Imaging News — January 2006
| Feature Article: | Increase Productivity and Reduce Cost With Client/Server Image Processing |
| Announcements | Quarterly FlexSnap Enhancements Released (Read the Full Release) Imaging Solution Donated to State of Louisiana (Read the Release) New FlexSnap Flash Demo Available
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| Product Spotlight: | FlexSnap: SI Web Viewer |
| President's Corner: | Looking Back at the Last 10 Years |
| Tech Tip: | Removing FlexSnap Features Using HTML Parameters |
Increase Productivity and Reduce Cost with Client/Server Image Processing
To many companies’ last minute regret, the viewing function within a document management solution often gets overlooked or forgotten when implementing a new ECM system. People make the “safe” presumption that viewers will be available natively on the client system for any of the documents handled by the ECM.
You are probably all too familiar with the need (or in most cases “pain”) of opening multiple programs like Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Office Applications, a TIFF viewer, or a web browser in order to view various content. Relying on multiple applications is not only costly and time-consuming, but also reduces productivity.
Incorporating a universal document and image viewer combined with client/server image processing can increase productivity levels and save costs because the processing happens on the server-side, minimizing delays for the user (client-side) . When the requirement also includes the need to enable web viewing for the documents, a universal viewer is even more of an imperative.
Such a viewer, or client/server imaging solution, can be built on any platform. However, building a solution in Java permits the incorporation of a Web viewing component. Combined they provide a number of benefits:
- Speed—Server-side processing means users can quickly access single pages rather than downloading entire documents resulting in faster access times and reduced network traffic.
- Security—Your documents remain secure when using a server/client solution because the client, if properly designed, can keep the document in temporary storage which is then cleared at the end of each session.
- Maintenance—Administrators no longer need to install or track users’ versions of software or update multiple applications on every client. File updates are done on the application server making changes instantaneous and transparent to end users.
- Scalability—Implementation is quicker and costs are lower because this kind of solution can integrate into an existing application server architecture if designed with an API. And, properly designed, a server-side component can easily expand with a growing user-base.
- Portability—Users on any hardware or software platform that includes Java support have access to the same application and information wherever they are located. This enables one solution to fit a variety of business needs and clients, both internal and external, with no need to migrate code.
Learn more about our server/client imaging solution.
Product Spotlight
FlexSnap™: SI is a sophisticated Web-based retrieval system that provides access to documents and images located on any Java web server. It combines powerful viewing capabilities, with advanced server integration for easy retrieval of your documents and images.
Request an evaluation of FlexSnap: SI.
President's Corner
It seems like only yesterday we were opening the doors of Snowbound Software and releasing our imaging SDK. And now in February, thanks to all our customers and our dedicated team of employees and partners, Snowbound will be celebrating its 10th anniversary.
We started Snowbound with three core goals that we felt were important to succeeding as an imaging products company:
- Develop close relationships with our customers
- Create solid, powerful products built on a reliable code-base
- Form a team of people who are passionate about and experts in imaging
Listening to our customers assured our success. The relationships we formed over the years with our customers have provided us with valuable feedback that has enabled us to continually enhance our offerings and become our industry’s leading provider of imaging technology. By applying our expertise in imaging to our customers’ industries, we have been, and are still, able to develop solutions powerful enough to meet their most critical and timely performance and feature requirements.
Our solutions spring from a base technology that is not only powerful but flexible and, very importantly, designed to be cross-platform. Maintaining one code-base allows us to quickly add new features and functions into all our products — and platforms — close to simultaneously while ensuring version compatibility when customers upgrade.
We were able to reach our first two goals by hiring people that are both passionate about imaging and dedicated to our customers' needs. From management, to our engineers and support, to our sales team, everyone at Snowbound has the passion and expertise that insures we remain an industry-leading imaging technology company.
This passion and dedication, along with your valuable input, will fuel our company’s growth for the next ten years. Thank you for helping us to reach this milestone. We look forward to many more years of dialogue, innovation and success.
Simon Wieczner, CEO
Another historical tidbit, one question I get repeatedly is how we got our name. The preliminary meetings for founding Snowbound were conducted in January of 1996. That winter was the worst winter in Boston’s history. Almost every day we had to fight the snow to get to our planning meetings. When deciding on a name that would be distinctive and memorable, our feelings of being “snowbound” helped us decide. And the rest is history!