By Randolph P. Johnston
Executive Vice President, K2 Enterprises 

If the early part of 2008 has kept you busy, there are changes that are important to your immediate and future technology planning. Technologies introduced recently will be used for years into the future, and are ready to be deployed now.

What’s New?

Major conferences and deadlines have motivated providers to finish and announce products including the following:

• Intel delivered 45 nanometer chips ahead of schedule, allowing HP and others to deliver products with new generation CPUs
• Fujitsu introduced their new generation production quality scanners
• HP continued introducing new generation LaserJet technology
• HD was discontinued in favor of Blu-Ray technology
• Copanion GruntWorx has implemented new forms recognition technology
• Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 1
• SQL Server 2008
• Vista Service Pack 1

Several of these technologies indicate the start of a new generation of technology products. Adopting now will put you on the front of a fairly long technology curve. Of course, we don’t want you to adopt technology for technology’s sake. But each of these technologies set you up to leverage your organization’s skills. This is even more important in economically challenging times.

Make a Technology Plan that includes migration and upgrades

Review your current business plan looking at the strategies and tactics. Choose the firm goals that can be leveraged by technology. In our experience, many goals can be accelerated or improved by applying technology. After you have the goals, strategies and tactics for your functional area prioritized in order, list the technologies that apply to each of the areas. Now you are working from a prioritized technology list. Remember that you may have to have some technologies in place before others, and this may shift the order of deployment. If there are no dependencies, implement the technologies in the order that supports the firm’s prioritized list.

Common technologies that are enabling many companies’ goals this year include:

• Virtualization
• Voice over IP
• Video conferencing
• Security through encryption, hardware controls or cameras
• Paperless/Document Management/Enterprise Content Management
• Business Analytics
• CRM
• Accounting Software or ERP system replacements
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Remote access with control

Enabling technologies for many of these can be built on newly released Microsoft technologies. For example, virtualization is available in Windows Server 2008 that will include Hyper-V. Video conferencing is built into Microsoft Communications Server. Business Analytics is available in PerformancePoint. CRM has been upgraded with the recent release of Dynamics CRM 4.0. Accounting systems are available in five varieties from Microsoft including Dynamics GP, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics AX, Dynamics SL and Office Accounting. OfficeLive Workgroups and OfficeLive Small Business are two current offerings from Microsoft. Microsoft SharedView is currently in Beta, and in its current form has some very useful collaboration capabilities. Remote access with Terminal Services is the building block for many remote products.

Paperless improves Productivity

A number of products are competing for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) from the enterprise class EMC Documentum to the departmental Interwoven Worksite, or the small scale Acct1st. There are approximately 300 content management providers in the U.S. market space, and Microsoft has the popular SharePoint option here as well. To support all of these systems, you need an on-ramp to the digital world with scanning capabilities. This can come in multi-function printers like the HP 4730 MFP or copier based products like the Xerox Workcentre or Canon Imagerunner.

Canon introduced a new 110 Page Per Minute (PPM) scanner. The device has very impressive paper handling capability. Perhaps more useful to the typical workgroup or CPA firm is the Fujitsu 6140 scanner. This new scanner has notably improved paper handling capability, and scans at 60 PPM for $1995 retail. It is a very affordable, fast color scanner as well. If a flat bed version is needed, the 6240 is only $2495 retail. Notable features include:

• 60 ppm / 120 ipm B/W & Grayscale 200 dpi
• 40 ppm / 80 ipm Color 300 dpiNew taper correction technology
• New separation design
• Ultrasonic double-feed detection
• Intelligent Multi-feed Function (iMFF)
• Paper protection technology
• Enhanced hard and embossed card scanning ( up to 1.4 mm thick)
• Scans up to 3 hard cards continuously
• Long document scanning (up to 10 feet)

Equally impressive is the new ScanSnap S300 which shipped in late 2007. The S300 is the world’s smallest color duplex ADF batch scanner. It is designed to provide high performance for mobile use and weighs less than 3.1 lbs. It has a footprint half the size of a letter sheet of paper and is powered by USB connectivity or with the included AC adapter. Notable features include:

• Easy “one-touch” scanning to searchable PDF
• Double-sided color scanning without a reduction in speed.
• Holds up to 10 pages in the Auto Document Feeder (ADF)
• Scans paper the size of a business card up to legal size
• 8 pages per minute (simplex) & 16 images per minute (duplex)
• Advanced automatic image correction features
• Automatic color detection
• Automatic blank page detection & deletion
• Automatic paper size detection
• Automatic image de-skew
• Automatic content-based rotation

Of course, the best option to capturing images is to convert them from their original format into archival file types such PDF, TIF or XPS. Most copiers and scanners interface through TWAIN, ISIS or WIA. Microsoft is currently promoting both the XPS and WIA standards.

Conclusion

The pace of technology has continued and accelerated in 2008. You may need to help your organization focus on opportunities where technology can be leveraged in the firm. Think about where technology can help you achieve your business goals. There are plenty of new opportunities for you to select new technology that can give you a competitive advantage this year and in the years to come.