Konica Minolta is teaming up with Australia's I2 Software to offer a range of document scanning and indexing applications, and the it4Group to roll out the InVu workflow & document management solution.

“i2 Software offers a range of powerful yet easy to configure and use applications that fit perfectly within our solution portfolio,” said Kylie Timmins, National Software Product Manager, Client Solutions Group from Konica Minolta Australia.

Konica Minolta will be offering I2 Software solutions for scanning and high volume processing of paper, with output to a range of databases and document management systems such as SharePoint, DocNet and InVu.

Kofax solutions are already being offered for medium to enterprise-size organisations, whereas i2 Software's products will be targetted at small to medium-sized business and offered by Konica Minolta in addition to eCopy.

Timmins said the I2 Software solutions offered a flexible price-point and "they are a fantastic company to work with. They are very responsive and able to meet our requests to configure their products to our client's needs."

"We have already been offering the Unity Desktop from Nuance, which includes OmniPage, but I2 has a different feature set; you can zoom in on zones on the page, use the magic wand and OCR from images."

"I2 Conversion Server also offers the ability to convert files to text-searchable PDF and they are writing a connector into InVu."

Konica Minolta is now offering InVu content automation integrated with its bizhub multi-functional devices. InVu is a .NET document management suite developed in the UK, sold and supported in Australia by the it4Group.

“By adding InVu workflow & document management software to our product mix, Konica Minolta can offer all the powerful capabilities of this market-leading document management platform to our customers,” said Timmins.

“More than ever, organisations are facing pressures to reduce costs and are faced with the challenge of managing an increasing number of documents and printed paper. InVu addresses these challenges by helping customers improve efficiencies, lower costs and makes you more responsive to enquiries – without even leaving your desk.”

Timmins said the decision to select InVu was based on the comprehensive feature set incorporated in the core platform, which is able to be extended to develop automated workflows.

"It integrates with the Office suite and email and is able to pull in information from legacy applications," said Timmins.

"We have also provided it4 with our API so InVu can be integrated into the panels on our bizhub MFPs, and its bidirectional so users can use it to pull documents out of a repository as well pushing them though."

InVu for SharePoint has recently been added to the InVu product set and is targeted at businesses utilising SharePoint. It builds on the existing InVu Document Management product and integrates with both Microsoft SharePoint 2007 and the new SharePoint 2010 editions.

InVu has also joined forces with ABBYY to develop a new function, called InVu Capture, based on FlexiCapture 9.0, ABBYY’s newest data and document capture solution.

Timmins said "it4 are looking at this for ICR (intelligent character recognition) where handwritten forms need to be scanned and input to InVu. Whether its ABBYY or Kofax for ICR, I don't care as long as its meeting customer needs."

"It also offers easy Integration into 3rd party applications so invoice processing workflows can be created to write data directly into your existing financials. There is a high security focus, with audit trails on all documents, linked to active directory, and PCI Compliance with encryption of credit card information, which is so important nowadays."