. For example, the financial services industry already has to demonstrate due diligence in respect of anti-money laundering regulations and 'know your customer' audit trails, and MiFID legislation will increase record keeping requirements even further.

The persistent growth in email volume, and the decentralisation of business communication and record keeping, poses a great operational challenge.

Communication today is rarely filtered through a secretarial process where all correspondence would be reviewed, approved and stored appropriately. Instead, emails are often written and despatched without revision or formal review but, no matter how brief, each one is a corporate record and should be treated as such.

This means that all emails need to be archived securely, posing an electronic storage challenge that many organisations try to address by imposing mailbox sizes on users. Giving users the responsibility to delete J Litigation Risk or archive their own emails in this way carries While a demonstrated failure to meet two key dangers: compliance requirements may be ★ Critical data may be deleted, or archived | embarrassing and commercially damaging

J

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for any organisation, the potential impact of an inability to access relevant emails in respect of a law case can be catastrophic.

Law courts increasingly recognise the evidential importance of email and are likely, where litigants fail to produce relevant email evidence within usually very short time scales, to authorise opposition lawyers to investigate the email archive themselves. Not only could this expose confidential information to unfriendly parties, it could also give them new and unexpected perspectives on the issues they are pursuing.

Conclusion: Best-practice Guidance The importance of email management is not in doubt, but organisations face a complex challenge in determining how best to approach it. The requirements are clear they need to: ★ Minimise data storage requirements and costs; and ★ Eliminate multiple, user-defined data retention policies.

End-to-end email management, retention, maintenance and archiving solutions enable organisations to achieve this, but the market is full of competing products which appear to do this and companies are left without clear guidance on how to choose between them.

None of these solutions can deliver automatic regulatory compliance, but they can help organisations to position themselves to do so. A s a code of practice, ISO 17799 recommends that organisations select controls on the basis of risk assessment and that investment in technology should contribute directly to achieving those controls.

From the perspective of multiple, sometimes conflicting regulatory compliance requirements, any organisation that implements international best-practice recommendations such as those laid out under ISO 17799, ISO 1549, BIP 0008 and MoReq, can be confident that it has taken the most appropriate action to meet its legal obligations.

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"All is Not Lost" The Changing Face of Disaster Recovery

A N E W

WORLD

OF

by Brian Biles

INTELLIGENT

Co-Founder and Vice President of Product Management for Data Domain

SCANNING

j time in decades, it presents a viable Disaster recovery and remote office alternative to tape backup, offering replication are increasingly becoming top-ofsuperior price-performance and far mind issues for IT professionals. It is ironic j more responsive disaster recovery that tape, the most operationally capabilities. unpredictable and error-prone media for Capacity Optimised Storage is backup and recovery, over time has become enabled by deduplication technology, the primary media deployed in enterprise which massively reduces data (by backup and disaster recovery implemen­ more than 20x) down to its smallest tations. The Gartner Group estimates that one-in-ten recovery images on tape is actually possible size, into an amount of bytes that can be easily transferred over the unrecoverable. A ten percent failure rate is network to a disk system in the by far the worst operational dependency in disaster recovery site, and readily be enterprise IT. Yet, the majority of enterprises retrieved should the need arise. rely on tape as a "safeguard" for their most C apacity Optimised Storage is precious corporate assets.

Just as tape is not inherently reliable as a ideally suited for disaster recovery storage media, using third party trucking applications. By reducing data deduplication enables services to transport tapes back and forth is not volume, an inherently reliable process. Might not the efficient bandwidth utilisation for same flood, power outage or severe weather automatic W A N vaulting of backup that takes down your data centre also make it data to disaster recovery sites. As the difficult for a truck to deliver tapes to the same term implies, "W AN vaulting" delivers cost-effective offsite storage capacity data centre?

IT people are generally pretty intelligent, so similar to the physical "vault" where how did this ostrich-style approach to disaster backup tapes are stored, but with recovery become the industry standard? Well, immediate accessibility via the tape is cheap and disasters don't happen every network.

By vaulting backup data across day. Juxtaposed against IT budget and staffing constraints, tape enabled companies to cost wide area networks, the operational effectively deploy some measure of disaster inefficiencies and risks associated recovery, and to feel some measure of comfort that, in the event of a disaster, the data that solved easily and effectively, at the was the lifeblood of their organisation still absolute minimum W A N cost. The existed and was to some degree recoverable. local tape autoloader can simply be How long to recovery? Hopefully, not too long replaced with capacity optimised diskbased storage to provide local (fingers crossed).

Major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, recoverability that is highly reliable. worldwide terrorism, and new laws enacted Backups can be replicated to a central specifying data retention and retrieval policies hub site or sites, where a larger for litigation purposes are making C FO s and system can store the replica backup C E O s (not just IT guys!) wake up to the stark data for several remote offices. Once realities associated with their companies' the data has been written at the hub, it can then be moved to physical tape disaster recovery capabilities. as required for archiving.

Capacity Optimised Storage A variety of topologies are in fact A cost-effective, automated, reliable very easy to design and deploy, once alternative for better backup and disaster backup data is reduced via dedupli­ recovery Capacity Optimised Storage (CO S) is cation and compression technologies an emerging category of disk-based backup for W A N vaulting. Disk-based backup and recovery storage solutions that directly appliances can then replace the tapes addresses the data volume challenge - and the and trucks. disaster recovery challenge as well. For the first Visit www.datadomain.com

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InoTec introduce a new world in paper scanning for the United Kingdom with Inotec UK Limited.

Flexibility and high quality are trade marks of the SCAMAX* range of papers scan­ ners. Designed to withstand a range of challenges unlike any other they are built without compromise to run 24-hours a day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks of the year.

Incorporating Intelligent Automatic Colour Recognition (IACR) the new range of Scamax* high production scanners open up a whole New World of possibilities when scanning colour documents.

With its unique failsafe process of automatically differentiating between colour and bitonal images, scanning jobs can be streamlined by simplifying the process. The outcome of such technology saves time and money by delivering scanning jobs more efficiently than ever before.

•4 /no Tec

Paper Scanning Systems

See the IACR enabled Scamax' range of scanners at the Inotec UK launch day on the 10th of October in Wokingham and on the 12th of October 2006 in Manchester.

O r g a a is a t io n s s y s t a m e

Contact Sharon Chalmers at Inotec UK Limited and book your place. schalmers @inotecuk.co.uk Tel +44 (0) 20 8255 2011 Fax +44 (0) 20 8255 2093 www.inotecuk.co.uk

Standards of Compliance

By Stephen Watson Hewlett Packard StorageW orks, UK & Ireland

In November 2 005 two new ISO standards were announced, the ISO 2700 security standard and the ISO 2000 IT service standard. These voluntary, but well accepted, standards offer government approved guidelines for ensuring business service provision and infrastructure security compliance.

Before then, compliance issues had simply been dropped in the lap of UK commerce with little or no advice on how to address them. Businesses were unsure about many key aspects of compliance. For example, what action should they be taking to comply with industry regulations? Which regulations applied to their specific market? And if they implemented them, would these regulations stay constant or change tomorrow? As a consequence they were tackled in a very haphazard w ay and the process for becoming compliant was intensely manual, repetitive and time consuming.

ISO standards have offered a clearer path forward. They enable UK businesses to look at their current situations and compare them with what's required. They prevent duplication of effort by filling gaps with solutions that have already been put in place.

At last, it seems that UK businesses can abandon the 'finger in the air' approach and understand the requirements that will assure compliance.

Perhaps the 'finger in the air' approach has been abandoned simply because there is less wind now. The turbulent early years of compliance seem to have given w ay to a greater understanding. Industry standards are being set and businesses are recognising the necessity but a compliance burden still remains. It needs to become easier to comply and the spend had to end, or at least begin to make sense.

When compliance worries first filtered through from the US, the first reactions were shock, fear and amazement - "I have no idea how to do this..." were the panicked words of anxious IT managers across the country. Their immediate worry was that they had to cover

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their businesses from every angle, or risk being left open to legal prosecution.

Realisation was dawning that if they had to present information in a court of law it would be a struggle. Data was scattered, buried and not readily retrievable. A s time has gone by and not caught out any high-profile UK businesses, fear has died down. However, this could flare up again if, or when, the first big compliance court case comes along.

Back to basics W hat was needed was a simple system that could store data and ensure it was tamperproof. At the same time data had to be readily retrievable, and different tiers of data importance had to be definable. The main requirement was to prove the integrity of data, ideally in a cost-effective way, but without standards companies could not be safe in the knowledge that they had done enough and spent wisely.

A UK safety testing company provides a striking illustration of how a company can be so uncertain about compliance issues that it leaves everything to chance. The company runs diagnostic security tests on other companies' IT systems, then stores the results.

