Adlib Software will be a Gold Sponsor at SPTechCon Boston this year on October 20 -22, 2010. Please drop by and see us if you are attending. Here’s what we’ll be doing at the show:

• Attending sessions, workshops, and technical classes to learn more about SharePoint 2010. Especially those that discuss topics that include workflows, SharePoint Designer 2010, and metadata.
• We’ll have a booth in the exhibit hall so it will be easy to find us. Drop by booth 301 to discuss or see a demonstration of what’s new in Adlib PDF for SharePoint.
• I’ll be speaking at the “Lightning Talks” event on Wednesday, Oct. 20, 5:15 - 7 p.m. My topic will be about increasing the value of your SharePoint investment though automated document transformation. Learn how Adlib PDF for SharePoint can convert, combine and enhance documents in SharePoint and turn it into useful information for people. Don’t be late, these sessions are only 6 minutes long each. If that doesn’t prove to be interesting, at least there will be pizza…

We attended SPTechCon San Francisco in February 2010 and were pleased with the quality of the event and the opportunity to engage with other partners in the Microsoft SharePoint ecosystem and businesses that were deploying or planning to deploy SharePoint. My biggest dissapointment with SPTechcon San Francisco was its misleading name - it was actually held in Burlingame, California, right by the San Francisco airport. I shared the kind of frustration I imagine the occupants of Alcatraz must have felt with the beautiful city of San Francisco so close by. (Granted, from Alcatraz it was a 2.4 kilometer swim across the shark-infested bay, and for us, it was only the monetary inconvenience of $100+ in cab fare to get downtown.)

Anyway, I am sure that the setting for SPTechCon Boston 2010 will be just grand; see you there! 

Paul Dyck
Product Manager
Adlib Software

AIIM’s definition of BPM does little to clarify: “BPM is a way of looking at and then controlling the processes that are present in an organization. It is an effective methodology to use in times of crisis to make certain that the processes are efficient and effective, as this will result in a better and more cost efficient organization.”

Nor is the specific meaning of BPM really cleared up by its oft-quoted benefits, namely:

• Reduced operating costs
• Accelerated business processes
• Reduced compliance risks

Fewer than 50 Dedicated BPM Vendors

Understanding BPM is easier when it is described as a management approach, or a program implemented by an enterprise. These programs often leverage multiple software applications - ranging from modules provided by the ECM vendors, to dedicated BPM suites like Pegasystems. Most sources list fewer than 50 vendors that offer dedicated BPM solutions.

Gartner has the requisite Magic Quadrant - and AIIM surveys have shown that almost two-thirds of respondents identified the importance of BPM as ‘significant or imperative’ to their organizations.

The promise of BPM is sufficiently real, and there is meaningful consolidation happening in the market. The most recent rounds of acquisitions are bearing fruit, according to Forrester and other experts. Consolidation among BPM vendors, specifically IBM’s purchase of Lombari and Progress Software’s acquisition of Savvion is starting to bear some real fruit in terms of benefits to customers.

Adobe’s LiveCycle BPM solution has (likely) been strengthened with their recent acquisition of Day Software. LiveCycle has long focused on improving form-related business processes, although the processes covered by BPM go well beyond this.

Our customers have successfully realized the reduced costs and improved compliance by leveraging best of breed technologies that seamlessly link with business processes and systems across their organizations. The value comes from both quantitative measures – like costs and time – and more qualitative improvements to their business processes, such as improved service to internal and external customers.

So, I suppose, even though I don’t particularly like BPM as an acronym, I do appreciate what the concept can deliver to a customer – and that our solutions play a critical role in that delivery.

Scott Mackey
Director, Product Management
Adlib Software

According to news sources earlier this year, the telecom company would not spend the money needed to improve the search aspect of its existing document management software used to organize some 23 million pages for e-discovery in a criminal prosecution of Nortel execs charged with fudging the books.

The defence for Nortel has argued that ‘fair trial’ rights were affected since there was no way to conduct effective database searches of the material. The judge didn’t buy it, saying, “Disclosure must be meaningful... in the electronic age, it must be accessible.” (The process got so crazy that the RCMP spent two years trying to correct the search problem, with no success.)

Too bad Nortel wasn’t using Adlib PDF conversion, publishing and recognition software; they could have quickly handed the judge fully searchable PDFs made from any document format. Some other high-profile legal teams are using Adlib solutions.

For example, the recovery corporation formed to deal with the most famous bankruptcy in American history uses Adlib Express for the streamlining of more than 2 million documents a day submitted for e-discovery in dozens of lawsuits. At the height of the litigation, the document processing needs were powered by some 160 servers set up in parallel to convert all the documents to searchable PDFs, creating the largest Oracle database instance in the world at the time to store the data.

As bad as the reality is for this failed corporation, this example demonstrates the vital role that automated document transformation plays in today’s world of (potentially crippling) mountains of raw information in the face of tight timelines and high compliancy demands.

Peter Duff
President & CEO
Adlib Software

The attendance at this show has about 90% records management business users and 10% IT administrators, which is fantastic for vendors to actually drill down into business problems and requirements.

PDF/A is one of the top 3 topics for sessions at this event; NIRMA has had sessions on PDF/A for the last four years. One of this year’s presenters asked the question, "How many of you are storing your documents in PDF/A format currently?" and, surprisingly, only about five hands went up in a full room. Clearly, interest in PDF/A is growing within the nuclear industry, but I think people are cautious on the implementation strategy to make sure they do it right.

Tim Fleet, Products Director for Sword CTSpace – gave an introduction to cloud computing that was very well received by the nuclear users – giving them a sound understanding of what is happening in the IT world today, and planting seeds on how nuclear facilities will need to evolve in the future. 

We’ve had numerous organizations come by the Sword booth. The idea of having centralized, server- based rendering embedded within the Sword’s document management system is enticing people to learn more.  We’ll definitely continue to leverage the PDF/A buzz to help move the nuclear industry forward in long-term archival strategies.

Rupin Mago
Strategic Alliances Manager
Adlib Software

LORENZ describes the annual conference as the “meeting point for those interested in the digitization of regulatory affairs... information about new regulatory guidelines, pitfalls with change management or views from regulatory agencies.”

I will be presenting at one of the popular table tutorial sessions four times during the morning of Thurs., Sept. 23^rd – specifically, Table 5 at 8:30, 9:15, 10:45, and 11:30 a.m. I’ll talk about how the largest pharmaceutical companies (and other enterprises) optimize the success of their eCTD submissions by leveraging submission-ready PDF rendering to meet regulatory standards. I will also be discussing the role of PDF/A.                 

I am looking forward to the dialogue with LORENZ customers and guests about the delivery of flawlessly formatted PDFs to reduce document QA times, cut costs, speed up submission preparation, and reduce the potential for rejection due to formatting errors.

Recently I spoke on this subject at a Toronto-area meeting of the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society (RAPS) hosted by LORENZ called “eCTD Management in an Evolving Regulatory Environment.” Attendees, including representatives from Health Canada, asked questions about the use of PDF conversion, recognition and publishing solutions in the life sciences industry.

LORENZ userBridge is being held in quaintly German accommodations, the Kempinski Hotel Gravenbruch. To register, go here.

Scott Mackey
Director, Product Management
Adlib Software