INDUSTRY NEWS SHORTS

TO POSITION ITSELF IN THE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SPACE, Lava Systems (www. lavasys.com) will unveil two new products later in the year. Lava Business Process Enabler and Lava Knowledge Management System will enable knowledge workers to combine information from relational and object databases, proprietary document management systems and business applications. The products will be built on an n-tier architecture, with client services, application and information foundation layers. Users can choose a Microsoft Windows client or a platform-independent Web browser-based interface. The products are due in Q3 '98.

Doculabs (www.doculabs.com) analyst Jennifer Harty said that the system "offers strong business process enablement tools that integrate with line-of-business applications, back-office tools and front-office applications." The result is an integrated system that ties applications into a knowledge management strategy, she said.

A MERGER HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED between Metastorm (www. metastorm.com), developer of Novell's InForms electronic forms package, and UK-based Sysgenics (www.sysgenics.com), developer of the E-work workflow product. The combined company, Metastorm, will offer business process automation solutions worldwide through OEM partners in forms automation, product development, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and CTI (computer/telephony integration). E-work users will have access to a fully featured professional forms package, while InForms users get an industrial-strength, database-centric workflow offering without the need to change their existing forms and applications. "The merger allows us to leverage the market knowledge and presence of Metastorm and to benefit from their technical expertise and their close relationship with Novell," said Brian McPhee, now Metastorm VP of marketing. "The two companies' technologies are a natural fit and have significant strengths that complement each other," added Metastorm CEO Avi Hoffer.

IN ANTICIPATION OF ITS NEW PRODUCT SUITE, Network Imaging (www.netimage.com) has changed its name to Treev to reflect a new focus on document retrieval, storage and management. The change--along with the new product suite--was officially announced at the AIIM Show in May. According to Treev President Jim Leto, "Having a name that resonates with customers and accurately communicates what we do is critical to establishing a strong identity in the marketplace." Stemming from the word "retrieve," the new name illustrates "what we're all about: storing, managing and retrieving electronic documents and other content in high-volume, distributed environments," Leto added.

A SURVEY OF 150 BANKERS, conducted in conjunction with the BAI conference in March in New Orleans, has revealed some interesting trends in the industry.

The survey was undertaken by Lighthouse Knowledge Transfer Partners, a subsidiary of Lighthouse Consulting Group (www.lhcg.com).

The bankers saw the following trends developing:

• Check, remittance and document (file folder) imaging are converging around a common (logical) enterprise archive or object repository.
• Image proof of deposit (POD) is gaining popularity since costs have come down and as business cases have improved.
• The electronification of the payments system has opened new opportunities for banks to gain/regain market share and develop new market share.
• Banks must develop enterprise strategies that define the deployment and proliferation of advanced technologies to drive the most value and benefit in as risk-adverse a way as possible
• 82% have interest in the application of EDM.
• 94% have interest in the application of work process management.
• 77% have an interest in image capture only.
• 89% see image capture as a key enabler to EDM and workflow.

  UPGRADED VERSIONS of Bscan98 and UpFront98 have been announced by Image Access (www.imageaccess.com) for scanning, indexing and cleaning up images. The new versions include a new handprint recognition engine from Gator Bait Software (www.gatorbait.com), and are available on Windows NT, 3.1 and 95 platforms. Combined with a general machine print recognition engine, Image Access' OCR engine, barcode reader and mark sense support, the products offer a complete set of automated index tools for document capture. Image Access has also announced that after 12 months, the Windows 3.1 versions of Bscan and UpFront will no longer be updated with new features.

  A NEW SET OF DATA AND IMAGE CAPTURE SOLUTIONS for processing order forms, tax returns and billing documents has been announced by Scan-Optics (www. scanoptics.com). OrderExpress offers capture, character recognition, and data correction and verification for processing order reply cards, return non-orders and payments. TaxExpress consists of modules for processing data and images from income tax, sales tax and other tax returns. ProofExpress captures, stores and retrieves images and data from waybills, proof of delivery tickets and other billing documents. Together the solutions reduce labor-intensive costs associated with manually processing a variety of documents. "These solutions apply the technologies of image and data capture to the business problems of our clients," said Richard Goyette, Scan-Optics VP of sales and marketing. "The result is meeting our clients' productivity and profitability goals."