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On May 10, 2017 Lexmark announced a new strategic partnership with Nuance Communications, Inc., a leading provider of voice and language solutions for business, that allows Lexmark rights to sell and distribute a variety of Nuance products, including AutoStore, Equitrac Office/Express, and SafeCom.  These licensed sales also include service and support by Nuance where applicable.  This partnership was made to allow Lexmark to expand its enterprise-ready workflow solutions into areas it hasn't touched before, all the while increasing productivity and document security.

"Nuance's proven capabilities and global 24/7 support align to the needs of Lexmark customers," said Brock Saladin, Lexmark senior vice president and chief revenue officer. "When combined with Lexmark's industry-leading, award-winning imaging devices, our customers can confidently and securely manage documents throughout their lifecycle."

The products, which are available through Lexmark immediately, are as follows:

AutoStore
Designed for workflows where contributors submit data and documents into a predefined workflow, AutoStore provides a quick and intuitive interface for capturing data via automation with the help of real-time connections to business systems.

Equitrac Office/Express
Equitrac Office is a print management system that conserves resources and costs by reducing waste, and also assists IT in tailoring print environments to specific businesses.  Equitrac Express allows users to print from wherever they are, while monitoring costs and resources required for printing.

SafeCom
SafeCom is a print management utility that assists in the protection of data while adhering to applicable compliance standards.  It is a flexible suite of solutions that help to reduce waste, consolidate print networks, and also include user authentication at the device to ensure printed materials are managed effectively.

Read the press release here.

KONE, a leading manufacturer of elevator and escalator systems, recently signed on with IBM to utilize its Watson IoT Platform to bring its new 24/7 Connected services to market.  The new service connects elevators, escalators, automated doors, and turnstyles to the cloud, enabling remote systems to interpret messages from the units and make proactive recommendations for service and preventative maintenance.  This helps to keep "needier" units operable, and others running smoothly.  This move is being done to "deliver the best People Flow experience", according to KONE President and CEO Henrik Ehrnrooth.

Though usually a mundane interaction in our lives, these people-moving machines are complex units with multiple on-board systems as well as an array of safety mechanisms that need to be maintained.  It's all being done in the name of efficiency - an elevator out of service in a busy office building doesn't go unnoticed.  When an error code can be interpreted, parts ordered from stock, and a service tech dispatched all from an advanced analytics engine within minutes the users of these people movers will be up to speed more quickly.  KONE's new utility also collects equipment data, which is then utilized to develop new applications and solutions, as well as monitor performance of products, such as when elevator traffic is highest and its correlation to nearby public transportation schedules.

KONE's goal is to connect its million-plus units to this service over the next few years and marks an impressive worldwide use of IBM's Watson technology.  To learn more about KONE and IBMs partnership click here.

In a press release last week, Lexmark Enterprise Software President Reynolds C. Bish announced the pending sale of Lexmark's Enterprise Software division to Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity firm that specializes in the software and technology-enabled service sectors.  The sale includes all three subcompanies within Lexmark's Enterprise Software division: Kofax, ReadSoft, and Perceptive Software, the latter of which will be sold to Hyland, another Thoma Bravo portfolio company upon closing of the sale.  That additional sale affects the Perceptive Intelligent Capture, Acuo VNA, PACSGEAR and Enterprise Medical Image Viewing product lines.

“We’re incredibly excited to be acquiring the Lexmark Enterprise Software business as it contains some of the most advanced digital transformation technologies in the industry. The Perceptive Software business is highly complementary to Hyland, providing innovative technologies and vertical expertise,” said Seth Boro, a managing partner at Thoma Bravo. “We’re equally thrilled to partner with Reynolds and his management team under the Kofax brand as a new Thoma Bravo portfolio company. Their vision to digitally transform and simplify initial customer interactions with businesses, or what they term the “First Mile”, represents an exciting opportunity across all industries.”

Once the sale closes later this year, Kofax and ReadSoft will be partnered into a new independent company under the Kofax brand, but within the Thoma Bravo portfolio.  Reynolds C. Bish will assume the role as president over those companies.

The transaction will follow all customary transfer procedures, closing conditions, and regulatory approvals.  Financing for the transaction is being provided by Credit Suisse, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and UBS Investment Bank.

