Digital Everything

ML Technologies, a St. Anthony, Idaho, networking solution provider, said it recently got a call from a local doctor looking to upgrade the computer system in his office. ML Technologies was engaged to help the ear, nose and throat specialist go digital, and is now replacing his VHS setup with DVD technology to improve the process of recording patient exams for documenting treatment plans.

Meanwhile, Chi, a Warrensville Heights, Ohio-based solution provider, reported that it is helping a wedding photographer customer develop the capability to produce a rough cut of a wedding DVD for distribution the same day he tapes a ceremony. Chi is also developing a project with a university that plans to record presentations on DVDs for sale to students.

And Hershey Technologies, La Jolla, Calif., said it has been implementing document-imaging solutions in the government market for a number of years. Among its customers is the Riverside, Calif., County Mental Health Department, which uses software and scanners to improve the monitoring of the department's success rate in treating patients. Last year, Hershey was also called on to create a solution using Hewlett-Packard's wireless iPaq Pocket PCs with integrated bar-code readers to help the U.S. Navy keep track of spare-parts inventories in multiple locations.

Solution providers like these are reporting that their clients, most of which tend to be small and midsize businesses, are increasingly turning to the digital world in search of new IT solutions to a wide range of business problems.

Despite familiarity with many of these digital electronics products, though, customers still rely on the value-add that solution providers bring to the table, said Stephen Allen, president of New York-based solution provider Integrated Technology Systems, which sells digital cameras and color printers to real-estate industry clients.

"High-speed scanners are not something customers want to buy from Buy.com," he said. That may not be true of other products such as digital cameras and low-cost flatbed scanners, "but even with these products, not a lot of customers want to spend the time to learn everything needed," he said. "A lawyer needs to spend all his time on the law, and not spend %85 hours researching such products."

All the activity hasn't escaped the notice of the consumer electronics companies. Atlanta-based Philips Consumer Electronics, for example, recently resurrected its business-to-business strategy and is engaging the channel for the first time, said Bill Taylor, vice president of business development for Philips Business Solutions. At Comdex last fall, the company unveiled its first channel program, which includes advertising funds, marketing support, training and, by year-end, certification, Taylor said.

The digital solutions that businesses say they need range from increased use of traditional digital-based products such as cameras, scanners, LCD monitors and digital projectors to new imports from the consumer electronics field such as plasma displays and digital camcorders. Stephen Monteros, general manager of GST/Micro City, a Cerritos, Calif.-based solution provider, said he sells digital cameras to law-enforcement agencies to aid in evidence collection, as well as to government transportation and safety agencies to archive project photos.

Even leading-edge wireless technologies, some of which are just starting to reach the home market, are being eyed for use in business solutions in the near future, solution providers said.

An important trend fueling the desire for these solutions is the falling cost of digital technology, which gives small businesses the ability to use the technology in ways not feasible a couple of years ago, Allen said.

For instance, a small business might find it prohibitively expensive to use a commercial printer for a small run of 500 color brochures. Instead, for the same cost as a commercial printing job, Allen said the company could buy a color laser printer and digital camera and, using readily available glossy or photo paper, do the job in-house. In that scenario, the company would own the means to save money on future printing runs.

Moving customers into the digital world can actually be quite simple for solution providers, Allen said. Most products, even high-speed scanners, are now available via IT distribution channels, so it isn't necessary to sign up with a vendor as a dealer or to take $2,000 training classes, he said.

D&H Distributing, Harrisburg, Pa., is seeing a growing number of consumer electronics sales going into the business-solutions space, said Jeff Davis, D&H's vice president of sales. For instance, high-definition televisions are becoming popular for use as monitors and videoconferencing displays in the conference rooms of small businesses, he said. Digital camcorders can be used to take videos for real-estate salespeople or for insurance claims, with the video then able to be downloaded and edited on a PC.

Other consumer products available through distribution include DVD players, digital cameras, camcorders, home security products with IP-based cameras and even Xboxes and PlayStations and their related games, said Davis.

Digital camcorders from vendors such as Panasonic, Canon and Sony are growing in popularity among business users, solution providers said. The Sony offering is especially noteworthy since it is designed to easily integrate with other Sony products, including the company's Vaio desktop and notebook PCs, Allen said. "Sony did a very effective job of taking their product from the storefront to the distributor," he said.

Once customers make the transition to digital video, they'll probably need DVD burners or a DVD jukebox with multiple drives, said Greg Knieriemen, manager of new products and marketing at Chi.

Jeff Ahlstrom, technical specialist at ML Technologies, is currently exploring a way to use DVD jukeboxes to store clients' receipts for easy archiving and retrieval. He said that there are probably many small businesses in which such a solution would have solid business value. "We're still trying to find the right vendor," he said.

MP3 players, digital projectors, programmable remote controls and televisions with or without integrated VCRs or DVD players are among other consumer products suitable for business solutions, said D&H's Davis. "Our own salespeople have MP3 layers connected to their computers at work," he said. "They've made them their entertainment systems."

Another technology that has been slowly catching on with businesses is the plasma display, which can be used as part of a projection system in a conference room, Monteros said. "I've seen the prices drop and plasma displays become adopted more often in the office," he said. "It's a maturing technology. People see them in many places, think of new applications, think they need one. It's like digital cameras. A couple of years ago they had very low resolution. But there were early adopters. Then other people saw them being used and thought of ways to use them as well."

Attendees at this month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas saw a number of new consumer-focused technologies that vendors said will soon have business applications. Among these are "smart displays," which are LCD monitors with built-in wireless transceivers that allow the screen and optional keyboard to be carried from room to room; Microsoft-specified Media Centers, which are PCs optimized for operating audio and video capabilities in the home; and wide-screen LCD displays with 16:9 aspect ratios.

Phillips' Taylor said smart displays such as his company's DesXcape could easily be used as the primary monitors connected to laptops in a small business. "Everyone in the office could grab their monitors and carry them to the conference room for conferences and collaborative work," he said.

Wide-screen LCD panels with built-in TV tuners are initially being aimed at the consumer space but are expected to see wide adoption in businesses as well, said Monica Islas, product marketing manager for monitors at Samsung Electronics. A 17-inch wide-screen display is as tall as a conventional 15-inch display but actually has 22 percent more screen area, making it suitable for large spreadsheets, content creation and replacing two monitors on certain desks, Islas said.

Digitizing today's offices also depends on advances in commonly used software applications, said Allen. For example, new features even in an application as ubiquitous as Microsoft Word make it easier to design and customize brochures and other materials in-house, he said. And Adobe Systems, which said 500 million copies of its Acrobat Reader software have been distributed to date, late last year added new server products to address the needs of enterprise customers.

The increasing acceptance of the .pdf format as a standard has made it easy to create and read online documents regardless of the applications used to develop them, Allen said. "Most scanner manufacturers include technology that allows documents to be scanned directly into a .pdf file," he said. "Adobe has done a good job to make sure the files look the same whether it is on a PC or Mac."

Solution providers are continuing to explore new technologies that will allow them to design ever-more convenient systems down the road.

Hershey, for example, is currently evaluating a wireless pen from Logitech that, when used with specially designed paper, allows users to write in a normal fashion. The movement of the pen is captured by the device, and up to 50 pages of text can be stored in a single pen, said Neal Fisher, Hershey's vice president and founder.

"You still need the forms-processing application on a server," Fisher said. "But it's $100 per pen vs. $2,000 for a Tablet PC."