The End of Scanning As We Know It?

Is it the end of scanning as we know it? Will you throw out your Kodaks? A product review of the Xerox DocuMate 252 Desktop Scanner

As I walked past the trade show booth it called to me in a sweet tempting voice.

“Mike, Oh Mike… over here, you need to check me out. I am the scanner that will change the way your clients scan documents.”

I stopped and gaped at the machine. It was compact and had a sleek design. In a world where most scanners look like they were designed by East-Germans in the 1950s stood a device that looked futuristic. No clunky toaster oven look-alikes here. The perfunctory demo was flawless and answered my questions before I asked them. There had to be some flaws, so I asked if I could evaluate one. My first hardware evaluation in years.

I got back to my office some weeks later and the scanner had arrived. Late on a Friday afternoon I decided to “play” with it a bit. I set it up in about thirty minutes. The instructions were intelligible in spite of the fact that I wore no propeller on my hat and software installed very effortlessly. One might say I had a good “Out of box” experience. Time to dig in, I thought. I scanned all different types of documents. Odd sizes and shapes, colors and thickness. Not a single jam. It worked incredibly well.

Why is this important?

Blue Cross Plans have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on monolithic, expensive, complicated scanning operations with slews of Kodak scanners, operators and a cast of supporting techies. The operations are typically models of efficiency. The problem is that the documents still live, breathe and work in the departments. They typically only visit the scanning area when they are ready to retire to the warehouse. Scanning desperately needs to be pushed out to the work units, but inexpensive, reliable, light-duty scanning appliances have not been available… until now.

This is the David of scanners and may slay the Kodak Goliath. For paperlessness to have any chance, insurance companies must leverage their investment in imaging and workflow, decentralized scanning must ultimately succeed. Until now my bets were on Goliath, after reviewing this little scanner, my opinion has… evolved.. The concern has been that the scanners were too feeble to do real work. No more.

Here are some facts.

Vexing Problems Solved:

Installation and support: No cards and minimal software. Installation is a snap. Support? I would expect less than that of the support required for a typical HP laser printer.

Maintenance: Maintenance is reasonable and widely available. This has been a major problem with desktop scanning in the past. Your local Xerox pocket protector fix-it guy who keeps your copier fed and watered can fix the scanner and you don’t need to staff for it.

Price: Street price is about $850. In the past scanners of this caliber cost $2,000 - $4,000.

Easy: It ships with drivers that should allow it to plug into virtually any document management system. It also comes with a feature called “One Touch” that is incredibly useful.

Secure: Departmental docs from HR, contracts and legal can be scanned in their own area, avoiding prying eyes.

Fast: It scans at 25 pages per minute. It also scans duplex (both sides in one pass).

Some Details:

Product: Xerox DocuMate 252

Speed: 25 pages per minute (50 images per minute duplex)

Interface: USB connection eliminates hassles with cards and opening up PCs

Size: Small footprint – about 6” x 13”

Software: Comes with all kinds of great stuff. Scan to Paperport, PDF, OCR, Kofax Virtual Rescan and a bunch more

Mike’s Review:

All kidding aside, this is a great scanner. Period. It is fast, provides beautiful image quality and is remarkably versatile for the price. It makes a great stocking stuffer ;)

Link: http://www.xeroxscanners.com/default.asp?pageid=120

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