inFORM Decisions reportedly is generating a buzz among its clients with its latest product, iScan, a highly affordable document scanning solution for small businesses.

iScan is unique in that it is being marketed to SMBs at a comparatively low price. The solution starts at $4,800, a sharp step off competing products that cost about $20,000, making inFORM Decisions among the few—or perhaps the first—to OEM a low-end scanning module for IBM i, says Dan Forster, president of inFORM Decisions.

“I think what makes this really slick right now is the price point,” says Forster. “The competition's products are $30,000, $40,000, and $50,000 on up—and one is even in the $100,000 range—really high-end stuff. We just do the basics: We scan the document in, give you the ability to read the data, set up folders and files, and you can store documents and retrieve them. That’s really the message we're taking to our customers. We say this is an affordable solution, you should take a look at it, and if it meets your needs—you’re going to save a lot of money!”

The company had a product it called iScan previously, but it didn't have a high-speed scanning engine. iScan's new high-volume engine allows for high-speed scanning and is designed to be a front-end solution to iView, inFORM's document archive and retrieval solution. iScan integrates with iView to make electronic documents available immediately to selected authorized users anywhere in the world. With the two products working side-by-side, companies can ensure quick, secure access to documents while dramatically lowering storage and mailing costs.

“Everything we’ve done historically has been what we call 'output'—documents that are already going out we can store as long as they are digitally born," says Forster. "Now we have this front-end piece, so customers can take a pile of paper and scan it in, and bring everything into our iView archive and retrieval system.”

While iScan can be used as a stand-alone product, most users will prefer to connect it to a back-end document management and routing solution, whether iView or someone else's existing solution, says Forster.

iScan can be installed and configured in a matter of minutes thus avoiding serious downtime. For more information, read inFORM's press release on iScan here.