Improving Distributed Capture

The term “distributed capture” has almost become a mantra in our industry over the past few years. Two of the hottest trends in the market are sales of workgroup scanners and the adoption of scanning on digital copiers. Both represent direct avenues to distributed capture.

I’ve seen plenty of successful distributed capture installations in vertical markets like transportation, financial services, healthcare, and retail. However, it’s our opinion that what we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. There are still obstacles preventing document scanning from becoming prevalent on every desktop, similar to the way printing is.

Hardware costs are probably the most obvious one, but also the obstacle most rapidly being eliminated. While low-end network printers can be had for less than $300, 15 ppm, color, duplex document scanners are now available with list prices less than $700. And if you’re shrewd about it, you can even bury the cost of scanning capabilities within a lease for a digital copier.

Software costs are another issue. While printers typically can be managed fairly effectively simply through an Ethernet connection and an intuitive network driver, configuring a network scanning application is more complex. At minimum, it requires some sort of distributed capture software that can effectively transfer images to a server. Unfortunately, this software is not typically packaged with the scanner. Depending somewhat on volume, distributed capture software runs anywhere from $200, all the way up to $4,000 per seat.

Because distributed capture software carries a premium, end users typically want to see the potential for a return on their investment before they will purchase it. ROIs that we’ve seen are often tied to a reduction in fax and courier charges, as well as an improved turnaround time for processing documents. Having to prove an ROI means there is a sales cycle and real pre-sales work that needs to be done to sell distributed capture. This is obviously not the case with network printing.

The bottom line is that as long as we have to sell the benefits of distributed capture, it will never become an application that sits on every desktop—just because not everyone will see the cost justification. This represents a double-edged sword. Users who do see a potential ROI can better justify paying a premium for the software. This keeps the application from becoming a commodity. So, we may not want to drop the price of capture software just yet to drive mass adoption.

A call for network admin tools

One area that we can improve on, however, without cutting into our profits, is network administration. I recently had the opportunity to discuss a distributed installation with a systems admin for a large energy company. He had formerly presided over only a centralized application. An acquisition by his employer had put him in charge of a distributed operation as well. “Every time a scanner needs to be adjusted, the capture application needs to be changed, or someone needs to be trained, I end up having to travel to each of the distributed sites,” he told me. “It was much simpler when I only had a centralized operation to supervise.”

Thankfully, we are starting to see some solutions designed to address these concerns. Kofax’ soon-to-be introduced Document Scan Server represents one such solution. The scanning appliance is designed to eliminate local administration of scanning drivers. We’ve also written recently about network TWAIN and ISIS initiatives.

Yes, this whole SOA (service-oriented architecture) trend and even the “retro-futuristic” dumb terminal movement indicate that server-based computing is the next “in” thing. To keep document imaging an “in” thing, as it has become recently after 20 years of being “out,” we need to continue to move to a server-based administration model. Solutions such as the Document Scan Server, ABBYY’s Recognition Server [which we discussed last issue], and Datacap’s new architecture for capture, all of which will be shown at the AIIM Expo March 16-18 in Philadelphia, represent steps in the right direction. We expect to see plenty of other server- and services-based stuff at the show, as well.

Yes, as scanning moves into the mainstream, it becomes more important than ever to embrace mainstream trends to continue to drive growth. Distributed capture has definitely arrived, but we think improved server-based administration tools will give it its final nudge through the door of acceptance.