Two months ago, Hyland announced it would buy Lexmark’s Perceptive business from its parent company Thoma Bravo, following the latter's acquisition of the entire Lexmark software portfolio.
The news caused a ripple of excitement across the enterprise content management industry.
The deal closed this week and Westlake, Ohio-based Hyland started outlining some of its plans for Perceptive.
The acquisition obviously broadens the information management solutions Hyland can offer its customers.
The deal also increases Hyland's hardware and human resources, adding more than 700 new staff members and 17 global office locations.
Hyland Extends Its Portfolio
So what specifically is Hyland getting? The deal delivers Perceptive's core technology, which includes Perceptive Content (formerly ImageNow) and Perceptive Intelligent Capture (formerly Brainware), as well as a number of other smaller companies including Acuo VNA, PACSGEAR, Claron, Nolij, Saperion, Pallas Athena, ISYS and Twistage.
If Hyland succeeds in pulling all this together, it will be able to carry out any content, case or process management task for any of its target industries, including healthcare and finance.
Some speculate the addition of Perceptive will set Hyland in motion to become the leading independent ECM vendor in the game.
And not without reason. At the time of the buy, Terry Frazier, research director for content and digital media technologies at IDC told CMSWire the deal gives Hyland appeal in areas where it had no appeal before.
“The Perceptive acquisition should also, almost instantly, broaden Hyland's portfolio of solutions for vertical industries, shortening time to value for customers,” he said.
All that remains now is to wait and see how and where Hyland will integrate all this technology. We likely won't have to wait very long.
Microsoft Unveils OneDrive Version History
Microsoft continues to invest time and money improving and developing OneDrive personal accounts. One of the most highly requested features over the past months has been version history.
According to a recent blog post, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft is now providing version history for all kinds of files.
“Previously, version history only supported Office files. Now, version history is compatible with all file types, so you no longer need to worry about your PDFs, CAD files or even your photos and videos getting accidentally edited — you’ll always be able to restore or download a previous version,” according to a blog post about the release.
“OneDrive will keep an older version of your files for 30 days. Expanded version history support has started rolling out and will be available to everyone this summer.”
According to the company, customer demand drove the development of this addition and the company promised to monitor customer feedback on the upgrade. While OneDrive is a consumer offering, many enterprise workers with Outlook.com accounts will also have access to this, and its just about certain that certain work files have ended up there already.
Microsoft has also previously promised differential sync, where users can sync selected parts of files or folders, rather than having to sync everything.
While there are no signs this is in development, it does look like the obvious next step.
Google vs. The Phishing Plugins
Remember a few months ago when Google’s Gmail got hit by a phishing scam? Since then, the Mountain View, Calif. company has tinkered under the Gmail hood to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
This week the company revealed its latest move in combating phishing: it will now restrict the kind of plugins users can add, making it harder to install malicious plugins, even accidentally.
Additionally, Google introduced a more thorough process for vetting apps.
"Over the past few months, we’ve required that some new web applications go through a verification process prior to launch based upon a dynamic risk assessment,” a Google developers blog reads.
“Today, we’re expanding upon that foundation, and introducing additional protections: bolder warnings to inform users about newly created web apps and Apps Scripts that are pending verification. In the coming months, we will begin expanding the verification process and the new warnings to existing apps as well.”
The first reports of the phishing scam emerged last January.
The attackers sent emails to Gmail accounts which included an image of an attachment. When people clicked on the image, a new tab opened and prompted users to sign in to Gmail in order to capture your credentials.
Anyone who responded effectively handed over their account and contacts to the attackers.
Today, such an attack would be much harder to perform as this upgrade Google makes it more difficult to plug unknown apps into Google accounts. It’s likely Google will continue working this in the coming months.
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Google Brings Glass Back
Remember Google Glass? The internet-enabled glasses had a brief moment in the sun a few years back, prompting questions about their usefulness, privacy and a few fistfights along the way.
This week the company announced that despite weak consumer interest, it was continuing to develop the product.
Google Glass is an optical head-mounted display designed in the shape of a pair of eyeglasses. Wearers communicated with the internet via natural language voice commands.
In a blog post about the new Glass for Enterprise, Project Lead for Glass Jay Kothari said the company will expand access to Glass due to feedback from enterprise customers.
“Based on the positive feedback we’ve received from these customers [AGCO, DHL, Dignity Health, NSF International, Sutter Health, The Boeing Company] in a special program we’ve been running for the past two years, we’re now making Glass Enterprise Edition available to more businesses through our network of partners."
It will be interesting to see if Glass makes more progress in the enterprise space than it did in the consumer.
Mimecast Protects Exchange, Office 365
London-based Mimecast introduced its new Sync & Recover for Exchange and Office 365 this week. The new capabilities effectively manage the problem of accidental or malicious data loss in both products.
The new service also provides organizations with protection against downtime in the event of a ransomware or other malware attacks, while cloud-based efficiency can quickly restore corrupted or lost email data.
Sync & Recover improves the data protection capabilities of Exchange Online and Office 365 by using Mimecast archive data to provide intuitive point-and-click recovery of email data.
Offered as an add-on option for archiving customers, the company stated Sync & Recover provides simplified administration and streamlined recovery taking out the need for organizations to acquire additional software or hardware.
Sync & Recover for Exchange and Office 365 will be generally available in August 2017.
IntelliChief Upgrades ECM
Finally, this week, Tampa, Fla.-based document management and workflow management vendor IntelliChief has upgraded its ECM to version 4.1
The upgrade includes new mobile workflow abilities, Microsoft Active Directory synchronization and enhanced support for a wide range of native document file types.
It also comes with a new web service client and mobile browser so users can view, index and add notes to projects and transaction documents as well as approve processes.
With the new Active Directory Support, users can synchronize data from their Active Directory profiles with IntelliChief user profiles to cut back on manual entry.
IntelliChief ECM works with accounting, finance, purchasing, human resources and operations, as well as other lines of business.
