Buyers Lab Honors Nine Imaging Solutions with Winter 2013 Pick Awards
January 29, 2013 – Hackensack, NJ – Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI), the world’s leading independent evaluator of document imaging hardware and software, today announced its Winter 2013 “Pick” award winners honoring outstanding document imaging software solutions. Bestowed twice a year by the editors of BLI, the awards honor the top-performing solutions evaluated in BLI's lab during the previous six months. From among the dozens of products evaluated in BLI’s lab in that period, nine products—from Canon, EFI, Kodak, Lexmark, Nuance, OKI, Samsung and Square 9—stood out in as being worthy of this recognition.
The Winter 2013 BLI “Pick” winners for document imaging solutions are:
Canon, Inc.
Canon uniFLOW v5.1
Outstanding Output Management Solution
Electronics For Imaging, Inc.
EFI PrintMe Mobile 2
Outstanding Mobile Printing Solution
Eastman Kodak Company
KODAK Capture Pro Software 4
Outstanding Production Scan Solution
Lexmark International, Inc.
Lexmark Distributed Intelligent Capture
Outstanding Document Processing Solution
Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance eCopy ShareScan 5.1
Outstanding Document Capture/Routing Solution
Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8 and
Nuance eCopy PDF Pro Office 6
Outstanding PDF Creation Solutions
OKI Data Americas, Inc.
OKI School Docu Tool 4
Outstanding Vertical Market Solution: Education
Samsung Electronics America
Samsung SyncThru Admin 6
Outstanding Network Device Management Solution
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 SmartSearch 3.3 Corporate Edition
Outstanding Enterprise Document Management Solution
“These ‘Pick’ winners are among the best document imaging solutions available in categories ranging from document capture and management to mobile printing and vertical market solutions,” said Jamie Bsales, senior product editor for solutions at BLI. “While each is unique in its own right, there’s a common thread that unites them all: Each succeeds in enhancing productivity for customers.”
Canon’s uniFLOW Combines Wide-ranging Functionality into One Platform
uniFLOW V5.1, developed by Canon, Inc. subsidiary NT-ware Systemprogrammierung GmbH, is a wide-ranging solution that offers cost recovery, print management, job routing, scan workflow, mobile printing and document security features. “uniFLOW V5.1 is an extensive and feature-rich solution that addresses a number of document security, routing, print management and cost control/recovery needs,” explained Idris Shogbanmu, solutions technical specialist in BLI’s U.K. lab. “The modular nature of the platform— there are a total of 13 modules available—means customers can tailor the product to their particular situation, paying only for the functionality they need and adding additional capabilities as needs evolve and budgets allow.”
“We are glad that Buyers Lab has selected uniFLOW 5.1 as a ‘Pick’ award winner for Winter 2013,” said Karsten Huster, president at NT-ware. “Our single-platform solution helps our customers improve the performance of their printing environment regardless of the makes or models of devices in their printer and MFD fleet. This award shows that our single-platform strategy is a key differentiator in the market and we remain committed to providing further imaging solutions in the future.”
EFI PrintMe Mobile Deliver Enterprise-Class Mobile Printing
EFI has been developing mobile print solutions for more than a decade—long before smartphones and tablets became ubiquitous—and that expertise is evident in PrintMe Mobile. “BLI has tested plenty of smartphone-based mobile apps, but none offer the flexibility, device support, and manageability most enterprise IT departments demand,” said BLI Associate Editor Dan DiGiacomo. “The solution’s greatest strength is its wide output device compatibility, which is a refreshing change from the mobile apps offered by device OEMs that typically only print to a subset of the maker’s own MFPs and printers.” EFI PrintMe Mobile offers multiple ways for users to print, which means enterprises should have little trouble providing mobile printing capability to a fleet of printers from a variety of manufacturers.