However, every three years it loses all the results data, as the business has no archive capability, no w ay of retrieving old data and no way of proving that tests were ever run. Its attitude is that 'no-one has ever asked for it and if they do, we'll think about it then' when the real question should be 'how late is too late?'. This company hasn't been caught out - yet.

It is only a question of time before a company with similar attitudes is caught out in the UK. When this happens, it will be a wake-up call to non-compliant companies who might then react with kneejerk spend.

But surely, sensible prevention through compliance and standards is better than cure?

A n d, if compliance drives improvement, what have companies got to lose? With standards to adhere to, they can be secure in the knowledge that they will not have to undo any processes put in place just<

because legislation changes.

A couple of forward-thinking companies Shell and C able and W ireless - run 'compliance workshops' for affected staff.

This promulgates an understanding throughout the business of the need to comply as well as thinking about compliance as part of the everyday fabric of commercial life.

HP's priority internally has been to apply a consistent methodology to assed compliance processes and predicts that this continuous approach will reduce its IT audit scope by 50% in 2006.

Now that legislation is standardised for the UK, compliance is clearer, cheaper and there is technology available to answer its demands. For the future however, in this global workplace, it is essential that overseas partners, suppliers and distributors also comply.

Looking back to the US, in many larger enterprises, 'risk' board members are now compulsory, showing how intrinsic an awareness of compliance has become there.

And, as a result of the integration between companies in the UK and their US counterparts and partners, the transition of compliance into the fabric of UK business processes seems inevitable.

I feel that compliance processes will become transparent, like so many other things we take for granted now that would have been too manual and time consuming in the past. Firewalls are a good example of this integration. A short time ago employees had to go out of their way to apply and configure firewalls and make themselves personally responsible for a virus gaining entry to a company system. Now that firewalls come in­ build for business and home-use PCs, users never have to think about them at all. They just work.

W e will reach that point with compliance.

It is getting ever closer. While employees will need to stay aware and be mindful of their actions, soon we will be able to rely on technology to take care of our business, and rely on the board to worry about it!

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How many Vendors provide true ECM solutions?

By Trevor Cole Business Development Director - Datum International

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) has finally maturated and become an essential tool for business today which in turn has attracted many IT suppliers to promote themselves as ECM Vendors. Trevor Cole, Business Development Director of Datum International, asks whether so-called ECM vendors are just slick marketers or whether they can actually deliver a complete solution that organisations really need.

For much of the IT industry, ECM has become the new gold rush. At the top end of the market there has been a lot of consoli­ dation with IBM acquiring FileNet, Hummingbird acquiring Red Dot and then being pursued themselves by OpenText.

Spurred on by analysts' predictions of huge growth in the ECM market over the next three years, suppliers with any component of ECM such as Work Flow, Document Management,

Publishing, Web Content and Intranets are now promoting themselves as ECM vendors to revitalise sales of their legacy systems.

The problem for potential customers is how many of these ECM vendors can truly claim to meet all of the requirements and not just satisfy one specific element, or service the ECM model by bolting together a range of different solutions.

Many of the current crop of mid market ECM solutions are falling way short of the mark and are failing to deliver the functionality and integration that is required to improve business content management and company administration. Microsoft have themselves recently thrown their hat into the ring as an ECM player with a combination of modules, using MS SharePoint as the foundation; disguised as a cheap option this solution could end up costing much more than anticipated with the potential amount of specialist consultancy required. Microsoft's marketing muscle however will educate the market and open opportunities for other ECM vendors.

When properly implemented to fit in with your company's business needs and processes, an ECM system should enable you to

effectively manage and address every aspect of content/document management; storing, indexing, classifying and cataloguing information from all sources including electronic documents, scanned documents, web forms, email and back office business applications. ECM should include workflow effectively integrating information content with business processes.

With the vast increase in the generation of email traffic, documentation, electronic content and the continued introduction of new regulations a fully integrated ECM solution has become an invaluable tool for every organi­ sation to orderly maintain and access information. The range of solutions has now made this technology available and affordable to companies of all sizes.

The best advice is to ignore the label on the product and the new ECM acronym and talk to a supplier that will listen to your individual business needs. Look beyond the marketing hype and find a solution that works for you today by addressing individual core business issues, and allow you to roll out the solution to each area of your business.

Visit: datumconsulting.com

SpeedScan- A New Mid-Point Microfilm Scanner from SunRise SpeedScan - The affordable scanner for use in any environment.

In keeping with its tradition since 1991, Sunrise im aging continues to lead the m icrofilm scanner industry by incorporating the latest that technology has to offer in its new fam ily of products. Follow ing in the footsteps of the S3000 RapidScan, the New SpeedScan range delivers high-speed production film conversion along with point of use on-dem and scanning more com petitively than ever before. Whether a single format or multi format user, every business will benefit from the high Return on Investment (ROI) the new SpeedScan offers.

Top Ten Reasons to Invest in a SpeedScan • A Scalable Solution

• Affordable Production Scanning

• Best ROI

• Optional 3 in 1 Design

• Dual Stream Output

• True DPI Output

• 12-bit Greyscale

• Low Total Cost of Ownership

• Ease of Use

• Local Support Infrastucture

The SpeedSean system incorporates the latest in com puting hardware and proprietary ScanFlo film scanning software. Designed to enhance and simplify the process of converting film into electronic images helping make storage and distribution of valuable data more efficient and economical than ever before.

SunRise

Come and see the new SpeedScan at its launch on the 10th or 12th October 2006.

Contact Sharon Chalmers schalmers@sunriseimaging.co.uk

SunRise Imaging (EMEA) Ltd. Tel: + 4 4 (0) 20.8255.2011 • Fax: + 4 4 (0) 20.8255.2093

www.sunriseimaging.co.uk

16

Challenges Facing the Public Sector - An Infrastructure for 21st Century C

By Cheryl McKinnon Director, Industry and Solutions Marketing, Hum mingbird Ltd

Governmental organisations worldwide are facing several challenges as adminis­ trative, executive and judicial bodies continue to evolve into an electronic work environment.

Pushed by paperworkreduction mandates, requirements to handle increased workloads with fewer personnel and the rapid adoption of electronic communication channels by taxpayers and citizens, governments are often on the forefront of adopting new approaches to electronic information management.

Many agencies worldwide are stepping back and looking at the w ay in which electronic transactions, documents and records are being captured, m anaged, secured and preserved.

Three Big Trends Three significant trends are converging and are causing public-sector organisations to look carefully at their information management infrastructure: a widely anticipated knowledge worker turnover due to retirements; an acceleration of egovernment initiatives; and a move toward an enterprise architecture are the key issues facing government at all levels and across jurisdictions. These three pressures are causing program owners, as well as IT and IM management, to assess how agencies need to be equipped to manage risk, achieve operational efficiencies and build an infrastructure that can handle the accelerating shift into an electronic workplace.

Several studies have been done over the last few years that look at the demographics of government knowledge workers. A recurring theme of a generational shift is common among these analyses: At the highest risk, as the wave of retirements hits over the next decade, is the loss of senior project and technical managers.

Organisations that have recognised this impending turnover are asking questions about the preservation of institutional memory and the recordkeeping practices which must form the foundation of a

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knowledge retention, management and the collection, management and preservation dissemination programme. Understanding of of this new form of communication and how things get done...the informal chains of correspondence. command... an understanding of how a Government departments must ensure that process has evolved...the recognition of the internal processes that were developed in human sources of knowledge on particular J order to manage the flow of paper-based subject matters: this is corporate memory that correspondence, contracts or application is often ignored and is rarely communicated submissions can be applied to the management of the same information when it through formal programmes.

The electronic knowledge assets that arrives in electronic format. Management of reside in email repositories, on users' email information requests needs to be desktops and on network servers are often viewed in the context of its subject matter and poorly captured during periods of staff business and historical importance, not turnover or agency reorganisation. Many managed based on arbitrary storage government departments still have not capacity rules imposed by IT administrators. established consistent programmes for the A shift in how electronic correspondence and capture, management and disposition of other forms of public communication are email and other forms of electronic communi­ perceived needs to occur in many agencies, cation. The ability to separate junk, spam and as the electronic work environment overtakes duplicates from items having long-term the traditional paper processes. business, legal or historical value to the Legislation is also pushing the public organisation is critical in order to preserve sector to move into an electronic information the knowledge contained in the data beyond dissemination model. Governments have been facing transparency and openness the tenure of its creator.

Agencies that will successfully ride out the issues for decades. While private sector has impending retirement wave are those who only recently been obligated to manage have recognised the risk of not capturing the disclosures under new legislation such as processes and information. Once the risk has Sarbanes-Oxley, most Western jurisdictions been identified and articulated, technology have had some form of Freedom of can be leveraged to build structured Information legislation for years. Electronic workflows and implement electronic records, including email, are subject to these document/record/email capture processes in laws within the parameters of specific order to protect the ongoing business of exemption or exclusion clauses. As more information is created, stored and transmitted government. electronically, management and indexing Managing the Electronic Age systems are essential to be able to conform to E-government, or government on-line these access laws. The establishment of an initiatives have been underway for several information management infrastructure in years. Central and local government organi­ which these electronic records can be sations have been offering an increasing captured, managed and screened for range of services to businesses and residents personal or sensitive information is critical to through W eb sites and citizen portals. ensuring appropriate compliance.