Click here to read the press release.

Bahrain-based Gulf Air recently completed a major overhaul of its storage and server systems with the help of Dell EMC, as reported by Computer Weekly.  The project involved many parts - cloud storage, scalable storage area network upgrades, local area network upgrades, and hardware updates as well as all of the connections between.  This was done in an effort to maximize the capabilities of the airline's systems for the next five years.  "It was a complex project," said Jassim Haji Jassim, director of IT at Gulf Air, “It was a mix between full resilience and availability across all the platforms of not only application infrastructure, but databases.  It involved virtualising all storage to maximise the use of our storage infrastructure for the next five years.”

By virtue of being an airline that has planes flying at any given hour of the day, this project was met with a critical need to be implemented without disrupting vital running processes or causing downtime.  Though the timelines were tight, Gulf Air's IT department organized a plan to implement the upgrades in a logical manner and each step redied the system for the next for as smooth a transition as possible.

Before the transition, Gulf Air utilized EMC Clarion and Hewlett Packard Enterprise EVA storage systems in its data centers.  Now, with Dell EMC FAST storage virtualization technology with auto-tiering capabilities in place the airline has met its input/output operations per second (IOPS) requirements, business applications are running more quickly and reliably, and cost savings have been up to 50% in some areas.  Dell EMC also assisted to implement retention and recovery systems designed by Gulf Air's IT department.

Gulf Air is pleased with the results of their new system and is currently evaluating new technologies, such as hyper-converged and converged infrastructures, to help them carry their data even further.

Learn more about PaperFree's Dell EMC storage offerings

Read the article on ComputerWeekly

Today OpenText announced the 2017 Enterprise World user conference, to be held this July in Toronto, Ontario Canada.  The Enterprise World conference series is entering its nineteenth year, and this is the first year that it will be hosted by OpenText, who purchased the ECM division of Dell EMC last year.  The event will feature special keynote addresses by OpenText CEO and CTO Mark J. Barrenechea, OpenText President Steve Murphy, OpenText Executive Vice President of Engineering Muhi Majzoub and special guest Wayne Gretzky.  Enterprise World serves as a leading conference of all things content management, and this year includes a special emphasis on digital and artificial intelligence developments.  New technologies are scheduled to be demonstrated - OpenText Release 16 and OpenText Magellan among them - that showcase how these new methodologies are influencing business too.

OpenText has organized this conference in four parts with individual tracks to customize the experience for attendees from all industries.  They are:

• OpenText User Conference addresses specific uses and applications of the OpenText EIM platform, highlighting Customer Experience Management, Business Network, Enterprise Content Management, Business Process Management, Analytics and Discovery
• OpenText Industry Conference identifies and explores the specific trends impacting Financial Services, Life Sciences, Public Sector, Energy and Engineering industries
• OpenText Partner and Technology Conference incorporates tracks for traditional OpenText partners, and a brand new symposium for innovative technology companies in their early stages
• OpenText Educational Conference offers post-secondary and graduate students a chance to get a head start on their career with mentoring and technical skill sessions

This conference promises to be a continuation of the knowledge sharing event that the content management world has known for the last nineteen years!  To learn more about Enterprise World 2017 click here.  To read the press release click here.

In an April 11 press release, Kofax announced their honor of being named a “Leader” in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Content Management -- Transactional Content Services, Q2 2017 report.  "We believe being positioned as a leader in the Forrester Wave for ECM Transactional Content Services report and as a strong performer in the ECM Business Content Services report underscores our commitment to providing customers with innovative solutions that allow their businesses to run in a more efficient manner,” said Reynolds C. Bish, Chief Executive Officer of Kofax. “Receiving this recognition emphasizes that value and demonstrates how our solutions enable customers to increase responsiveness, grow revenues and reduce operating costs."

Kofax's efforts into the Kofax Perceptive Content toolkit are the basis of this award - it allows customers access to a variety of processes and content rich applications to run their data.  The Forrester Wave report commented that “Vertical expertise allows Kofax to deliver a number of packaged solutions for complex industry requirements in the public sector, healthcare, higher education and insurance, among others."

