Nashua, N.H. -- eCopy, Inc. today announced it has achieved a milestone with the commercial availability of over 100 application Connectors developed by third party partners.  This represents more application connectivity than is available for all MFP embedded platforms combined and is further indication that eCopy is the developer platform of choice for integrating MFP scanning into applications.
 
The eCopy Open Platform (eOP) provides a standard document scanning software platform that makes it possible for eCopy partners, independent software vendors, system integrators and corporate developers to create application Connectors. These Connectors enable office workers to use eCopy ShareScan to scan documents directly into their business software applications from MFPs and document scanners, making business applications more productive and helping increase operational efficiency.
 
The eCopy developer program has over 230 application developers actively using the eCopy Open Platform to integrate applications with eCopy ShareScan document imaging software. In addition to the 100 commercially available Connectors, there are another 140 in development. You can view the entire list of available eCopy application Connectors here.
 
“eCopy has an inherent advantage over the MFP manufacturers’ development environments,” said Edward Schmid, eCopy president and CEO. “Because eCopy is a software provider and not a MFP hardware manufacturer, we better understand what developers need to be successful. eOP provides a development environment that insulates the developer from the need to develop integration to each of the MFP embedded platforms, saving time and money. Developers need only write one Connector to eOP and they are available on all major MFP brands.”
 
eOP was recognized for its unique market position as the only software provider to be included in a MFP platform report* just published by the industry analyst firm IDC. eCopy’s application development platform received stellar marks from independent software developers, scoring the highest number of “very satisfied” responses in each of the eight categories.
 
The survey results revealed 57 percent of eCopy’s third-party developers indicated they were very satisfied (the highest rating in survey questions). This was 11 percentage points higher than the second ranked embedded MFP development platform with other vendors ranging from 16 to 47 points behind eCopy.
 
“Application developers should consider the resource demands required to develop and maintain integration to all the MFP embedded environments,” said Michael Orasin, Research Manager, Document Software & Services, IDC. “To address a sizable share of the market, software developers would need to write their applications to three or more platforms. This would require considerable effort for each of the supported environments, so software companies should thoroughly calculate the return on investment when deciding what platforms to support.”
 
IDC surveyed 64 third-party developers, which ranked development platforms from Canon, eCopy, HP, Konica Minolta, Kyocera Mita, Ricoh, Sharp, and Xerox. All MFP vendors included in the survey provide development platforms exclusive to their MFP brand while eCopy software supports all the major MFP brands.