Electronic communication between citizen Interestingly, the UK government is among and government is also increasing: the ability the last countries to adopt a comprehensive to submit applications, forms or to ask routine Freedom of Information mandate, with the questions through email. The rapid adoption law only coming into full force in 2005. Like of email for both personal and business use many other such laws, the UK government by constituents is pushing government has established specific turnaround times in departments to review their approaches to which a response to the information request Visit our Directory on www.green-sheet.net/directory

Government

must be given —in this case, within 20 days.

The new Government IT strategy, Transformational Government, published on j the 2 November 2005, looks to embed a vision, which involves "better use of technology to deliver public services and | policy outcomes that have an impact on citizens' daily lives". However, this is part of a wider strategy designed to focus on IT as the means to further deliver citizen accessi­ bility and choice, joining up and sharing j services to achieve efficiency.

Technology is a critical component of j building an information management j infrastructure to assist with the new compliance mandate. The volume of electronic record collection and creation makes manual processes and search impractical and a risk area if the response I deadline is to be met.

to have the same level of access to corporate records repositories and intranets/portals as the deskbound colleague. The ability to search for the correct versions of forms, templates and be able to instantly submit field reports and other objects (such as digital photographs) to a centralized, easily accessed repository is a fundamental requirement when building an effective mobile platform. Being notified of new workflow tasks, of updates to key documents, and the ability to view data collected by peers across geographic districts are all essential to making full and effective use of wireless systems and smart hand-held devices.

Several jurisdictions are also expanding forms of personal privacy legislation to cover electronic records held by government agencies. For example, the electronic social care records system (ESCR) was created as part of the Department of Health's Security, and other concerns Information for Social Care Initiative.

Another contributing factor to the The new code of practice for Information expansion of e-government initiatives has Management, is intended to govern the been the heightened concern over national I creation, retention, deletion and sharing of security and intelligence gathering. Firstrecords, and control the authentication and responders and field workers need to be able access to information. Implemented in to communicate rapidly as information is October 2005 for all new cases, councils gathered and observations are made. Many have also had to convert the 10-15 million jurisdictions are now investing in a mobile existing paper-based and video and audio framework for knowledge workers who are records to electronic format. The ability to no longer considered deskbound. Hand-held restrict access to particular employees, and electronic devices such as PDAs, smart the ability to mark such records as containing phones and tablets are now replacing laptops sensitive data, are critical requirements of and desktop PCs as the primary information building an information management conduit for inspectors, detectives, emergency infrastructure to help streamline these new services and case workers. Agencies moving compliance mandates. into a more distributed model using more The third pressure facing governments is wireless and mobile technologies need to fully the constant battle to develop operational understand the implications of such a cultural efficiencies in the face of budget and and technical change. If the capture and programme cutbacks. The Gershon efficiency control of electronic communication is a review set a target of savings of £21 billion concern today, consider the issues when even by 2008. Contract management has been more email and messaging devices are in the identified as a process within eProcurement hands of government workers. An assessment that is expected to contribute £ 7 billion in of the information management capacity of savings. Enterprise content and information such technology solutions needs to be made, management provides huge efficiencies and and the system must lend itself to effective ; reduces legal costs by helping with the record capture. creation of contracts, managing the contract Conversely, the mobile field worker needs Visit our Directory on www.green-sheet.net/directory

post-signature, including the process of scheduling and renegotiation. Public sector organisations can also work more collaboratively to take advantage of aggregated spend, as well as measuring supplier performance - qualitatively and quantita­ tively. The further challenge for public sector organisations of reducing risk in contract creation and ensuring compliance with regulations can also be managed electron­ ically.

Government's Advantages Cost efficiencies can be easily realised when an agency can focus on supporting, maintaining and troubleshooting a smaller set of technology products. Having skilled resources with similar technical and business process knowledge in sister agencies allows the government staff to develop a deeper level of in-house expertise as well as reusable templates, customisations, training and change management techniques.

An enterprise approach to technology platforms also allows a government body to negotiate more favourable support and licensing models with system vendors, leveraging license volume and allowing for greater input into product direction when speaking with a unified voice.

Enterprise content management vendors such as Hummingbird recognise that the compliance culture that permeates the commercial sector today has in fact been present in the public sector for years.

Government represents the priorities and interests of the citizens within its borders.

Transparency, privacy protection and information management mandates have been front-and-centre in the government sector for many years. Agencies that move smoothly into an online model of citizen service are those who are now looking at building IM practices into their technology framework. Those organisations will be in the best position to meet the challenges of the retirement wave, the move to electronic services, and will achieve the highest value for the tax dollars spent.

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18

UK companies in Email Chaos A Third of the UK's largest companies admit to em ail chaos Over a third (38%) of large organisations across the UK admit their email management system is in 'complete chaos', according to the findings of a survey released by AIIM on Compliance and it's impact on Information Management. The full results of the survey wi II be available at Documation UK in Olym pia, London on the 18th-19th October.

The survey also found that the same number of end users admitted that their company either had no policy or they didn't know their company's policy when it came to email archiving.

A third of UK organisations do not have any clear plans and procedures for dealing with compliance issues, especially concerning out of date information which poses a number of compliance related risks. Two thirds describe themselves as being in the very early stages of implementing compliance initiatives, with a quarter not having begun to develop any compliance related strategy at all. The survey also showed that over 90% of end users agree that compliance concerns relating to managing electronic information are here to stay and compliance must take a higher precedence in order to ensure consistent practices throughout their organi­ sations.

Companies have a disturbingly narrow view of compliance and what it really means for their organisation. O nly 16% understand that the broader concept relates to information within enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management systems, with over 60% of users failing to acknowledge that email information falls under compliance requirements for enterprise content management. Instead, awareness of what compliance means for their organisation centres around well publicised government regulations and

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legislation, bypassing the fact that compliance extends far beyond regulatory concerns to all company information management processes.

Other key findings from compliance survey include:

the

AIIM

★

Half of the users surveyed admitted that

★

employees do not fully understand how to access current versions of policies and procedures or other critical corporate information. This highlights the deeper issue of training employees to understand and cope with the implications of compliance.

Over two thirds (70%) of organisations

admit that content created by employees who have then left, is not actively reviewed or archived appropriately ★ When it comes to compliance, the weakest

★

link in the information management chain is electronic, not paper, related with nearly 60% of end users feeling that there is no widespread understanding of exactly what electronic records are and how they should be retained.

O nly 27% of organisations archive emails

outside of Outlook in fully searchable and traceable email or document management systems. Some 16% of organisations add to the paper mountain by printing paper copies of important emails for filing. A worrying 7% delete all emails after 3 months and rely on back-up tapes for archive. ★ O nly a third of all the organisations surveyed say that compliance initiatives are driven by the company executives, with the burden of implementing them falling heavily on the IT department in 80% of companies. ^

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IT managers have found a marked increase in the time spent on compliance related activities over the last 18 months with 10% of these declaring that the majority of their time is dedicated to this.

The research was carried out by AIIM from an Industry Watch survey that was conducted during May and June 2006. 223 UK organi­ sations took part - with half of them employing in excess of 1000 employees.

Atle Skjekkeland VP of AIIM Europe commented: "These findings highlight a widely varying and inconsistent understanding of how to deal with sensitive company information, clearly indicating the struggle that companies are facing in mounting systematic policies to meet the compliance challenge. It is clear that in order to deal with the pressures of compliance effectively, one of the key issues that must be faced head on by organisations is the management of electronic information."

C laire Sellick Documation UK Event Director at Reed Exhibitions added: "A broader awareness across all employees is necessary in order to increase the organi­ sation's depth of commitment to compliance with the real cost to the future being the risk of organisations not tackling their ERM issues.

All organisations, whether small or large, must recognise compliance as being part of their daily procedures and provide the necessary training and resources to all staff so that the pressures of compliance can be dealt with thoroughly and effectively."

Contacts: Atle Skjekkeland, VP o f AIIM Europe - Email: askjekkeland@aiim.org Claire Sellick„ Reed Exhibitions - EmaikClaire. sellick@reedexpo.co.uk

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C O M P L IA N C E

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19

PRODUCT NEWS In this section of the m agazine we try to keep our readers up to date with the latest products and developments within the document/information management and storage industry.

If YO U have anything new to announce please contact the editor: tim@green-sheet.net.