In addition to the recognition, The Forrester Wave also recognized Kofax in several other business areas:

• As a "Strong Performer" along with commendation it for its continued investment in mobile frameworks.
• Customer sasifaction with overall customer service as well as workflow capabilities.
• The integration between the Kofax TotalAgility platform and its case management and content management products

Kudos to Kofax on their continued success this this sector!  To read more of the press release please click here.

In an April 7 press release, Dell EMC announced their sponsorship of JTG Daugherty Racing, a two-car team in NASCAR series events.  This announcement is notable not only because it is the first time Dell EMC has sponsored a NASCAR team, but it also comes with a technology partnership.  Dell EMC is working with JTG Daugherty to implement their technology throughout the race experience; on the car, on the track, and also in the shop.  This tech includes Dell IoT, client solutions, and enterprise software to manage operations of the team.

Within many racing series there is an emerging trend of utilizing technology to improve team performance.  Why is this?  It's because competing teams have become so adept at building powerful racing vehicles within allowed parameters that they have approached a point where the vehicles are all similarly capable - and they're now looking at the human element and race metrics to shave seconds off lap times and get to the checkered flag first.  The factors come into play in race prep, the pit lane, and of course with the drivers on the track.  “Dell EMC plays a big role in what we do both at the shop and at the track,” No. 47 Kroger ClickList Chevrolet race engineer Tony Palmer said. “From sharing, collecting and analyzing all kinds of data, computing critical fuel mileage and pit windows during the race, all the way down to monitoring crucial weather data, a lot of what we do requires some serious computing power. That's where Dell EMC comes in. The ability to run faster simulations increases our productivity to help find that critical extra tenth of a second. We’re fortunate to have a great partnership with Dell EMC to help us excel and be the best.”

Dell EMC is excited to be partnering with JTG Daugherty and seeing how their decades of tech experience can help the team build a competitive edge.  They list the following as specific applications of their technology for JTG Daugherty:

• Enhance productivity and power simulation workloads with Dell Precision 7510 Mobile Workstations
• Gain real-time insights about timing and scoring, directly from track to server with the Dell Edge Gateway 5000 Series
• Enable testing of shock with Dell Embedded Box PC 3000 Series, designed to withstand the harshest of environments
• Improve tire matching via barcodes with Dell Latitude 12 Rugged Tablet
• Deliver driver overview of speed and performance with Dell Latitude laptops.
• Support applications for predictive modeling to help JTG Racing identify when critical parts are approaching end of life in the race car
• Support race engineers and tire specialists to make smarter, faster decisions trackside or in the garage using Dell Precision 7510 mobile workstations and Dell Latitude 5000 Series laptops to run real-time decision making software
• Streamline operations with ruggedized Dell EMC PowerEdge servers in JTG Daugherty Racing’s Harrisburg, N.C. shop and on the haulers that transport cars to the races; the servers store vital race car information to help simplify car set-up when transitioning to a new track

Click here to read more from the press release

As part of their ongoing reporting on artificial intelligence (AI) in business, ComputerWeekly recently explored how AI is expanding into call centers and customer service departments.  With bots and automated menus and messaging, nearly all of us have worked with a AI utility while trying to contact a company to solve a problem or make a request.  While AI will eventually touch all aspects of a business, its effects are most profound in customer service departments, so much so that human-based customer service may disappear in the coming years.  Customer service is an important link between companies and their customers, and the performance of customer service can make or break a customer's relationship with the brand.  But can AI understand the nuances that a customer gives when they are upset and may end their business relationship?  Not just yet, says ComputerWeekly - humans are still needed for that, well, human touch.

AI in customer service serves two purposes.  First, it allows customers to handle their own requests in an automated way, and second it can help to provide more information to call center operators when a customer must be escalated to a person.  For example, AI systems guide customers through troubleshooting and react based on customer responses, and then provide that information to operators, or they can simply drill down the exact problem that the customer is experiencing, route it to the correct department, and then connect the customer with an operator who knows exactly what the trouble is.  Software has even been developed to passively listen in on calls - recording whether the issue was resolved, the customer satisfied, their loyalty, and also making recommendations for areas to improve.  With this research, AI is now more able to predict customer behavior on the phone and make recommendations to operators on how to handle the call.  Research has found that customer service reps are most effective when they don't have to follow a script, so the input of AI in how to handle the customer's issue is proving successful.

