Showing posts with label proprietary software. Show all posts
Showing posts with label proprietary software. Show all posts

Why should we use an open platform?

By  at 9:56 PM  ,  
As you are aware, an open platform is a fairly new concept that has become famous for IT experts for years mainly because open platform software is free to use. Open platforms are indeed useful when they have a lot of advantages. Let’s discover these benefits to explain why we should use an open platform.



Firstly, open platforms provide free open platform software. It can be free to use, distribute, and modify. Open platform software has lower costs. In most cases this is only a fraction of the cost of their proprietary counterparts.

Additionally, open platform products are more secured since codes are accessible to everyone. Anyone can fix bugs when they are found. Therefore, you do not have to wait for the next releases. In fact, codes are continuously analyzed by a large community to produce secure and stable ones.

Open platforms are independent on any company or any author that originally created them. Even if companies fail, codes continue to exist and be developed by their users. 

What is more, open platforms use open standards accessible to everyone. For this reason, they do not have the problem of incompatible formats that exist in proprietary software.

Last but not least, companies using open platform products do not have to think about complex licensing models and do not need anti-piracy measures.

Source: cloudtweaks


Why is an open platform good for business?

By  at 9:46 PM  , , , ,  

Image you are using expensive software of a company. The company is famous and has a lot of customers because expensive software is safe.

But one day, the company is out of business. All of its customers are stuck with software that is no longer updated or supported. It is all proprietary software built on closed platforms and no one could support or improve it. Then, it is completely out of date. You are one of those unlucky customers.

Here is a lesson here that you should choose a product operating on a flexible and open platform. Why?

Here are 4 reasons why choosing a product with an open platform is critical:

 1. If the company is out of business, the product is not out of date.

A product built on a closed, proprietary platform is dead if the vendor goes out of business. Nobody could maintain it. However, a product built on an open platform is still supported by a large user community even if the vendor goes under.

2. Customization options.

An open platform product is easily customized to fit your business needs while a closed, proprietary product is customized only by the vendor. It means that you have many options when customizing an open platform product.

3. Integrates well with your current product.

An open platform product work well with your current product and systems. You know what this means? You don’t have to type the same information into different systems.

4. Works well with each other.

An open platform product works well with other open platform product.

When you buy a closed, proprietary product, you depend on the vendor. You are stuck with unsupported products if the vendor goes out of business. On the other hand, an open platform product doesn’t tie you to any one vendor and works well with others. It means that it puts you in charge of your own future.

What are advantages and disadvantages of a Proprietary System and an Open Platform?

By  at 1:33 AM  , , , ,  
Choosing the right type of software is necessary for running a business as efficiently as possible in the global marketplace. Generally, you have one of two choices choosing a software platform for business purposes or even creating a website. One choice is proprietary software trademarked and likely requiring you to obtain or purchase a license while one choice is open-source software which is free software that you can download and pay no licensing fees to use. Using them has advantages and disadvantages. 

Advantages

With a proprietary-software system, you will be able to utilize the software company's customer service department for troubleshooting and setup purposes. Proprietary software may have more features that appeal to the business owner and is generally adjusted to meet a market need. 


Often, open-source software is cheaper or free. Additionally, it is widely distributed. Therefore, if you have any question, you can ask and gain help from a large number of users on the Internet via forums or other information sources. Often fast bug and security fixes are available for open-source software when problems arise

Expense

One of the big drawbacks of a proprietary-software package is expense. Proprietary-software users will generally charge a licensing fee to the software company that needs to take advantage of its product because the software company needs to sell its product to survive. This licensing fee can be fairly expensive, especially compared to open-source software. If open-source software requires any fees, they are usually required for the software itself not necessarily for ongoing licensing maintenance.

Developer

Compared to open-source software, proprietary software makes business owners too heavily dependent on the developer. It is another drawback of proprietary software. Only own programmers and developers understand the code that makes the software work. Generally, the licensee will not be able to turn to other business owners and users for help with the product.

Adaptability

Generally, proprietary software products make it difficult to adapt to changes in the marketplace. However, open-source software tends to be much quicker to adapt to these types of changes and often provides the business owner with more flexibility. Sometimes proprietary developers slowly offer fixes for any bugs that their software may have.

Source: smallbusiness




iCapture, an advanced document and data capture for iSeries, is available

By  at 11:30 PM  , , , ,  
iCapture is a major upgrade to iScan’s inFORM Decisions, a document capture software.



iCapture offers significantly expanded data-capture and search optimization capabilities, letting users experience a dramatic increase in document indexing intelligence functions and configuration options. What is more, the major upgrade minimizes the need for product customization and third-party utilities.

iCapture also features the advanced optical character recognition (OCR) and optical mark recognition (OMR) which allow data capture of nearly any type of scanned image into meaningful metadata text. Thanks to iCapture’s built-in intelligent character recognition (ICR) functions, hand-printed information can be reliably recognized for metadata.