Securing the Future of your Data 1

ABREVITY, Breece Hill and QStar announce first Automated Tiered Storage appliance

ATS appliance claims to be the first to Integrate disk and Tape Storage with Data Classification and HSM Software to provide a complete ILM solution In September 2006 ABREVITY, Breece Hill and QStar Technologies announced the first automated tiered storage (ATS) appliance.

The ATS integrates ABREVITY's FileData Classifier software, QStar's Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) software and Breece Hill's iStoRA appliance that includes 3.2 terabytes (TBs) of network attached storage (NAS) and a 10- cartridge LT03 tape autoloader. The combined solution offers the benefits of content-aware data classification, automated data movement with HSM file stubbing and genealogy tracking, disk to disk N A S and archive tape all in a single box.

"All of the storage industry surveys show that Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), powered by the need for Data Classification, is the primary budget priority for enterprises of every size this year," says Eric Madison, ABREVITY's director of marketing, "but no integrated solution has been available until now. The ATS Appliance provides IT profes­ sionals with an automated, tiered storage solution that can be deployed in one of two scenarios. First, as a Tier O ne storage solution with automated classification and archiving, focused at smaller firms or the remote office of a larger enterprise. Second, the ATS can be deployed as a Tier Two (NAS) and Tier Three (tape) classification and archiving solution for the enterprise."

Experts agree that, in most organisations, over 50% of the*files residing on expensive primary storage may be candidates for movement to lower cost tier two or even tier three archives. Going far beyond basic data classification solutions that only classify on file system metadata—such as file dates and types—the Automated Tiered Storage Appliance is the first to offer granular file path metadata and in-file content extraction, coupled with custom file tagging for classifi­ cation. It is also the first to offer multi-tier file tracking coupled with file movement from primary storage to both network attached secondary storage and archive tape, as well

as heterogeneous file stubbing.

"What's really groundbreaking about the ATS," says Jim Wheeler, director of marketing for Qstar Technologies, "is that a shortcut is left on both prim ary and secondary storage for files moved to tape in the unit. Users can simple click on that shortcut and the software will load the proper tape and retrieve that file. Integrating the Q Star HSM software with ABREVITY's FileData Classifier into the Breece Hill iStoRA allows this unique feature."

Users can also search for files using the ABREVITY FileData Classifier software and set up scheduled automated policies for system scanning, metadata extraction, file tagging, de-duplication, report creation and file movement. The ATS ships with a dual Xeon processor, 3.2 TBs of RAID 5 disk, Windows 2003 Server (NAS) and an LT03 tape drive with a 10-cartridge autoloader.

Integrated is ABREVITY's v2.7 FileData Classifier and QStar's HSM software with single console operation. Starting at $49,875, the integrated ATS appliance is available through Atria Data Systems and other select solution providers.

'The combined features of Abrevity and Q Star strengthen the management capabilities of tiered, end-to-end data storage," says Tony Mercado, Director at Breece Hill. "Breece Hill's iStoRA appliance

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provides the ideal platform for this integrated ILM solution. By migrating data from primary to secondary storage, automatically within the same enclosure, we can further reduce the administrative costs and media outlays that have been prohibitive with other ILM solutions. In addition, companies get the best in application performance and data availability."

"The days of simply purchasing more storage as data expands are gone forever," said Heidi Biggar, Senior Technical Editor, Enterprise Strategy Group. "A tiered-storage approach is being mandated by most organi­ sations in order to achieve rational ILM. However, because of the complexities involved, most enterprises are struggling with the logistics of implementing a compre­ hensive ILM strategy. The introduction of an appliance, such as the ATS, addresses the problem in a very manageable and rational way."

Contacts: Eric Madison, ABREVITY Tel: (408) 996 0111 Email: eric@abrevity.com Jim Wheeler, QStar Technologies Tel: (408) 253 9130 Email: jwheeler@qstar.com Stacy Kamigaki, Breece Hill Tel: (303) 664 8251 Email: skamigaki@breecehill.com

20

Kofax Announces the Document Scan Server Kofax's solution provides tools to scan-enable enterprise business applications Kofax is launching the Kofax Document Scan Server. With the introduction of this solution, organisations can now add scanning capabilities to any enterprise business application without the need for additional software or disruption of their current business process.

The Kofax Document Scan Server was created to address the growing need for organisations to digitally capture documents at the point of entry into their business process. Previously, a solution of this kind required specialised software and drivers to be installed on each computer. This method commonly leads to increased administrative costs because IT staff must set up adminis­ trative rights, train workers on the new software application and perform timely remote updates and troubleshooting.

"With the integration of this completely unique solution, a company can now scanenable any existing application without an

increase in IT administrative costs or the need to add additional pieces of software to its CPU," says Anthony Macciola, vice president of product management at Kofax. "We are excited to bring this type of innovative technology to the market because we are the first in the industry to make scanning a service that IT is comfortable using. We believe that ROI will be seen much faster as the Document Scan Server reduces deployment, support and training costs across the board with minimal disruption to the existing IT environment."

The Kofax Document Scan Server offers the following three major features: A Software Development Kit (SDK), a simple appliance and a Management Console. The Software Development Kit leverages Services Oriented Architecture (SO A ) to allow a developer to integrate scanning into an existing or new application no matter the operating system or programming language.

This services-based document integration provides a tighter integration of scanning to a core application. In addition, adding scanning capabilities to an existing application is less disruptive to a user's existing workflow and allows for a more efficient and effective business processes.

The Kofax Document Scan Server is an appliance that includes a USB port for scanner connectivity and an Ethernet port that connects the scanner to a network. Users only need to plug the scanner into the USB port in the Document Scan Server appliance and plug the Scan Server appliance into the LAN. Because this is a hardware-based approach to scanner connectivity, it is also more secure

as administrator rights are not needed on the PC to install drivers or document capture applications.

The Kofax Document Scan Server's Management Console is a Windows-based application that offers administrators the ability to remotely access the functionality of any Document Scan Server that is connected to the network (LAN or W AN) that is used for network discovery, configuration, and management. Through this centralised console, administrators can configure multiple Document Scan Server appliances and can push out firmware updates and new drivers to keep them up to date. Plus, new users and user profiles can be set up and shared with other Scan Servers on the network. The Management Console can also remotely diagnose and grant access to user statistics and logs to proactively manage capture hardware.

Grouped together, these components make the Kofax Document Scan Server a powerful yet flexible solution where just about any application is able to drive a document scanner and virtually every technology platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, Thin Clients, etc.) can connect to one. With Document Scan Server, developers and integrators can now provide Enterprises with a solution that can be deployed on a large scale basis and is in accordance with existing IT policies.

The Document Scan Server can also be used with Kofax's Ascent platform to expand document imaging deployments to distributed locations to optimize business processes or satisfy compliance requirements easily without large increases in IT spending.

New PresideCMS attracts visionary customers The focus is on affordability, scalability and ease of use of new content management system Newly-launched content management system, PresideCMS - which combines afford­ ability, scalability and ease of use - has already signed up visionary customers, including The College of Optometrists, who are focusing on its innovative functionality and features for managing Web content.

Designed for websites, intranets and extranets, PresideCM S is available in Professional and Enterprise versions to suit SMEs and larger organisations respectively.

Alex Skinner, Preside's Managing Director, said: "When we designed PresideCMS we wanted to enable departmental content producers to take ownership of creating, m anaging and maintaining their own content, while ensuring organisational P R O D U C T NEW S

control. Whether they are managing online content internally or using external agencies, Preside CM S enables them to overcome the barriers that have prevented easy and costeffective management and publication of content."

Key features of PresideCMS include: ★ Multiplatform .NET and J2EE support ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Linux and Windows support Microsoft Word integration Easy management of sections and pages within a website User-friendly editing interface and administration Customisable multi-level workflow capabilities

The College of Optometrists is one customer that has had the vision to commit to PresideCMS for the content management of its new website, www.collegeoptometrists.org. "PresideCMS allows us to focus on how we structure and publish content for our various audiences, enabling visitors to navigate for information easily on our website," said James Samarasinghe, IT M anager, The College of Optometrists.

"Using PresideCMS we can easily update all aspects of the site content, enabling us to save time, effort and cost and enhance the visitor experience."

For more information

(

Visit www.presidecms.com, or call 0870 745 0726.

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2 I

E-Docs UK launches secure alternative to Box Storage e-Docs UK has launched DocHaven, a new online data repository that presents organisations with a real alternative to traditional box storage. It provides safe and secure storage for important corporate documentation using twin mirrored servers and meets all government guidelines for data availability whilst delivering significant savings of up to 50% compared with the cost of storing boxes in remote warehouses.

"Organisations may not be aware of the high level of risk they are taking by storing paper-based documents by the box load in storage warehouses. Paper is easily damaged, degrades, takes up space and, most importantly, there is often only a single copy of important documents," commented Colin Baterip, M anaging Director of e-Docs UK, a leading provider of hosted document management solutions.

