Well here is a short article about Document Exchange Server or DES by Kofax. Some of you may remember Kofax Ricochet, basically a coversheet that held indexing information. DES is a glorified Ricochet with web viewing added into it. What are the flaws of DES?
1. Completely disjointed - What I mean by that it does not control how many users can scan into it, DES does not control scanning parameters (you can get color images when you expect B/W or low res when you need high res. etc.) and it leaves the routing completely to the user this simply means the user can file things into wrong destinations, with wrong names... etc. etc.
2. While scanning devices get smarter and smarter (and you pay for smarter devices), DES makes little to no use of the available techniques that allows users to rec. the benefits of smarter devices. Next time you are evaluating use of DES, ask the question: "Can users get to see list of destination folders?" or "Can users interact with back end Document management application while in front of the MFP devices or scanners controlled by DES?"... and if the sales man says yes, request a DEMO :)
3. No proven install base - that's right... ask for enterprise deployment of DES and also Document Scanning Server... neither case have been a success... as a matter of a fact both products have been a flop.
4. Pricing - these days you can get 10 times better capabilities in 1/10 of the price... don't leave the competitive pricing to your "friendly Resellers" since they are in on charging you more :)... ask for competitive pricing for products that work with MFP/Scanners and see the difference for yourself.
5. Click charges... that's right they are in there... you may not realize it but ask these questions and you will notice that the DES still includes click charges when you like to PROCESS your images... Question 1: "Can I do image processing?" answer: YES - YOU NEED ASCENT CAPTURE (CLICK!)... "Can I use VB or Other Scripting to connect these to my Business Applications?" Answer: YES - YOU NEED ASCENT CAPTURE (CLICK!)
Just a couple of words from your friendly Document Capture Workflow expert...
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3 comments:
You're a capture expert? I find that hard to believe due to the nature of you hiding your identity online, and the ABSOLUTE inaccuracies of your article, I'd say you work for Captiva, Datacap, etc. Hardly someone who has an objective opinion. Do some research next time.
You are right, I do work within the industry but I have never done any work for any of the companies you have listed.
My data is on field surveillance within the industry. But I just propose ways to research and ask questions ... kind of like "users be aware"... let users ask and find out by themselves.
Please be objective in your comments, I try to be objective with real examples and clear informative comments. I ask the same from visitor comments. Hopefully your comments can be value to others as well.
It's fine to disagree with the comments but provide details, I bet there are many others looking at this page and would benefit from variety of views.
Fair enough, let me point out the errors. First of all, Kofax's Virtual Rescan is built into DES, so image quality is taken care of. The general goal of DES is to take imaging to the knowledge worker. This is why the general settings for devices are hidden to the user. The complexity of settings is one of the factors that has contributed to imaging always being stuck in the back office. DES' goal is to bring office workers into the capture process, or better yet, worry about automating the process all together. All of the standard settings are available, but to an administrator, thus making the system easy to use.
DES does talk directly to the backends, and users can navigate via the web portal Kofax provides. This interface is not provided to the panel of the MFPs, most likely for performance reasons, and the general use case being that users do not spend time at the MFP panel. As a matter of fact, there is a study out there produced in our industry that shows an inverse relationship to the time someone spends at an MFP panel and the money they make. Knowledge workers don't hang around the MFP.
Click charge? This is my favorite misconception of the way Kofax does it's pricing. A click charge implies that Kofax gets a cut for each image, like a service bureau does. That's just not the case. Take the most popular license of Ascent, a 75,000 per month scan license, $3300. Now, to get a "click charge" one would have to amortize the investment out to 3 years at least. So 75,000 images per month for 3 years is 2.7 million images, for $3300, plus 18% annual support, or $5082. Your per image cost is: $.0019 per image. Yeah, those Kofax guys are real bastards. By the way, the MSRP of that license is $3300, but your "friendly reseller" as Capture-Boy puts it, will actually charge you less than retail.
Also, DES has not been generally released to the public. It is in a controller release now, and there are large companies being worked with, but in pilot situations, not production.
Document Scan Server, which has been out for over a year, has not been as successful as Kofax has wanted, but it did sell over 700 devices it's first year out. In comparison, Ascent Capture, back in 1996, only did about $100,000 in revenue it's first year out...
If you're going to claim to be an expert, at least post some credentials. I know a guy who's been in support for 15 years... I wouldn't consider him an imaging industry expert by any means.
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