Document Imaging Blog

Platforms power the future of the MFP (Part 3)

In earlier posts, I covered how MFPs are becoming more input-centric and how platforms and APIs are tying together the MFP with backend office and enterprise applications. But there is a roadblock that must be overcome in order to make this all work seamlessly in the real world.

The roadblock: MFP platforms are not all the same. Each of the platforms that I mentioned in Part 1 have different APIs. So, for a developer of a software application to integrate with more than one MFP brand it would need to use a separate SDK to write code for every brand. This gets even more complex because changes occur most times a new MFP is released, requiring new QA testing on every device – even if the platform hasn’t changed.

To give an example of this complexity, there are nine major MFP brands and each release 3-4 new “families” of products per year. So at a minimum, you are dealing with about 30 new devices to write to and test each year. Ensuring that the connectivity between the MFP and software application runs effectively is an enormous undertaking and one that most software developers do not have the resources to support. This is a major barrier and has restricted direct connectivity between MFPs and hardware. There are only a handful of software companies that write integrations directly to MFPs.

But there is a solution. A document imaging platform can be used to act as the connection between the MFP and software applications. The document imaging platform provider is the only one that needs to keep up with the ever-changing MFP manufacturers, updating its software to ensure that it works on all MFP brands. With this work completed, any software vendor can then just write integration to the platform and work with all of the MFPs that the document imaging platform supports. This “write-once, work with many” approach gives the software vendors the opportunity to let any end user on any MFP leverage the new input capabilities that I have discussed earlier. 

This three part combination will deliver new opportunities to utilize MFPs in a more strategic way to power business process efficiency:
1) Hardware manufacturers making devices more “input-friendly”
2) The maturation and expansion of document imaging platforms to run on any MFP
3) Software vendors writing integration to the document imaging platforms

Platforms power the future of the MFP (Part 2)

In part 1, I talked about how the advancement of platforms by hardware vendors was driving the evolution of MFPs. The opportunities here are around connectivity – platforms allow an application to talk to a device. From a document imaging perspective, for example, the platform allows for a connection between the scanning hardware (an MFP or networked scanner) and the backend application that a scanned document will be distributed to (an email system, fax server, document management system, etc).

This connection happens through an API (application programming interface). This API allows the back end software application to “command” the MFP to perform functions that need to happen in order for a document to be scanned and distributed. At a very high level these commands might include: authenticate the user, scan the document, convert image to PDF, display a preview of the scanned document, display a list of destination folders, select folder, add metadata, display confirmation of a successful scan, etc. Of course, at a more detailed level, there are hundreds of commands that go into the process of scanning and distributing a document.

From the user perspective, this connectivity (or integration of systems) is displayed at the MFP as a simple to use interface that takes the user through the steps for scanning a document. In some cases, the interface at the MFP mirrors the interface that they are used to seeing when working with a backend system at their desktop. This is made possible by the platform and API working to present the backend application in real time at the MFP. This real-time integration allows for things like pre-determined access rights to software applications to be passed along to the MFP (most of the time through Active Directory), real-time confirmation of document delivery, and changes to back-end systems (such as creation of new folders, etc.) to be available immediately at the MFP.

The platform and API truly allow for the MFP to integrate with office and enterprise applications, becoming the on-ramp for paper documents to become part of electronic workflows and elevating the device to a new level of importance among businesses. But there is a caveat…more in part 3.

Gartner Print & Imaging Summit

I just returned from the Gartner Print and Imaging Summit, a printing and document imaging conference that is growing in popularity. In the first presentation on the first day of the conference, Gartner Research Director Don Dixon discussed some incredibly useful information for IT professionals at large organizations.

One of Don’s slides covered the future for “smart MFPs,” which is the term that Don has coined for devices that include embedded architectures and can run business software applications. The slide listed four predictions for smart MFPs:

• Document communications in and out of MFPs will be secure
• MFP platforms will take an open source approach – truly vendor agnostic
• They will be more alike and interoperable

The final area that Don covered was the need for document imaging applications to be MFP brand agnostic, meaning that software should work on all smart MFPs so that customer organizations aren’t locked into one brand of device just because they don’t want to change the document imaging software they are using.

Overall the conference was packed with useful information for IT professionals. If your company is a Gartner client, you should consider attending the next Print and Imaging Summit.

Platforms power the future of MFPs (Part 1)

It’s interesting to think sometimes about the evolution of the copier. It wasn’t too long ago that the copier was just that – a single function copy machine. It wasn’t even connected to the network. Today, the copier has morphed into the multifunction peripheral (MFP) – offering copying, printing, scanning and faxing. And now, two technology advances by the MFP manufacturers are pointing towards the device becoming more input-centric than output-centric -- a far cry from its roots.

On the hardware side, vendors are making control panels larger and easier to use, as well as adding full size, external keyboards to the MFPs. And on the software side, there have been a number of advances in MFP device platforms, such as: Canon MEAP; Xerox EIP; Ricoh ESA; Konica Minolta Open API; and Sharp OSA among others. These platforms allow for 3rd party software applications to be built to run on the MFP, using the MFP’s interface to display the application.

These advances are essentially making MFPs act as computers – enabling two-way interaction with business applications and a user experience at the capture device that is very similar to what they have at their desktop. And it is the delivery of a quality user experience through development on that platform -- providing functionality such as the ability to scan and distribute paper documents into existing business workflows -- that will continue to drive the evolution, adoption, and value of the MFP.

As mentioned earlier, the common trait of both of these advances is that the biggest value they bring to the end user is related to input of information. Of course, there will continue to be value in output-related applications for MFPs. But the future of the MFP is both an on-ramp AND an off-ramp for paper.

Look for more about platforms for document scanning later this week...