The fragile nature of using box storage was recently revealed when a huge fire burnt out Iron Mountain's six-storey paper storage warehouse in Bow, London in July destroying an unknown quantity of archived business records. The company also suffered a similar event in Ottawa, Canada during the same month.

The critical importance of data storage

was highlighted in various surveys conducted after Buncefield. 30% of Financial Directors surveyed said that they would never recover if a fire, flood, terrorist attack or other similar event destroyed their paper-based business documents. 32% of organisations would take a minimum of 12 months to recover and the remaining 38% would take approximately 6 months. This is despite 60% of organisations claiming to have business continuity plans in place!

This new, hosted solution from e-Docs UK includes free collection of all documents from customer premises. Each document is scanned, indexed and loaded onto DocHaven, e-Docs UK's on-line repository that uses highly secure, mirrored web servers situated at two separate locations providing the highest levels of service resilience and

data security. Clients can rapidly retrieve all stored documents twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week using a standard web browser. All search and retrieval screens can be customised providing a totally transparent service to users. DocHaven eliminates all delays and costs associated with requesting storage boxes to be retrieved and delivered.

Storage using DocHaven is charged for by the page rather than by the box, which can deliver significant savings. Two copies of every document are stored, each in a separate location, to ensure that they can be quickly retrieved for the full period of storage required and to minimize the risk of data corruption or loss through unexpected disruptions such as those recently experienced by Iron Mountain.

"DocHaven provides a resilient and secure alternative to using box storage facilities and eliminates the risks involved in storing valuable corporate data on paper. It will play an important role in the development of business continuity programmes that protect corporate data and meet all guidelines for corporate governance," concluded Colin Baterip.

Please visit www.e-docsuk.co.uk

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P R O D U C T NEW S

22

Duplo backs Campaign to tackle growing identity fraud Duplo International has joined the nationwide campaign to tackle the growing issue of identity fraud, Britain's fastest growing crime which is costing the UK economy £1.7 billion. With recent news and media reports indicating a 500% rise in ID theft with suggestions that one in three of us has been, or will be, a victim, Duplo has launched a new advice leaflet entitled 'Is Your Business a target?'. These leaflets offer advice on how to evaluate and chose the best method of document disposal, have been designed specifically to help educate and inform offices and the general public of the hazards of ID theft and the best options available to them.

"This isn't just a crime that affects businesses, but we are all personally vulnerable to ID theft if we don't take care how we dispose of personal documents," says Tony Hills, UK Dealer Manager at Duplo International. "And, it isn't just bank statements and passports you need to protect, but utility bills, receipts and any documents with personal information can all be rich fodder for identity criminals, with one in five household waste bins containing enough information to steal your identity."

According to official advice on how to prevent identity theft, the shredding of sensitive and personal documentation is one of the most straight forward, yet effective precautions to take against identification theft. But with so many models of shredding machines on the market, in all different sizes, capacities and shred widths, it is often hard to know which one to chose.

Duplo International offers one of the most

P R O D U C T NEW S

comprehensive ranges of shredding solutions for the office sector. It's 'Ideal' range of quality shredding solutions includes the simple manual paper-fed desk side models for the home and occasional home office users, through to the bulk hopper-fed high volume machines that can effortlessly destroy items such as paper clips, credit cards, floppy disks and CD s for large corporations.

Therefore, Duplo has prepared a list of key guidelines and selection criteria to consider when choosing a shredding machine. ★ ★

Which machine will cope with my volume of work?

How noisy and disturbing will a shredder

★

be?

W hat are the key differences between

★

models?

W hat type of documents need to be

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shredded?

How sensitive are the documents and what

★

level of security is required?

W hy do prices vary so much between seemingly similar performance machines?

You get what you pay for....quality and reliability!

There are five categories of shredding machines: Personal, desk-side, general office, high capacity office and bulk.

1) Personal models.

Price is critical in this category, with cheap models originating from the Far East having tiny motors that can't cope with more than a couple of sheets at a time and overheat after a few minutes. They tend to emit a high pitched whining noise when in use, produce large shred debris offering

only low level security, small waste collection baskets and can't handle paper­ clips and staples.

2) Desk Side models The smallest of the professional models, they tend to be quieter, more powerful, have larger waste cabinets and are available in a range of shred widths and cross-cut options for higher security.

3) Office shredders Designed to run continuously and meet the capacity demand of a number of staff.

They generally accept upwards of 20 sheets at a time with waste bins that can hold more than 100 litres. The more powerful office machines will also shred CDs.

4) High Capacity office shredders The best solution for centralised locations or where several smaller machines would be needed. In such environments, low noise levels are essential (no more than 68db), to avoid disturbance. Sheet capacity should be between 30 and 55 with waste bins accepting up to 160 litres.

5) Bulk machines Generally located in their own room and require three phase power, which are either hopper or conveyor-belt fed. The largest machines in this category will accept complete lever-arch files containing 600 sheets. These models are particularly suited for companies looking to tackle the growing storage and disposal of unwanted archived documents.

For

m ore

in fo rm a tio n

on

shredding

machines, visit www.duplointernational.com

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MORE NEW KEYBOARDS FROM CHERRY New range of flat keyboards Offering great design, trademark reliability and up to 10 million operations Cherry Electrical Products have released its ultra-flat 16mm keyboard, developed for home-office and business users seeking pleasing, innovative designs and reliable key operation (up to 10 million).

•"Barracuda" - part of Cherry's latest range of new generation desktop tools - is a wireless keyboard with a 2 m range that offers plug-and-play performance without the need for software installation. The board's

standard key configuration also offers 10 HotKeys for quick access to pre-selected features.

Included in the package is a five-button, 800 dpi optical wireless mouse, suitable for right- and left-handed users.

Cherry offers a five year guarantee with this package, which comes complete with CE, FCC, cURus, GOST-R, C-TICK and W H Q L approvals. System requirements include IBM or compatible PCs, W in2000/XP operating systems and interface USB.

Good looking and dependable? You can't be Sirius.

Sirius, part of Cherry's Designer range of luxury keyboards, allows customers to enjoy a pretty design, combined with modern technology for ease-of-use, practicality and

reliability.

Wireless, plug and play, and tap-proof thanks to coded data transmission with interference-free radio transmission, Sirius operates at a frequency range between 26.957 and 27.283 MHz. W eighing 627 g and measuring 456 x 204 x 25 mm, the keyboard benefits from a 2 m transmission range. As in other models, the board's standard key configuration also offers 10 HotKeys for quick access to pre-selected features. Included with the keyboard is an

optical, 800 dpi 5-button mouse of symmetrical design for both left- and righthanded users.

Cherry offers a three year guarantee with this package, which comes complete with CE, FCC, cURus, GOST-R, C-TICK and W H Q L approvals. System requirements include IBM or compatible PCs, W in 2000/XP operating systems and interface USB.

Good looking and dependable? You can't be Sirius.

I s n ’ t it ti me you found out about

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OIT UK’s Total Solution for Document Management?

Optical Image Technology UK provides: Migration to web-based and portal based business A\. Improvement and enhancement to current

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P R O D U C T NEW S

Announcing ABBYY Recognition Server A B B YY answers the need for turnkey integration with server-based document recognition and PDF conversion solutions As part of its ongoing effort to deliver place once a day after peak business hours (though images may be submitted document recognition technologies to suit a j by end users throughout the day), or the variety of business needs, ABBYY Software moment a file is placed in a designated House has announced ABBYY Recognition folder.

Server, a server-based solution for delivering j ★ Concurrent processing of different tasks. scalable, reliable and rapidly deployable optical character recognition (OCR) functions An administrator can set up folders for in a service-oriented environment. With all each particular type of document that processing performed remotely on needs to be processed such as contracts, a server, the new product offers automated j sales orders, invoices, and press document recognition and PDF conversion clippings. Each folder will have its own with minimum user intervention. processing parameters, output format, Based on A B B Y Y 's aw ard-w inning priority and processing schedule. recognition platform, ABBYY Recognition Corporate end users simply place images Server offers highly accurate conversion of in or scan them directly to the designated images into text or searchable PDF files for folder (shared or FTP) using networkthe purpose of categorising, archiving, based scanners or multifunction devices searching or integrating with third party such as a digital copier. Recognition content management systems. This robust j Server will do the rest without user solution automates recognition and PDF j intervention. conversion processes by providing ready-to- Corporations can standardise their document use functionality deployed on a server, giving recognition and conversion system administrators, enterprises and service processes and allow corporate users to providers greater flexibility in deployment, access powerful recognition functions with management, and integration of O C R and minimal training. In fact, processing can be document conversion functions. set to run unattended or in the background, Automated OCR Processing with | allowing users to save valuable employee Centralised Management ABBYY Recognition j time.

