Nuance Communications, Inc., a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, and Canon Singapore Pte Ltd. (CSPL), today announced the launch of Nuance eCopy Scan-to-Cloud as a standard feature in the new line of intelligent Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE (iR ADVANCE) multifunction devices (MFDs).

The newest addition to the Nuance eCopy product portfolio, eCopy Scan-to-Cloud is cloud-enabled software that provides organisations with powerful document scanning capabilities by directly connecting Canon iR ADVANCE devices to cloud-based services and applications. It leverages the Nuance OmniPage Cloud service, a hosted optical character recognition (OCR) service that converts scanned paper documents into editable word processing, spreadsheet and searchable PDF documents.

The powerful combination of MFD applications – eCopy Scan-to-Cloud and Microsoft Azure-hosted OmniPage Cloud service – makes it an ideal solution for both small-to-medium businesses and enterprise departments, as additional server software is not required to be installed at the customer's premises. With eCopy Scan-to-Cloud, organisations can now seamlessly scan paper documents into word and spreadsheet attachments via SMTP email, and send editable documents directly to their Google Docs, Salesforce.com, and Evernote accounts.

"Cloud computing has rapidly evolved from delivering popular Web services to a platform that enables the delivery of powerful applications to desktops, smart phones, tablets and, now, multifunction devices" said Lim Kok Hin, Vice President, Business Imaging Solutions Group, Canon South and Southeast Asia. "Our partnership with Nuance makes cloud computing more relevant for organisations using intelligent MFDs such as the Canon iR ADVANCE series. Users will experience increased productivity and efficiency with the direct scan-to-cloud capabilities via Nuance cloud services."

Nuance eCopy Scan-to-Cloud delivers the benefits of cloud computing to Canon MFDs in the same way that applications leverage the cloud on smart phones. With eCopy Scan-to-Cloud, users interact with the Canon MEAP touch-screen on the MFD to connect to Nuance's hosted cloud services – including the OmniPage Cloud service. With the OCR, users do not need to retype pages of text or numbers from paper into hosted services. They can directly scan and instantly search for, edit and share fully-formatted documents. In addition, eCopy Scan-to-Cloud also provides connectivity to email and public cloud services that do not typically have built-in capabilities to capture, digitize and index paper-based information.

Nuance eCopy Scan to Cloud
"Canon Singapore is delivering significant productivity value to customers with eCopy Scan-to-Cloud, particularly for smaller organizations and departments where IT resources are limited," said Robert Weideman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Nuance Document Imaging. "Our partnership with Canon Singapore in developing this revolutionary multifunction device software shows that customers can benefit from cloud applications for their MFDs too. We look forward to this launch igniting a new wave of innovations that will significantly add value to the cloud applications that benefit users today. "

Availability and Pricing
CSPL will incorporate eCopy Scan-to-Cloud as a standard feature in all Canon iR ADVANCE series MFDs with immediate effect. For more information on Nuance Document Imaging products, please visit http://www.nuance.com/for-business/by-product/ecopy/index.htm.