News

From the MFP to the Cloud

26 000 2010

Online services are booming because they allow companies to reduce their operational costs while benefiting from turnkey services. From Google Apps to Microsoft Office Live and Zoho, these platforms allow users, among other features, to create, edit, store, search, and collaborate on documents - online.

Business-oriented Document Management Systems also exist as SaaS (Software as a Service): e.g. Drivve DM (Drivve), DocumentMall (Ricoh) or Nuxeo Document Management Cloud Edition (open source).

The capture part of the process is interesting : how does one integrate documents into these Cloud-based systems? These (Web) applications usually offer Desktop clients (PC / Mac) and a number of them also think mobile: they offer a dedicated mobile client (iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile ,..).

As a device of choice to capture paper originals, the MFP can also integrate with these platforms and manufacturers are working at it.

On a number of their MFP's, Ricoh offer the possibility to scan directly to customer DocumentMall document cabinet. An eCopy connector was even developed for DocumentMall allowing to integrate with competing MFPs (equipped with eCopy).

At a consumer-oriented level however still interesting for small structures and SMEs: Lexmark just released a SmartSolutions connector for Evernote. Evernote is a Web application that allows users to capture, store and retrieve their notes or memories, be it text, voice, PDF files, photos, etc. ...directly from their web browser, Desktop PC or MAC and mobile (iPhone, Android, etc. ...). The Evernote users will now be able to use their Lexmark MFP device to store documents directly to the Cloud.