Server allows administrators to set up a full, Turnkey Solution, Easily Integrated with dedicated recognition and document Third-Party Workflows conversion service - from image input to Because today's technologies must be export - that is easy to control and maintain. flexible enough to respond to rapidly With all processing taking place on a server changing business needs, Recognition Server as opposed to a client, all functions are is designed for easy deployment either as a managed centrally. complete stand-alone solution or as an Administrators pre-define settings and control integral part of an external system. Deploying functions across the enterprise. A remote Recognition Server is easy because it offers: management console (based on ★ Ready-to-use functions.

Microsoft Management Console) serves as a Recognition Server comes equipped with central point for defining processing a standard set of ready-to-use functions parameters and m anaging recognition (such as converting document images into stations to create specific "workflows" for a editable and searchable electronic particular workgroup or project. Examples formats) for document recognition and include: conversion requiring minimal preconfigu­ ★ Archiving documents in multiple formats. ration to get up and running.

An administrator can set up an archiving ★ Open API. system for converting scanned documents With an Open, COM-compatible and images into multiple formats (such as Application Programming Interface (API), searchable PDF and editable RTF files Recognition Server can be easily simultaneously), with all of the settings integrated with third-party enterprise pre-configured. Administrators can pre­ content management (ECM), electronic define the following parameters: which records management (ERM) or document folder to obtain images, image pre­ management systems (DMS). As a result, processing functions, processing companies can easily add powerful O CR language, output/export formats, and without disrupting their existing document location for depositing final files. workflows.

Processing can be scheduled to take

P R O D U C T NEW S

★ XML-Ticket support.

Recognition Server can work with XMLtickets for automating document recognition or changing processing parameters. Client-side or third-party applications can be created to enable instant management of processing using XML-tickets.

According to ABBYY Chief Product Manager Alexander Rylov, ABBYY Recognition Server addresses a growing need for easier document recognition deployment in complex work environments. "Today's IT administrators and service providers are faced with the difficult task of increasing technology functionality while ensuring that it is interoperable with other technologies, and easy for workers to use," explained Rylov.

"A BBYY has combined our years of experience working with a range of recognition technology - from end user applications to software development toolkits - to offer a product that provides O C R functionality in a "black box" implemen­ tation. Easy-to-deploy, easy-to-integrate, easy-to-use."

Rosenheim, Germany-based itionion.soft, has already tested Recognition Server with its Accantum product, a browser-based, serviceoriented information and archiving system.

"We were able to test Recognition Server very early during the beta test." explained Hans Lemke, C E O for itinion.soft GmbH "It was easy to integrate with our products and provided the high scalability we required. We were able to install it on a separate server which performs O C R functions independently but can be easily linked to our exiting systems. A B BYY Recognition Server will provide the O CR - and PDF-processing in the next version of Accantum. Recognition Server matches perfectly with our strategy and our product."

Ideal for Service Bureaux or Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Fast deployment, ease of integration, and interoperability as well as the ability to configure settings for a variety of processing jobs, makes Recognition Server the ideal solution for service bureaux.

With its flexible functionality and scalable architecture, server-based O C R processing and centralised management, Recognition Server helps service providers improve and speed up their processing performance as well as save hardware resources and valuable time.

For more details visit www.ABBYY.com.

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Colour. Colour? Colour!

Colour scanning delivers far more than just colorful images.

It is an excellent tool for automating archiving processes.

You can lean back totally relaxed, knowing that your scanner will do the job in a safe way. It has no problems at all dealing with different paper grades and formats, and it knows exactly how to assign individual documents. Is this how you envisage the perfect scanning station? If it is, get ready: Fof the future has already begun.

The magic word that opens the door to the future is "colour" - at least at Microform. And it's colour, too, that's ensuring greater acceptance of digitalisation right now.

Because there are still plenty of users who like to hold "their" files in their hands.

Thanks to many years of experience in the service and project development sectors, Steeve Junge, Sales Manager of G .O .S. Gesellschaft fur Optische Speichersysteme in Rehlingen near Saarbrucken on the GermanFrench border, knows what people like and don't like: "Reading files on the screen is strenuous and apart from that, it's frequently the case that pieces of information that make work easier are missing, such as words, phrases or sentences highlighted with a marker pen or special colour coding on specific documents."

This can be remedied by scanning in colour, because colour catches one's attention and indicates specific things - and not only when evaluating electric circuits or gradients, where every colour stands for a specific function. It is -also used to organise, to classify, and to make it easier to record information.

More than colorful images But there's more to it than that. Colour scanning also has a positive effect as regards legibility - especially when powerful hardware is combined with sophisticated software. Microform's systems are therefore equipped with Janich & Klass' scanning software, DPU. The first stage in processing produces uncompressed colour image formats from which individual colours can be filtered out electronically. This can then be used, for instance, to highlight typefaces that

don't stand out particularly well against the background. "In this way, even faded documents on thermal paper can become legible again ", reports Joachim Kunzel, member of the board of directors of the FMI (German Association of Multimedial Information Processors) and C E O of the systems vendor MSV-Systemhaus, based in Peine near Hannover. "Minimal colour differences that are captured during scanning can be boosted when converting the images later to black and white."

Despite this, many users will ask themselves whether or not they really want to store every single sheet of yellow or pink copy paper as a colour image. And how can they stop this from happening without having to employ a considerable number of staff to pre-sort documents? Microform has a magic formula for this, too: Automated colour detection and processing. This allows users to define specific colours or shades the scanner is to ignore. When such documents arise, the scanner deals with them as if they were simply in black and white and in this way helps save memory space.

O r the machine creates a new directory whenever a specific colour indicator arises ! similar to how it is done with the aid of patchcode sheets. But these sheets have to be j printed first and - if one wants to reuse them j - sorted out again later, a job that requires a j lot of time and effort. In contrast, coloured j dots can be applied to the cover sheet very quickly. And not to forget: Scanning this j patchcode sheets uses a valuable part of the \ total scanner performance, 'This idea really is a step in the right direction", confirms W erner Schleking, director of the MIK-Center in Berlin. "We often mark documents with barcodes, but this 1 can cause problems if there are similar ; barcodes already on the customer's material." In this case, automated colour j detection represents a solution if, for ! example, the barcodes are made to stand out on the document by means of a coloured j background or - depending on the application - are replaced by colour j indicators,

j

j Visit w w w .m icroform .de

Automation by means of colour Conversely, the scanner can also be taught to link specific colour characteristics with specific processes. "Our idea is to make colour an indicator or signal not only for users but for the scanner as well", explains Andreas Klinke, Sales and Marketing M anager at Microform.

In practice, this could mean, for example, that the machine knows that a specific colour logo must alw ays be associated with a barcode.

If this barcode is not detected, the scanner either stops the process or compiles a list at the end of the scanning session of all those files it was not able to associate.

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Microfilm and Imaging Equipment

IMEW PRODUCT NEWS FROM SOLAR ^

CopyMaster>

a sophisticated yet easy to use overhead copier for copying books and documents the way you read them; face up. Ideal for staff or public use the CopyMaster captures images directly to the integrated computer from where they can be output to paper and digital devices.

Universal: â&#x2013;ş a microfilm reader and scanner for both roll microfilm and microfiche. With its low price and a very small foot print the Universal Microfilm Reader-Scanner brings affordable and compact digital microfilm options to every Archive and Library.

Heritage Masters a microfilm reader-projector designed for the individual and group viewing of 35mm roll microfilm. The HeritageMaster's compact size makes this the ideal microfilm reader for occasional use.

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TRADE NEWS DEAL CLOSED - Open Text acquires Hummingbird After much speculation and rumour that the deal may not go ahead it was unofficially announced that the deal has been done.

Open Text has acquired Hummingbird in what has been reported to be a $547 million takeover. Both companies are in the ECM sector and have been rivals for some consid­

erable time. For those of you in the industry with good memories, this acquisition has some history as it goes back to 1999 when the two companies had a three-month bidding war over PC Docs.

The Hummingbird $547 million takeover by rival Open Text Corporation has been

seeking court approval in Canada and the satisfaction or waiver of conditions outlined in an agreement between the companies.

Hummingbird has been in operation for 22 years but will soon cease to exist. W hat is now open to speculation is the question, will HP come looking for Open Text?

Version One announces integration with Oracle Document management and imaging software author, Version One has announced integration o f its paperless technology solutions into Oracle E-business Suite Special Edition.

Oracle E-business Suite Special Edition is an affordable suite of core business applications for small and m id-sized businesses (SMB), demonstrating Version One's commitment to providing SMBs with high-quality, scalable and yet inexpensive document management functionality.

With this latest Oracle integration, Version O ne's technology, which enables the electronic design, delivery, storage, management and authorisation of business documents (invoices and statements etc.), is accessible directly from the Oracle Special Edition system. Special Edition users can now reap the benefits of Version O ne's solutions including significant savings of time, money and storage space. Users can also expect a return on their investment within just six months, improved business efficiency and dramatically reduced paper use, helping towards their 'green agenda'.