Though AI is an expanding technology, it may not yet be able to take over the customer service role completely just yet.  ComputerWeekly puts it succinctly: "It’s true that AI is unburdening call centres through bots that can answer simple and oft-asked questions online, without the need for the customer to pick up the phone. This means the job of a customer service rep is becoming more varied – the bots answer the routine questions via an online chat or other channel; the people on the phone are the problem solvers.

When AI and customer service reps work in tandem, where data insights are combined with a personable phone manner, the best results for customers can be achieved."

Read more at ComputerWeekly.

Have you run a backup lately?  A core element of any stable enterprise is a reliable and thought-out data backup system in case something goes wrong down the line - such as a fire, hacking, system failure, or any of the multitude of ways data can be damaged.  However, many companies and individuals don't back up nearly as often as they should, says the organizers of World Backup Day, an independent initiative that works to raise awareness about backups and data preservation as well as "preserving our increasingly digital heritage and cultural works for future generations".  They have set March 31st as their "World Backup Day" where they encourage everyone to make a backup of their data (though they admit that every day should be a backup day).  March 31st was chosen as a humorous dig at April Fool's Day on April 1st.

The group started on Reddit of all places, a site that hosts tens of thousands of new pieces of information daily and is a poster child for the need to back up your data.  According to World Backup Day:

• 30% of people have never backed up
• 29% of [data] disasters are caused by accident
• 113 phones are lost or stolen every minute
• 1 in 10 computers are infected with viruses each month

These are all events that have a serious impact on the ability to recover data, and running a simple regular backup that World Backup Day recommends can help to make things right.  Even though their focus is on individuals, these practices absolutely carry over to enterprise data management as well. To learn more about the initiative please visit their website.

PaperFree Corporation is not officially supported or endorsed by World Backup Day.

Kofax, a leading provider of business automation software and PaperFree partner, recently shared exciting news about how its Mobile Credit and Debit Card Framework and Mobile Capture Platform technology was utilized to bring a new mobile banking feature to the market.  Though the financial institution who developed the feature was not disclosed, Kofax describes it as a "Top 10 Global Bank" which means that it is likely that the feature will propagate to other institutions in order to keep products competitive.  The new feature is a simple utility to activate embossed and non-embossed credit cards via a mobile device.  The customer need only to take a picture of the card via the banking app and the Kofax technology does the rest - automatically extracting the card number and expiration date, checking it against the database, and then activating the card for use.  “Account activation is a critical step in the new credit card customer onboarding process,” said Reynolds C. Bish, Chief Executive Officer of Kofax. “This deployment of Kofax’s mobile capture capabilities digitally transforms the bank’s credit card activation process and fosters a quick, easy and frictionless path to an improved customer experience and immediate card activation.”  Kofax expects that this new feature will improve the customer experience by removing the need to log in via desktop computer or calling into a customer service line, and will make the card ready for use much more quickly and thereby increasing revenue potential.

Though a small step, these little conveniences are what customers crave in their mobile banking experiences.  The more easily customers feel that they can manage their accounts, especially via mobile, the more likely they are to be satisfied with the institution's product.  And, with many consumers wishing to keep their financial needs under one roof this is a great tool to aid in account retention and opportunities for further business with consumers.

More about these products:

• Kofax Mobile Credit and Debit Card Framework enables banks to embed these capabilities in their mobile apps, helping their customers facilitate easier payments, balance transfers and new account openings.
• Kofax Mobile Capture Platform enables organizations to create mobile apps that integrate capture and process management capabilities to streamline information-intensive customer interactions and extend self-service capabilities. It turns mobile devices into information capture devices that deliver a more engaging customer experience to “meet customers where they are” in an anywhere, anytime manner. With Kofax Mobile Capture Platform, organizations can improve customer service and accelerate transactions, thereby increasing revenue and customer loyalty. Kofax Mobile Capture Platform is the only platform in the industry that enables banks to create, deploy and maintain their own mobile capture solutions.

To read more about this story please visit the press release.