The New Face Of Forms Processing

The forms processing market is at a crossroads. Over the past couple of years we've seen vendors introduce technology for electronic forms, wireless forms, and processing nontraditional, or unstructured forms, such as invoices. "Nobody has found a gold mine in forms processing," explains Nir Shoshani, the president of software vendor TiS America (Carlsbad, CA). "So, we are expanding the definition of what we do. We are now marketing ourselves as a total data collection company."

TiS promotes its software as a rules-based data validation platform for a number of different input sources. "Customers that we've talked with understand the savings they can achieve by using a single platform spread over several departments and types of input devices. They realize it may be painful at first to install, but especially when looking 5 to 10 years ahead, they can see the benefits of having Web and wireless input technology in addition to paper."

TiS specializes in large installations and is currently forming partnerships with large systems integrators to sell its technology in North America. But, what about small- and mid-sized VARs? Although forms processing may not have proven to be a gold mine, it has been the bread and butter for quite a few of these operations. How can these VARs effectively transition into new areas of data collection?

Vendors Offer Support For Initial Installations
According to Microsystems Technology, Inc. VP of Marketing Marty Greif, the initial steps into new areas of data collection, at least, may require some hand holding by the vendor. Microsystems recently released software for processing invoices. Although Microsystems maintains its policy of selling exclusively through resellers, Greif admits the new product requires "a certain level of vendor support."

"We've watched one of our competitors falter in the invoice processing space," says Greif. "And we do not want to follow in its path. Currently, resellers just don't have enough experience to handle invoice processing applications themselves, but that will come. In addition, vendors are gaining experience. They will add features, and as the software matures, resellers will be able to deploy it more effectively on their own."

Technology Maturing Rapidly
Mitek Systems also has software for processing unstructured forms. According to Bill Boersing, Mitek's VP of North American sales, currently this technology is being used mainly to capture indexing information in document imaging applications. "We're moving toward mining more data automatically off documents," he says. "However, to be successful, each installation requires evaluation of the candidate and its target documents. Anybody who thinks they are going to pop unstructured forms processing software on the server, set up their fields, and make it work smoothly, is not going to get optimum performance."

Boersing does expect to see big advances in the area of unstructured forms processing in the next year. "Based just on what we have planned," he says, "I expect both the setup and modification processes will become easier. The technology is getting close to being something resellers can work with."

Choose Vendors Who Are Entrenched In The Channel
For now, however, resellers looking to expand into new areas of data capture must choose their vendor partners wisely. After all, your customers could be spending a lot of time with them. "I always tell VARs to look out for vendors that sell directly," Greif concludes. "They might make all the promises in the world to their channel, but if they get desperate, you're not sure what they're going to do."