Rod Martinsmith, Corporate Sales Manager of Version One says, "Version One has been tightly integrating its solutions into

O racle systems for many years and remains committed to fulfilling the needs of its many O racle customers. After identifying an increasing demand for document management functionality from small and mid-sized organisations using Oracle, we immediately worked on integrating Version

O ne's technology into O racle Special Edition.

With its outstanding performance, scalability and reliability, Version O ne's technology provides SMBs with a competitive advantage and rapid return on investment for an inexpensive outlay."

Hazel Nash, Senior Director Applications SMB, Oracle Corporation comments, "The O racle E-business Suite Special Edition, which is perfect for SMBs that want to improve business processes whilst keeping cost of ownership at a minimum, created an ideal platform for the tight integration of Version One technology. With Version One's award-winning, modular solutions and many years' experience working with SMBs, Special Edition users can now expect the very best document management functionality for their needs. The release of Version One's products on Special Edition really is great news for Oracle, O racle's partners and O racle's customers" Visit ww w.oracle.com o r www.versionone.co.uk

Cherry and Flexagonal Systems join forces Cherry Electrical Products and Flexagonal systems have signed a global agreement to provide all standard and advanced keyboards in the Cherry 14000 series with biometric authentication capabilities.

For use specifically with Cherry's FingerTip ID biometric series, Flexagonal's biometric security software addresses all network and remote access control needs including the use of fingerprints and smart card. These tools prevent the abuse and inherent insecurity of

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brevity and ease of recall - thus making them relatively easy to crack.

Says Peter Smith, Keyboard Sales Manager for Cherry: "The ever-increasing need for yet more passwords and PINs is creating administrative inefficiencies and security issues at all levels of computer use.

This partnership will allow us to bring biometric security to a global market." passwords which are usually chosen for their * Visit www.cherry.de

Alfresco and Kofax announce integration of Ascent Capture In September Alfresco Software Inc. and has been has integrated with Alfresco's Ascent Capture together with the power of the Kofax announced the availability of an unique offering," said Doug Rudolph, vice Alfresco web services API, integrators can integration of Kofax Ascent Capture with president of business development at Kofax. easily deliver a scenario where documents Alfresco's open source repository. The Ascent "The concept of open source systems has had are scanned in New York, validated in integration module offers joint Alfresco and real impact on a number of industries, and Bangalore and then released to an Alfresco Kofax customers access to a comprehensive we recognise Alfresco as a pioneer of this repository in London — all using standards in the enterprise content based protocols." production capture solution, including concept The integration was developed by aitom atic document classification, data management space." extraction and validation for both Internet"Our primary goal in co-developing the Alfresco, Kofax and Kofax Certified Solution based distributed capture or centralised release script was to exploit the unique Provider, Aarden Ringcroft. The Kofax Ascent flexibility provided by both of these Capture integration module will be available environments.

The Ascent integration also allows outstanding tools." said, Louis LaFontisee, through the Alfresco Forge this month. documents to be captured and stored in M anaging Director, Aarden Ringcroft, Ltd. Alfresco, enabling customers to review and "By leveraging the distributed features of Visit www.kofax.com o r www.alfresco.com approve documents for long term archival or records management purposes. Ascent accelerates business processes by collecting paper documents, forms and edocuments; transforming them into accurate, retrievable information and delivering the content into an organi­ sation's business applications and databases. The Ascent platform iew offers unmatched compatibility with scanners and other capture devices, as well as content and document The Prizm Viewer1 provides powerful document image management systems, and workflow display, annotation, manipulation, navigation, and printing applications and databases. through a toolbar within your Web-based browser.

"Leading banks, Fortune 1000 companies and governmental organisations have chosen Alfresco SEE M O RE IN LESS TIM E for its production ready open source View over 20 image file types without opening and ECM system," said John Newton, closing multiple software applications. chief technology officer, Alfresco, Inc. "However, we have seen a great deal □ fm If T * flivo namatn i ao NOFull 0M btty 0 Vo. O No mconw,daMbonaftn t»9 Sooal Security □ Yo» iPto OWdr '--QVm JBNo of customer demand to expand our e s a g g& i i B 3 L . - u . , DO MORE > WITH LESS EFFORT repository to include production Group different image file types into one single capture capabilities like those offered file to view and print as if it were one multi-page

by Kofax. Their Ascent Capture product is second to none and is a document, without opening and closing multiple 0— j > te E t perfect fit for our customers." i •".“•s rrv r* '- '" jmb image files.

Da* lad Oft (If A« The integration with Ascent Download a Free Trial at Capture features automatic mapping G ET MORE WITH LESS DUPLICRTION www.pegasusimaging.com to an Alfresco content type,

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generation of TIFF, PDF or O C R generated text and the ability to apply Alfresco's advanced aspectoriented rules engine to process captured images. The system also includes secure access to any repository regardless of location. In addition, by using Alfresco's web services API, customers can deploy Ascent Capture without any additional installation to the Alfresco repository.

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The Changing Face of Data Storage When it comes to maintaining data on corporate networks, the buzzword for many years was simply 'back-up'. All types of information coming onto and out of the network - from word documents to email attachments to photographic images - was seen generically as data and uniformly handled as such.

Today, by contrast, the pressures of reduced back-up times and the requirement to ensure data is back on-line more quickly, have forced a radical reappraisal of how we manage information on the network. As a result, there has been a realisation that all data is not equal and so should not be treated as such.

Closer analysis of information within any organisation will identify a number of distinct categories of data, the most important of which is key to the on-going operation of the business.

Other data enables the business to function more efficiently and a third level of data is required to be held by the business, though not necessarily immediately accessible - either as a matter of company policy or to meet regulatory imperatives.

Finally, there is typically a large amount of data which is surplus to the requirements of the business and which could - and should - be removed from the network.

One of the main drivers for change in recent years has been the explosion of data which organisations now have to manage. As a result, they simply do not have the back-up window to handle such exponential growth using traditional tape back-up policies. At the same time, data has moved closer to centrestage in terms of its importance to the business: indeed, for many companies, it is the business.

Technical developments W hat makes the differentiation and management of data types in terms of their relative importance to business continuity both possible and cost-effective has been the emergence of SAN s and W ANs working together. This gives the business a global structure to its storage needs.

The introduction of disk-based back-up has allowed the recovery point to be reduced significantly. With the dramatic reduction in the cost of disk, it is now a realistic alternative to tape: the new pricing model means that organisations can adopt a disk-to-disk back­ up strategy for around the same outlay as their tape-based strategy of two-to-three years ago.

The need to analyse the relative importance of data cannot be overstated. Some data may be inherently valuable, yet an inability to recover and make it available in less than one

week would not materially affect the business.

By contrast, in the area of on-line banking or airline ticketing for example, immediate access to certain data is worth more than the IT infrastructure itself.

Or, put another way, if that data is not on­ line and available, the total cost of their hardware infrastructure is worth less than one minute of down-time. So the recovery point for such data can be assessed in terms of 'every second counts'. That's mission-critical!

A matter of priority Today, there is no doubt that a data back­ up and recovery strategy should sit at the very top of the management agenda. Issues such as the amount and type of data within the business, how it is managed, how the business is protected against data loss and how quickly data can be made available are absolutely central to businesses of all sizes.

Yet too many organisations still view such expenditure purely in terms of cost - until they suffer a data loss. In the world of data recovery and storage management, it may be hard to sell the concept of insurance.

However, as in other walks of commercial and domestic life, when disaster strikes, you'll be glad you've taken out the right policy.

New Singapore Microfilming Codes of Practice The National Archives of Singapore has advised that four newly revised Singapore Codes of Practice for microfilming are now available. While they are designed for Singapore requirements, national microfilming standards and codes frequently provide information that can be widely applied.

1) SS 520: 2006

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Code of practice for microfilming of documents on 16mm black and white, silver-gelatin type microfilm/planetary and rotary camera filming O perating procedures - S$ 2 2 .0 5

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3) SS 522: 2006 Code of practice for quality control inspection of 16mm and 35mm black and white, silver-gelatin type microfilm er for Docum ation entry to Sto rage E

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Bowe Bell + Howell expands Bowe Bell + Howell Scanners is fulfilling its vision of continued worldwide growth by adding seasoned professionals to its senior management team, by expanding its internatiqnal markets and recruiting and promoting talented individuals within the division.

Michael Scheller, 39, has been promoted to vice president of engineering, operations and manufacturing. In his new role, Scheller will bring additional focus to the division's engineering excellence and spearhead the development of industry leading document scanner products. He also will oversee improvements in the manufacturing process and work to strengthen the company's supply chain partnerships.

