InputAccel - Open Standard For Document Capture
- Vaporware DMAC Will Support
Cornerstone Imaging, Inc.'s InputAccel Open Standard provides a good look
at the state of the document capture market today. They define document
capture as the process of converting paper documents into usable digital
images, extracting data from the images, and exporting the images and data
to another system.
Currently Cornerstone's big revenue comes from the display monitors
on which the image is displayed. This Standard will help sell monitors.
They, according to Bill Chiocchi, InputAccel Marketing Director, feel
a standard is needed to make document capture work among the various vendors
in the market. They seem to want to follow Imaging World editor Andy Moore
advice "Single-vendor lock-ins are ALWAYS a bad idea. Replacing monolithic
systems--the so-called fork-lift upgrade--is not an experience many managers
get to live through more than once."
Vaporware Now, Real for 1996
As of September 15, 1995, we at DMAC are still waiting for the final
interface specifications to their open, standard integration platform.
Then Unibase by DMAC can correctly interact with the thirty or forty different
vendors endorsing the standard. Somewhere after the first of 1996 Unibase
by DMAC will correctly process information on their integration platform.
Document Capture With Standards
This will give our clients a true document processing system capability
where each of the other modules are defined without sole sourcing to DMAC
or another vendor. All the modules will have more than a single vendor
source, except the platform at first (Cornerstone is not stupid). We at
DMAC will set up a demonstration system which displays at least one module
for each of the basic functions in the document processing cycle. A systems
integrator can help the client choose which module best meets the clients
needs. As Cornerstone says, "The varying needs of different imaging applications
rule out a 'one-size fits all' solution."
Path from Data to Document Capture
Moving into document processing from data capture/imaging still will
not be easy or cheap. At least now there is the prospect of seeing an integrated
system where single modules can be replaced with better modules. Maybe
now the system will not be obsolete by the time it is installed.
Open Standard for Forty Vendors
If, as hoped, the Open Standard for document processing takes hold,
then over time many changes will come. For starters, the Cornerstone integrated
system platform initially runs on a Windows NT server, not Novell or UNIX.
The interface workstation to their platform must run on a real time operating
system -- OS/2 supporting windows or Windows NT. Unibase by DMAC will evolve
from a data entry/imaging environment to an environment with the capability
to interface with a standard open integrated platform for document capture.
Competition will be heavy among the thirty or forty vendors providing modules
-- and Unibase by DMAC will stick to its "Excellence through Evolution"
theme.
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