Document imaging can streamline operations.

Samson Information Technologies, LLC President Michael Goldstein recently told 300 information systems executives how a company can streamline operations, gear competitively for the future of electronic commerce and realize significant savings by incorporating document imaging into its existing computing system.

He was addressing the Requirements '97 conference for real estate executives, in Uniondale, NY sponsored by B.J. Murray, systems vendor to the real estate industry.

"To remain positioned competitively in the information age marketplace, a company should start converting paper-based data to electronic images today," Goldstein said. "The technology to do it quickly, easily and cost-effectively is now available."

Goldstein explained the evolution of Samson InfoTech from an arm of an affiliated real estate company to a software developer dedicated to serving paper-intensive industries.

Samson Management, the real estate company, was bogged down by 1.5 million pages of paper that were circulating its office, and a filing system that cost $100,000 to maintain, not to mention the expense of floor space. Goldstein then worked to develop a software system that would "image-enable" the real estate company's existing computing system, and present no workflow changes or interruptions -just improvements - to personnel.

The software he developed is the now widely-available Samson Capture suite of imaging applications, which is distinct from other imaging software in that it does not treat document imaging as a stand-alone application. Rather, Samson Capture's search capability automatically "follows" users as they navigate the in-place system, and the suite works off their system's preexisting inquiry functions. As a result, users need not learn new software or search engines.

"There is an inevitability about this technology," said Brian Murray, symposium host and president of B.J. Murray, Inc. "Companies with Samson Capture have a strategic advantage."

A key advantage of Samson Capture is the unprecedented speed - 12 weeks compared with six to eight months for competing software - with which it image-enables an existing system. Object linking and embedding tools allow Samson Capture to be quickly mapped to related counterparts in the existing system in a point-and-click process.

Through the Samson Partner Alliance Program, Samson Capture is marketed directly to information systems developers, vendors and integrators, who in turn offer Samson Capture to their customers.

Samson Capture is comprised of four applications. ImageTerm image-enables the legacy information system; ImageNavigator provides the same function, but for users outside the legacy system; DataConvert is for the scanning, indexing and importation of document images; and OCR Tuner enables users to prepare libraries of document templates for optical character recognition.

Markets for Samson Capture's document imaging include all paper-intensive and transactional industries, primarily real estate, banking, health care/pharmaceuticals, accounting, legal, insurance, and government.

B.J. Murray, Inc., vendor of management information systems to the real estate industry, has signed an agreement with software developer Samson Information Technologies, LLC to incorporate the Samson Capture advanced document imaging suite in B.J. Murray property management packages.

"Samson Capture has image-enabled B.J. Murray, so B.J. Murray can, in turn, image-enable our clients," said B.I. Murray President Brian Murray. "With Samson Capture, we are positioning our clients early on for the era of complete electronic commerce. Samson Capture fluidly enables an organization to convert paper-based data to readily accessible, share-able and transmittable electronic images - either incrementally or comprehensively and historically."

Samson Capture quickly and completely integrates imaging within an existing organizational computing system. Users of systems image-enabled by Samson Capture need not learn new software and find there is practically no search time for accessing imaged documents. Samson Capture's search capability automatically "follows" users as they navigate the in-place system, and the suite works off the system's preexisting inquiry functions.

"We're delighted to have B.J. Murray, a very respected provider to the real estate industry, as one of the participants in the Samson Partner Alliance Program, through which developers, integrators and vendors offer Samson Capture to their customers," said Goldstein. "We sincerely believe that Samson Capture will help make the B.J. Murray property management package, already one of the most flexible and service-oriented systems available, even more productive for the end users, who happen to operate in one of the most paper-intensive industries."