In 1998, Scheller joined the company as a principal mechanical engineer. His work helped secure a major contract with FedEx for Bowe Bell + Howell.

After his promotion in 2002 to director of engineering, Scheller's efforts improved the division's overall profitability. Scheller holds a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Champaign and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Cincinnati.

Mark Neff, 41, has been promoted to worldwide director of channel sales for the scanner division. In his new role, Neff will be responsible for worldwide channel strategy, partner recruitment and channel programs.

He will work with his team to develop and manage the Big Picture VAR programs, co­ operative advertising budgets and marketing development funds.

In 2002, Neff joined Bowe Bell + Howell Scanners as a business development

manager for the federal market. His work helped strengthen the company's relationships with federal channel partners.

Neff holds a bachelor's degree in finance and marketing from the University of Maryland in College Park, Md. He earned his M BA from the University of Maryland.

Babatunde O lusanya, 39, has been promoted to territory manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In his new role, O lusanya will handle the day-to-day management of the European sales team. In 2001 , O lusanya joined the team as a regional sales manager for Europe. His efforts strengthened relationships with European VARs and distributors and increased European business. Previously, O lusanya worked as a reseller channel manager and a channel marketing consultant in the United Kingdom.

Jiaqing W ang, 39, has been promoted to country manger for the People's Republic of China. In this newly created position, W ang will be responsible for all sales, marketing and post-sales support activities for Bowe Bell + Howell Scanners in China. Hired as a regional sales manager in 2004, W ang successfully led the fast growing team in China and managed all day-to-day operations for the region.

In his expanded role, W ang will continue to develop a more competitive pricing structure, outline sales goals and drive results.

He will also work to better support the com pany's new and existing channel partners in China.

W ang earned a master's of business administration from Concordia University, Montreal (Canada), a master's in computer science from Rivier College, Nashua, New

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Hampshire (United States), and a bachelor's degree from the Civil Aviation Institute of China, Tian Jin. Sebastian Lau, 31, has taken on an expanded role in Bowe Bell + Howell's international sales division. As of May 1, 2 006 , his responsibilities as European regional sales m anager have grown to include Switzerland and Austria, in addition to his work in Germany, Benelux and the N ordic region. Lau is based out of Helsingborg, Sweden.

With seven years of experience in technology sales, he is well prepared to continue to develop these markets and foster relationships with new and existing channel partners. Lau earned his bachelor's degree at Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Daniel Carillo, 35, joins Bowe Bell + Howell in Mexico City as a regional sales m anager for Latin Am erica and the Caribbean. In his new role, Carillo will help cultivate business in the region. Carillo has nearly 15 years of experience in high technology sales. Previously, he served as a business development manager at Bowe Bell + Howell VAR partner Grupo ECCE, an imaging and enterprise content management solution provider. Carillo holds a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from ITAM in Mexico City and earned a post-graduate business administration degree from ITESM in Mexico City.

Weidong Liu, 37, comes to Bowe Bell + Howell as a regional sales manager in the Beijing office. Liu has more than six years of scanner sales experience. He previously served as senior project m anager at a Chinese scanner distributor.

Before joining the document im aging industry, Liu worked as an engineer and then as a project manager. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from Xian University in Xian.

Nilda Mercado, 40, joins the scanner division as a distribution sales representative in the Wheeling headquarters. In her new role, M ercado will be responsible for supporting scanner products and services to the company's distribution channel partners.

Mercado has been with Bowe Bell + Howell for 16 years. In the past, she has worked in the sorting division and the programme management department.

P E O P LE

Derrick Murphy Named President of IBML Im aging Business Machines, has announced the appointment of Derrick Murphy as president. "Derrick has more than 20 years of experience in manufac­ turing, operations and sales. He is in the perfect position to continue moving IBML forward as an entrepreneurially spirited company," according to company founder and president, G a ry Murphy.

Derrick will oversee all day-to-day activities of the business. "I look forward to assuming the responsibility for the entire company's operations and working diligently to continually improve IBML's products and services," says Derrick Murphy.

G a ry Murphy's retirement comes after 35 years in the document processing industry.

He and his wife, Virginia, founded IBML in 1992 and developed the first high-speed colour scanner for the item processing market. He is the holder of four patents in this field. The IBML "ImageTrac" scanner has been very successful, and the company has shipped over 1000 systems throughout the U SA and around the world.

Derrick Murphy likewise has a strong track record in the document business. In April of this year, he was named C O O of IBML, giving him responsibility for the company's global operations. His new role as president is effective immediately.

BSI appoints new Board Member Dr John J Regazzi has joined the Board of BSI as a Non Executive Director.

Dr Regazzi is a renowned figure in the world of electronic publishing. He is the former M anaging Director of Market Development at Elsevier, the world's largest publisher of scientific, technical and health information.

From 1988 to 1998, Dr Regazzi was President and C E O of Engineering

Information Inc. where he oversaw the company's incorporation into Elsevier Inc. Dr. Regazzi is dean of the College of Information and Computer Science at the C.W . Post Campus of Long Island University.

Commenting on his new role, Dr Regazzi said: "I am excited to be working with BSI at this time."

Sir David John, Chairman of BSI Group, said: "John Regazzi joins BSI at a time when

the Group is committed to exploiting numerous opportunities in electronic publishing, making our considerable library of standards and other publications even more accessible to our customers.

"Dr Regazzi, with his experience in the delivery of publishing solutions, will make a significant contribution to BSI in this regard."

Visit: www.bsi-global.com

Avanquest appoints Andy Whiteside Avanquest UK, provider of Business Process Management Solutions to the enterprise has recently appointed Andy Whiteside to join their Corporate Sales Team, which is based at the company's Winchester office.

Andy joins Avanquest with the specific task of developing the channel for Avanquest's range of business solutions, particularly Unified Communications.

Chris Thompson, M anaging Director, Avanquest comments "We are delighted that Andy has agreed to join the Avanquest PEO PLE

Solutions team. Andy's expertise in the voice processing industry will be a real asset to our growing team and help us to improve on the already impressive business growth we achieved during 2005."

Since the early 90s, Andy has gained a wealth of experience in both the corporate and channel environments, particularly with voice & data processing technology, which include: Unified Communications, Voice Processing, and Unified Messaging, Speech recognition, Call recording and Dictation solutions with an exposure to IP telephony products.

A n dy comments that "The Unified Communications arena is at a very exciting stage in its development, products are now able to make a huge difference to employee working practises. Choice is now a reality and the individual decides how best to use the technology available, dependant on which device they prefer."

He goes onto say "Avanquest have married best of breed technology with the necessary skills and foresight to produce truly workable, leading edge and cost effective solutions for all types of organisations. I« looking forward to new challenges and

helping build channel relationships."

A n dy has previously worked with Dictaphone C o Ltd, where he gained experience in Direct Sales, primarily to the legal market, moving to become the District Sales Manager in the north of England region during the mid 90's.

During his appointment as Advanced Product Specialist for Customised Solutions at Dictaphone OEM , he assumed the responsi­ bility for the successful launching of AVST's CallXpress under the 'synergy' brand, in UK, Europe and the Middle East.

1998 saw a move to Premises Networks Management and promotion to Sales Manager. During that period, Premises Networks Management became the highest revenue CallXpress reseller in the UK, with direct Channel links with Ericsson and connections with Siemens, Mitel and Global Crossing.

More recently, Andy has been Sales Manager at Voice Products, responsible for the sales of Voice Processing, Call Recording, and Unified Messaging and IP telephony solutions.

Further information on Avanquest solutions is available at www.corporate.avanquest.co.uk

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Info Ireland 2006 Compliance was a recurring theme at this year's Info Ireland event at the Burlington Hotel, Dublin.

O ver 350 IT and business managers attended this event which focused on document and information management.

Taking control of document processes and implementing compliant records management was a strong driver for many organisations seeking email management and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems.

Improving productivity by scanning and recognition of forms is still the primary reason for investment, but the increase in compliance requirements and vulnerability to paperstored archives is high on the agenda for

many organisations.

Organised by AIIM, the ECM Association, and sponsored by Computerscope and PricewaterhouseCoopers, Info Ireland provided a range of keynote presentations as well as roundtable discussions, case study presentations and over 30 exhibitors.

The most popular issues for roundtable discussions were how to create an information strategy, and how to manage the organisational change needed to implement that strategy - with or without an IT investment. Best practice in Records Management was also an important session.

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In his keynote presentation, Doug Miles, M anaging Director of AIIM UK, presented survey findings indicating that whilst 38% of Irish businesses have a well defined compliance strategy for one or more departments, only 10% have implemented a compliance initiative across all departments.

O f more concern is the finding that 25% of Irish respondents stated they have no policy on email archiving or don't know what the policy is.

Info Ireland 2007 will take place on September 11 th and 12th 2007.

Visit www.aiim.org.uk.

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