Additionally, an advanced data extraction (ADE) engine within iCapture intelligently uses scripts or pattern-match logic to create or enhance data recognition accuracy when creating search metadata from a scanned document. In fact, ADE will eliminate the need to hand-key metadata information. As the result, document processing time will be reduced while accuracy will be increased.

Besides, iCapture can auto-extract complex data structures and information from even disparate documents to further enhance document archiving and searching capabilities because ADE is paired with iCapture’s advanced optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities.

iCapture works with inFORM’s iView. It lets users scan documents with PC-connected devices existing outside of the IBM i environment. Then, the scanned content is automatically routed to iCapture for processing, eliminating the need for dedicated 5250 sessions for scanning documents that are to be archived within iView.

You can explore the website of inFORM Decisions (www.informdecisions.com) to understand other benefits of iCapture more.

Source: Mcpressonline

Tags: IBM iSeries, iSeries document capture, iSeries scanned documents, iseries signature capture, iSeries imaging, document capture software

iSign Signature Capture’s iFD

By  at 12:01 AM  , , , ,  
In fact, the concept of paper a pen and is becoming increasingly unfamiliar in our mobile world. What do you need to capture some information? That's what tablets are for. inFORM Decisions (iFD), a software vendor, introduced a new IBM i-based signature capture solution for mobile devices called iSign. 

iSign is an HTML-based app that lets users capture signatures from the comfort of smartphones or tablets. It works by digitally capturing signatures from the touchscreen of any mobile device loaded with a Java-enabled Web browser and then applies the signature to any business document.

This software not only improves the business document workflow by making it electronic but also eliminates the need to print and carry large documents. These benefits make iSign a good potential investment for organizations that are trying to "Go Green".


iSign helps you collect signatures from the comfort of a touchscreen mobile device. 

To sign your name, select a document from the queue, sign the document (using either a stylus or your finger), and save the document on the device. After that, the signed document is uploaded to the document store or content management system, where it can be retrieved anywhere and anytime. You can print or email the document from the mobile device.

You can use iSign in the distribution, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and financial services industries. Insurance adjusters could use it to expedite claims processing in the field while banks could use the technology to avoid lugging around over 100 page documents during mortgage signings. 

inFORM Decisions president Dan Forster says that iSign provides the signatures which are legally binding per the federal government's 2001 Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN).

According to inFORM, signatures captured by iSign can be stored in any document management system. But the company recommends using its own iView document management system to store iSign documents. With iView, you can find signed documents and retrieve them from the comfort of a Web browser.

For more info, see the company's website at www.informdecisions.com or call at 800-858-5544.

Source: itjungle

A powerful suite of open platform products of inFORM Decisions

By  at 4:09 AM  , , , , , ,  
I am sure that if you are running a company, you only want your business process to be improved as much as possible and your business environment to be more efficient. 

In fact, when you want to use products to help your business gain productivity and efficiency, you have two choices: a proprietary system and an open platform. It is believed that an open platform is better when it provides a lot of benefits. I agree with that. However, I am sure that you may be confused when there are a lot of open platform products out there. You really do not know what best open platform products are. But now your problem is solved when inFORM Decisions introduces a suite of open platform products including iCapture, iView and iSign. They will help your business a lot. 


Let’s discover these open platform products. 

iCapture : Feature-rich, affordable document capture and scanning solution


iCapture is a good capture platform for those who want to automatically scan and image. It can meet all the needs of an organization such as document scanning and import, data capture, OCR/ICR, forms processing, data extraction and the ability to migrate the information into a backend. You can use this solution whether your company is small or large. In fact, it is an affordable, scalable solution.


iView: Web-based Content/Document Management Solution 

In fact, iView is an affordable document archive – retrieval solution with powerful integration capabilities. With iView, you can archive your documents and make them available for search and retrieval via a web interface by anytime, anywhere and anyone. You can save costs related to storing, retrieving and sharing documents. 

iSign: Mobile Signature Capture

iSign, a mobile electronic signature capture solution allows you to capture signatures from a browse java enabled mobile device, apply them to business documents ranging from invoices, forms, to reports and upload iView. Signatures provided by iSign are 100% legal. 

As you see, these open platform products provide a lot of benefits. Especially, they are easy to use interfaces and powerful integration capabilities.

Source: inFORM Decisions