“Receiving this BLI ‘Pick’ award acknowledges EFI’s innovation and proven technology that gives IT departments complete control over printing from mobile devices within the enterprise,” said John Henze, vice president of marketing, EFI Fiery Business Unit. “Mobile devices are increasingly being used as business tools with a natural need to support printing. We are pleased to be recognized for our mobile print solution that not only increases user productivity, but is the only enterprise solution to enable printing from any tablet or smartphone to any printer regardless of device model, printer brand or age.”
KODAK Enhances Centralized Scanning
Kodak Capture Pro, aimed at dedicated scan operators within an organization, is designed to meet the centralized capture needs of document-intensive scanning environments. “KODAK Capture Pro 4.0 builds on the success of its previous versions by maintaining its very good feature set, easy to use design and overall functionality, while adding support for more scanners, more third-party software and more languages,” said BLI’s Lisa Reider, senior product editor for scanning products. “And it advances to the next level by including closer integration with SharePoint and unique quality control measures via Kodak’s Intelligent Quality Control.” This last innovation provides image enhancement tools that automatically identify images with challenging noise characteristics, and allows the user to re-process the image even if the hard copy is no longer available.
Brainware Technology Powers Lexmark Capture & Processing Solution
Lexmark Distributed Intelligent Capture is an enterprise-class capture and processing solution that connects Lexmark MFP solutions on the front end with powerful server-based processing software that analyzes document content to intelligently extract data and route the documents appropriately. “Lexmark’s acquisition of Brainware, Inc., last year netted it a unique recognition engine that can intelligently identify critical words and data from the context of the document, instead of relying on preset templates to tell the system where critical data falls on a page,” explained BLI’s Bsales. “This means the system can process even unfamiliar document layouts with surprising accuracy, minimizing the time-consuming and error-prone manual intervention and rekeying of data that would otherwise be required.”
“In less than three years, Lexmark has made six software company acquisitions as it continues to evolve and provide a portfolio of more complete, end-to-end business solutions,” said Marty Canning, Lexmark executive vice president and president of Imaging Solutions and Services. “We are committed to strategically growing our solutions portfolio through a seamless blend of our imaging technology and software acquisitions, and this award for Lexmark Distributed Intelligent Capture is further proof that our strategy is producing the desired results to positively impact our customers.”
Nuance Improves its ShareScan and PDF Converter Platforms
Nuance eCopy ShareScan continues to prove that it is arguably the preeminent document capture/routing platform available for organizations that need robust document processing and delivery, and especially so in environments where MFPs from multiple OEMs are in play. “Version 5.1 of eCopy ShareScan builds on the platform’s existing strengths—wide MFP support, a consistent and easy user experience at the MFP control panel, powerful document processing, unmatched back-end application integration, enterprise-class scalability—to deliver productivity gains to every department across an organization,” said Bsales. “Version 5.1 delivers improvements on several fronts, especially under the hood. Notably, the install process for eCopy ShareScan is now completely wizard-driven and should take a reseller technician 10 minutes or less—which is unheard of for this class of server software.”
Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8, also a BLI Winter 2013 “Pick” winner, has nearly every feature business users would require of a PDF creation/conversion package. Unlike stripped-down PDF creation utilities, Converter Enterprise supports the creation of the full range of PDF file types. The program enables a user to convert paper documents from any ISIS- or TWAIN-compliant scanner and create PDFs from within Microsoft Office applications. New to version 8, users can also dictate notes and have them automatically added as text to the file thanks to Nuance’s proprietary Dragon speech recognition technology. Nuance PDF Converter Enterprise 8 is also sold as Nuance eCopy PDF Pro Office 6, which shares this BLI “Pick” award.
OKI School Docu Tool Gives Teachers the Gift of Time
OKI School Docu Tool 4 is an education-market solution that allows teachers to create and grade multiple-choice tests more quickly and more cost-effectively than traditional optical mark recognition (OMR) “bubble sheet” test systems. Using an OKI MB780 or MB790 series MFP equipped with the OKI School Docu Tool embedded solution, educators can print multiple-choice test forms in a variety of formats on demand at the MFP. After the test, the teacher then uses the MFP’s scanner to capture completed test forms so the included server application can grade them and assemble reports on the students’ performance, which can be printed right at the MFP. “OKI School Docu Tool is an easy, affordable way for school systems to replace dedicated OMR test systems and forms while retaining the bubble sheet multiple-choice test format many teachers like,” said BLI’s Bsales. “Most importantly, students can benefit from the solution. Teachers will spend less time creating and grading tests, which makes them more available after class.”
