HP

The IT security climate has changed. While in the past the challenge has been to convince customers of the need for security, the current need is to show how a product’s security capabilities complement a customer’s existing security environment.

Security measures have evolved through the years, from firewalls that kept intruders out, to sophisticated virus throttling systems that detect viruses before they take hold and prevent them from spreading. Attacks now often originate from inside the network, for example: employees take advantage of access, wireless networks are improperly secured, and unaware users introduce viruses or worms to the secure network.

As attacks increase in sophistication, hardening the internal network’s security—from clients and servers to the imaging and printing infrastructure—becomes critical. Further, regulatory requirements, including Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Insurance Portability Protection Act, are mandating protection accountability. continue reading...

Is a picture really worth a thousand words? In this age of multimedia and mass communication, it often seems so. Recent research supports the idea that visual communication can be more powerful than verbal communication, suggesting in many instances that people learn and retain information that is presented to them visually much better than that which is only provided verbally. These are welcome findings to anyone whose work involves using visual presentations to persuade or instruct others. Even more welcome is the news that today, presenters have more resources than ever available to them for creating and displaying the most visually rich programs possible.

Communicating Effectively In The Visual Age
Visual communication is everywhere today, from electronic media like Web pages and television screens to environmental contexts such as road signs and retail displays. As the National Education Association has pointed out, ”Western civilization has become more dependent than ever on visual culture, visual artifacts, and visual communication as a mode of discourse and a means of developing a social and cultural identity.” 1 That’s an interesting observation, but what’s even more intriguing is that there is evidence to suggest that people not only communicate visually more than ever, they also communicate better when they communicate visually. This is an important revelation to those who create presentations for work or education and who want to make those presentations as compelling and effective as possible. This paper is designed to help presenters make the most of this information by describing the evidence for the power of visual communication, identifying the key components of effective visual presentations and discussing the technologies that make it possible to use these components to craft more successful presentations. continue reading...

Independent studies by major auditing firms indicate that most businesses lose one out of every twenty documents they create or receive. The costs associated with lost or simply misfiled documents mount quickly.

In partnership with HP, Informa Software delivers a solution that eliminates the time wasted looking for documents and the cost of making unnecessary copies.

Simply scan from the front panel of an HP mfp and file your document with a few keywords. Unlike copier-based mfps, IQmfp allows the input of index keywords from your desktop. All document types and search fields are custom-definable. IQmfp will also capture documents from MS Office applications or any Windows file type through the native Windows “Send to” feature with a few keystrokes.

Security at the document type, user and group levels insure that only authorized users gain access to documents.

Using an intuitive browser-based search, IQmfp can find documents by keywords or data ranges. Documents are displayed in the industry-standard Adobe® PDF Reader, allowing you to save, print, e-mail or even fax as necessary. IQmfp saves you money by dramatically reducing labor and other operational costs. Fewer trips to the filing cabinet and copier mean more employee productivity. Finding information quicker means being more responsive to customers, which translates directly into a competitive advantage. continue reading...

While many organizations have invested heavily in enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, many have difficulty in bringing the benefits of those investments down to the individual workgroup level. Many small departments and distributed workgroups are still plagued by manual paper handling and routing processes that create huge inefficiencies and potentially costly errors. Moreover, few workgroups have an easy way to get their business documents into the content management system or into a business process quickly enough to improve their operational efficiency.

To address the document capture and processing needs of workgroups and distributed environments, HP provides the HP LaserJet 4345mfp series. These multi-function products (MFPs) are available with two software options (Digital Sending Software 4.0 and HP AutoStore) that allow workgroups to easily capture documents, extract relevant data, index the documents, and distribute them to multiple destinations (including fax, e-mail, shared network folders, directories, and content management systems). In addition, the HP LaserJet 4345mfp series provides workgroups with all the benefits of an MFP, including printing, copying, scanning, faxing, and digital sending capabilities – all from a single device. continue reading...

As color printing becomes increasingly accessible and affordable, more organizations than ever are making it a standard part of the office printing environment. To get the most value from an investment in color printing, it’s critical to incorporate color into the environment in a planned, informed way. That means making decisions about how to invest in, deploy and use color printing that are based on solid information about what documents need to be printed in color and which users will be involved—just as you would for other printers and devices in the environment. Integrating color printing into an overall printing strategy in this way makes it possible to “manage the device to manage the cost” and thereby maximize the return on an investment in color printing.

The value of color Successfully incorporating color into your printing strategy begins with recognizing the strategic value that color brings to organizational communications. As Don Jones points out in The Definitive Guide to Color Office Printing, “Color communications can improve comprehension by 75 percent over black-and-white communications. Readership of color documents can be 40 percent higher. Training materials can accelerate learning from a rate of 55 percent to a rate of 75 percent.”* This impact creates strategic value through its potential to positively affect revenue and  productivity.

Revenue impact

For example, in the financial-services industry, advisors who counsel individuals on their financial future must often present complex information about investment options in the form of charts and graphs that may be inherently difficult to understand due to the amount and type of data contained in them. Color can help customers understand this information better by drawing attention to key figures and conclusions, making it easier for them to get the information they need to make appropriate investment choices. This in turn creates the potential for positive revenue impact for the financial-services provider that is presenting various investment options to the customer. continue reading...