Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

New software from Optio Software allows companies to capture business documents, such as invoices and purchase orders, produced by ERP systems and to provide workers with access to those documents over the Internet, based on an employee's particular role in the organization. The new product, e.ComPresent 2.0, builds on previous releases to deliver a role-based document portal that extends beyond the firewall to the Internet, which, Optio says, lets organizations distribute documents more efficiently.

There are benefits to storing documents in a self-service electronic repository, instead of keeping hard-copy documents in a physical archive, Optio says. When a document needs to be retrieved, someone must manually search for the document, which can be a cumbersome, hit-or-miss prospect. Printing, mailing, or similarly distributing the document, or its contents, can also be a hassle and a money-loser.

Alpharetta, Georgia, based Optio Software cites a Forrester Research study that shows the average cost of a telephone-based customer service inquiry is $32.74. The same inquiry, when conducted over the Web, was measured to cost $1.17. Companies can recoup these expenses using technology such as Optio Software's. For example, a recent Nucleus Research report found that 83 percent of companies implementing document management technologies, such as a self-service document portal, believe they have gotten their return-on-investment.

The e.ComPresent helps companies reduce their dependence on manual document distribution processes by allowing people to look up documents and print them themselves. The software uses network authentication processes to ensure that people have access only to the documents they are authorized to view. The software can also be used to notify users of the online availability of new documents that they are authorized to view.

Previous releases of e.ComPresent focused on delivering documents to an internal network, or an intranet. With e.ComPresent 2.0, Optio has made several changes (including substantially reducing the size of PDF output) that makes the software a better candidate for enabling self-service document lookup, viewing, and printing for customers, employees, and business partners located outside of a company's firewall.

About 10 of Optio's 100 e.ComPresent customers have deployed Version 2.0, with good results, Optio says. One of Optio's business partners, Harvest Technology of Alpharetta, Georgia, says e.ComPresent 2.0 has helped it to reduce costs and improve customer relationships. Optio's own accounting department runs the software, and the company claims a 126 percent return on its investment after two months.

The e.ComPresent uses the same C-based document capture engine that is used in Optio's flagship document output management software, e.Com.Integrate, which is available on OS/400, Windows, and Unix platforms. The e.ComPresent runs only on Microsoft and Sun Microsystems Solaris platforms.

Although more than 30 percent of Optio Software's 4,000 customers are AS/400 or iSeries shops, the company has moved away from native OS/400 application development for the time being because customers are just not requesting it, says Benjamin Lazar, the company's vice president of market development.

"The prior management team at Optio walked away from the '400 community," but the new management is considering native OS/400 applications as part of its iSeries strategy, Lazar says. "We're struggling: Do we deploy on Linux or go back into native '400 deployment? Where we're really headed, on the '400, is toward Linux."

While there is a strong case for core applications, such as ERP, to be running on OS/400 servers, many noncritical applications are much better-suited running on a low-cost Windows or Linux box, Lazar says. "A Windows NT or Linux box seems to be a much more popular choice than native '400 applications for what I call 'external applications,' like forms applications and document management."

Optio Software has also announced new healthcare software, called the MedEx Suite, which helps companies comply with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) requirements. The MedEx Suite is the next generation of MedForms, Optio's document output management software designed exclusively for companies in the healthcare industry. With the MedEx Suite, Optio has Web-enabled its healthcare forms package, has introduced new document routing processes that support HL7 messages as well as print data streams, and has found a home for its new "HIPAASmart" technology.

Optio's HIPAASmart technology addresses content filtering, audit logging, patient privacy, and confidentiality issues. Like e.ComPresent, the MedEx Suite runs on Windows 2000 and Solaris, with support for other Unix operating systems coming later this year, Optio says. For more information, go to www.optiosoftware.com.