“OKI Data Americas is honored that School Docu Tool has received a Winter 2013 “Pick” award from BLI,” said Carl Taylor, director of marketing for OKI Data Americas. “OKI is dedicated to developing valuable tools to optimize the performance of our customers' printing environments. This award underscores our commitment to delivering cost-effective document output and management solutions to the education market, and to serving our customers’ unique and evolving needs through printing innovation.”
Samsung Expands the Definition of Device Management
Samsung SyncThru Admin 6 is a network device management utility that provides IT administrators and help desk staff with centralized management, maintenance and support capabilities for MFPs and printers. “With its version 6 release, Samsung’s SyncThru Admin continues to be one of the best device management utilities on the market,” said BLI’s Shogbanmu. “Its ease of use and additional functionality make it superior to almost every other utility BLI has tested.” Most notably, the utility now offers SLA (service-level agreement) reporting capabilities and the ability to send alerts via Twitter—two features that set SyncThru Admin 6 apart from other management utilities. SyncThru Admin also delivers a more user-friendly interface than most competitors along with more complete functionality, including the ability to return granular information for many non-Samsung devices.
Square 9 SmartSearch Delivers All-inclusive Enterprise Document Management
Square 9 Softworks SmartSearch 3.3 Corporate Edition is an enterprise-caliber document management solution that enables knowledge workers to pull paper and electronic documents into documents into an organization’s digital workflow for streamlined search, retrieval and collaboration. “Square 9 SmartSearch is an impressive document management platform that delivers a wide range of advanced features,” said BLI Research Editor Jessica Schiffenhaus. “Unlike most enterprise-level document management systems, SmartSearch Corporate Edition includes most functionality in the standard server product, rather than requiring extra-cost add-ons. This makes SmartSearch much less expensive when matched feature-for-feature with other leading systems.” Document capture, OCR, a workflow engine, disaster recovery features and much more are all included.
“The entire team at Square 9 is extremely pleased to now have received multiple honors from Buyers Lab,” said Stephen Young, president and CEO of Square 9 Softworks. “The Winter 2013 ‘Pick’ Award, following the ‘Overall’ five-star rating our SmartSearch 3.3 Corporate Edition received from Buyers Lab in October 2012, demonstrates unequivocally that SmartSearch meets and surpasses the requirements of even the most demanding organizations in an enterprise-level solution.”
Stay tuned for upcoming BLI “Pick” award announcements in the following categories:
January 30: A3 MFPs
January 31: A4 printers and MFPs
About Buyers Laboratory LLC
Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI) is the world's leading independent provider of analytical information and services to the digital imaging and document management industry. For over 50 years, buyers have relied on BLI to help them differentiate products’ strengths and weaknesses and make the best purchasing decisions, while industry sales, marketing and product professionals have turned to BLI for insightful competitive intelligence and valued guidance on product development, competitive positioning and sales channel and marketing support. Using BLI’s web-based bliQ and Solutions Center services, 40,000 professionals worldwide create extensive side-by-side comparisons of hardware and software solutions for over 15,000 products globally, including comprehensive specifications and the performance results and ratings from BLI’s unparalleled Lab, Solutions and Environmental Test Reports, the result of months of hands-on evaluation in its US and UK labs. The services, also available via mobile devices, include a comprehensive library of BLI’s test reports, an image gallery, hard to find manufacturers’ literature and valuable tools for configuring products, calculating total cost of ownership (TCO) and annual power usage. BLI also offers consulting and private, for-hire testing services that help manufacturers develop and market better products and consumables.
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