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The AIIM/OnDemand Conference & Exhibition events have traditionally featured digital printing and workflow solutions for print service providers, reflecting the product offerings.
“Last year we launched and showed the new NEXPRESS M700 Digital Color Press-big iron,” said Dave Wigfield, managing director, United States and Canada Region, Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group.
However, for the AIIM/OnDemand show held in Boston, March 3-6, vendors such as Kodak have been expanding their target market to include hardware and applications appropriate for midsize and even small-office customers.
“This year our main focus has been on applications surrounding our output devices, demonstrating workflow, to build momentum for the Drupa [printing and media] show in Dusseldorf, Germany,” said Wigfield. “We’re focusing on the applications, and use of software, to drive change in the industry.
“We’ll use our products to show how an integrated marketing campaign can be done using Kodak offerings. In document imaging, we’ll feature new and established desktop, networked and production scanners, software and solutions that help businesses more effectively capture, archive, extract and manage critical business information,” said Wigfield.
Kodak did bring out some “big iron” for this year’s AIIM show, including its new Versamark VL2000 Printing System, a high-speed, high-resolution ink-jet printer intended for data centers doing over 1 million transactional or promotional images per month, along with the Kodak i780 Scanner, a 133-page-per-minute color scanner announced in January.
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“This is the first show the i780 has been seen at,” said Wigfield. “The i780 is optimized for color and for more complex scanning. Most scanners slow down as you do color, or turn on features like auto-rotate. The i780 is designed to run at full speed. That’s very exciting for service bureaus looking for performance.”
Kodak also announced a new version of its Capture Pro Software, which can be used to automate and control content management workflow at the point of image capture, adding time-saving features for users.
“We’ve done a complete rewrite, so it’s more robust and has more functionality and a new, simplified graphic user interface-a whole new look and feel,” commented Wigfield. Other new features include single-click capture, continuous flatbed scanning, intelligent selective image display and post-scan image processing.
“This software will be one of the big things for us-we’re getting aggressive, building out the channel,” he said.
One distinctive aspect of the Capture Pro software is that “We don’t follow a ‘click-charge’ per-usage cost model unlike many other packages, which is good for people who want to capture a lot of documents,” said Wigfield.
“Kodak has never really put marketing emphasis on their Capture Software before,” commented Ron Glaz, Director, Digital Imaging Service, IDC. “Now they’re making it known they can sell it.”
Capture Pro is compatible with nearly all Kodak document scanners. The new version is available now, with pricing based on class of product, starting at $500 for desktop use and up to $15,000 in volume production mode.
Kodak also announced enhancements to its Kodak i1840 and i1860 Series scanners for greater ease of use, flexibility and productivity.