Imaging Communications and Content Management

What does do printer, scanner, copier, facsimile, web, email have in common? They all deal with the communication and dissemination of content. With vast amount of content available today, we also have the need to manage it, and integrate it with our business work-flow.

It is in these areas that Cognisys provides vision and leadership. Cognisys not only observes and analyzes this market area, we also are instrumental in influencing the direction the industry is going.

• Founding Member of MFPA
  In 1993, Cognisys saw a need for consensus-based standards and interoperability agreements to support the printer, scanner, fax, copier "all-in-one" market, and formed the MFPA as a means for disparate companies to come together and work as one on specific projects. Originally under the umbrella of the Alliance Technology Institute, this entity was reformed as a not-for-profit corporation in 1997. Raymond Lutz, President of Cognisys was also the founder of the MFPA and is still an instrumental force in the MFP and related industry.

• Involved in MFP-related Standards
  Cognisys has been an active member of the MFPA since its inception, and as a result, has been involved as editor or contributor to a variety of standards and interoperability efforts, such as:
  • MFPI Standard (TIA IS-650)
    Raymond Lutz, representing Cognisys and Rockwell Corporation, drafted the Multifunction Peripheral Interface standard (TIA IS-650) to allow multiple subsystems to reside in a single unit and communicate with a host PC over serial, parallel, SCSI, and other common interconnects. This was a key standard needed at the time as most communication cables in use were point-to-point, and even unidirectional. Today, this standard is no longer in service as new standards (such as IEEE-1284.4, -1394, USB, etc) always include the ability to establish multiple logical connections. At the time, this standard was pointed the direction for the future of local interconnection.

  • Advanced FAX Technologies
    As a member of the Facsimile standards body in the US and as a contributor to the ITU-T, as well as other bodies such as the PWG and IETF, Cognisys has been a contributor to the development of advanced fax technologies, such as Class-1 and Class-2 fax, color-fax, T.37 (SMTP fax), and T.38 (TCP Tunneling Fax) and somewhat to ipp-fax. This involvement has decreased recently as these activities have matured.

  • MFP-MIB and related MIB documents
    The MIB documents encourage configuration and management of devices on networks. The Printer Working Group (PWG) drafted the Printer MIB, and this was useful as one subsystem of the Multifunction device. The MFPA has taken this project further to allow management of the MFP, scanner, facsimile subsystem, and copier. Again, Cognisys has been a leader in completing this work.

  • WorkFlow For MFPs
    Cognisys has been working on an approach for integrating MFP and related office equipment seamlessly with general workflow management applications, as well as applications that include workflow, such as SAP, Oracle, and MS Great Plains, as examples. This work is still in progress, and at this writing, appears to be blending with the BrowseFax initiative.

  • ColorFax PlugFest
    Cognisys was a co-manager of the recent T.30 Color-fax plug-fest at the HP facility in San Diego. MFPA is planning more plug-fests due to the success of this activity.

  

• BrowseFax Initiative
  The latest vision of Cognisys is the BrowseFax initiative! Here a microbrowser is integrated into corporate work-group grade of MFP for integration with various appropriate IntraNet and Internet-based applications! XML workflow payload is used to drive the MFP so it can be integrated with web-based applications that support document communications, such as with services of USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL and others! Sure to be part of every portal as well, including AOL, Yahoo! and others! Can this rescue the poor deployment of ipp, ipp-fax, T.37 and T.38 fax? We think so, and it will help the workflow project reach conclusion as well. Get involved. See browsefax.com for more information!

  

• Web-based Content Management
  Cognisys has implemented a large web-based application, at ImagingWeb.com which illustrates the imaging expertise as well as active-web application development skills.