Kofax Sells Hardware Business, Enhances Software

January 18, 2011 Alex Woodie

Kofax announced yesterday that it plans to sell its hardware business to a German private equity firm for about $20 million. The U.K. company also has recently made some enhancements to its enterprise document-capture software products.

Kofax said the sale of its hardware business to Hannover Finanz, which it expects to close in March, should yield Kofax at least $20 million after taxes. The former Kofax hardware unit will continue to do business under the name Dicom International AG.

“We’ve chosen to use the Dicom brand and corporate name to build upon the legacy strength of this business and want to assure all of our valued resellers and suppliers that it will be ‘business as usual’ between now and the closing of this transaction in March and thereafter as we move forward together,” states Joachim Froning, senior vice president of hardware distribution sales at Kofax and the anticipated CEO of Dicom International.

Kofax, whose stock is traded on the London Stock Exchange, also announced a restructuring of its business in Europe and the Middle East yesterday. After 20 layoffs, the company should save $2.5 million per year, starting in 2012.

Last week, Kofax unveiled several enhancements to its enterprise document capture solutions, which are used by organizations all over the world (including quite a number of IBM i shops) to convert information contained in paper-based documents into electronic data.

The company’s MarkView for Accounts Payable product has been enhanced with the capability for users to approve or reject a request with one click. It’s also been re-certified for SAP NetWeaver. Also, new device health monitoring capabilities have been added to Kofax Monitor, which provides real-time monitoring for Kofax Capture and the Kofax Transformation Module.

Lastly, Kofax says it has improved the capture of text and data from faxes, e-mails, and attachments in Kofax Capture and the Kofax Transformation Module. This helps to reduce processing time and help initiate document-driven workflows, the vendor says.