Mike Rich
Nuance expects cloud and mobile technologies to be a primary driver on our business in 2013. In 2012, cloud and mobile took root in all three areas of our Imaging business – print, capture and conversion—as our customers looked to take advantage of the benefits they afford: affordability, scalability, accessibility. When it comes to integrating with new technologies, like the cloud, we focus on delivering services that add value to Nuance core competencies and are adaptable to existing business processes. At the same time, we recognize the importance of supporting IT’s needs, which requires secure, scalable and reliable solutions that support – not dictate – IT deployment decisions.
On the capture side, we’ve had early success, particularly in the SMB market, with powerful, easy to deploy scan to cloud services, such as eCopy Scan to Cloud and the OmniPage Cloud Service. These solutions allow users to easily scan a document, securely convert the document into a number of popular and searchable files types such as Word, Excel and PDF, then store those documents to the cloud destination of their choice. The OmniPage Cloud platform extends this service to our partners, allowing them to quickly add document conversion to any Internet connected application without introducing complexity or inconvenience in their customers’ environments.
For print management, 2013 will see greater proliferation of smartphones, tablets and laptops which will continue to drive demand for solutions that enable users to incorporate their devices into their work environments. For example, paper intensive organizations such as legal firms need to extend their print management and cost recovery solutions to mobile users to ensure they are tracking and billing for all relevant charges. This demand drove our integration of Equitrac with PrinterOn late in 2012, which allows mobile users to easily print from their devices and provides enterprises the ability to control, track, and account for print activity through Equitrac. As in legal, many sectors of industry are beginning to strategize around the needs of the mobile workforce, and Nuance is well positioned to offer the right mobile print solution for the end-user.
Lastly, mobile workforces and acceptance of “Bring Your Own Device” in the workplace will reinforce demand for solutions that offer powerful productivity tools. Nuance recently enhanced its PaperPort Anywhere and PaperPort Notes solutions to bring unique personal document management capabilities that fuse cloud storage and Nuance’s voice and capture technologies. Both tools enable users to easily share files using the cloud, providing anytime, anywhere management and accessibility. Both are ideal for virtual or distributed organizations looking for affordable document management solutions.
From a business perspective, the commonality between all our cloud solutions is that initial demand in 2012 was driven by SMBs and smaller SMEs. This echoes research and analysis from numerous organizations such as IDC, Gartner and McKinsey and reinforces our strategy to focus initially on providing cloud-based imaging solutions that meet SMB needs.
However, by the end of 2013, we fully expect that accelerated adoption of Nuance’s offerings by SMBs will demonstrate the viability, practicality and readiness of these solutions pushing usage up-market to larger enterprises.
