The Future of Documents

Talking about Natural Language Processing and its affordances for the Future of Documents, my Fuji Xerox Australia colleagues have started a very interesting exploration of semantic technologies and the future of document management in collaboration with RMIT university.

Anni Rowland-Campbell and team have published a White Paper on the topic which can be downloaded from this location. Looking forward to the results of their research project!

e-Paper and e-Readers continue to spawn a lot of interesting ideas - and generate new affordances. A great example is an offline version of Wikipedia, which can be read on the Irex Iliad. It basically lets you access the full knowledge contained in the open-content encyclopedia on a single sheet of ePaper which you can carry anywhere, instead of reading on screen.

Sure, it probably does not have the look and feel, the gloss and illustrations of a real encyclopedia, but you can take it anywhere. Compare that to the 32,640 pages of Encyclopedia Britannica, in terms of weight, convenience and paper usage or environmental impact…

That’s a very good example of how Web 2.0 technologies can cross-fertilize with new Document technologies and generate interesting side effects that will probably shape the Future of Documents - Document 3.0.

After over a couple years of passionate fight between the Open Document Fomat (ODF) and Open Office XML (OOXML) supporters,  it sounds like Microsoft will fully embrace ODF. 

Microsoft’s national technology officer, Stuart McKee, speaking at a panel at the Red Hat Summit in Boston, said:

“ODF has clearly won. We sell software for a living. The ability to implement ODF in the middle of our ship cycle was just not possible. We couldn’t do that during the release of Office 2007. We’re looking forward and committed to doing more than [ODF-to-OOXML] translators.”

Full support for ODF will appear in Office 2007 SP2, slated for first half of 2009.

Great news for the Future of Documents and all of us end users! One single XML-based Format will be used as standard for most, if not all, of our Document Processing files, thus allowing easy interchange . Furthermore, one can hope the standardization work will now be shift focus from making one standard prevail over each other towards a joint enrichment of the format to support more “semantic” like representations of documents, thus enabling easier content and information extraction from these extractions.

…Unless China’s UOF actually becomes a significant player ?

Among the industries and business processes that are the ”least paperless”, Mortgage Processing certainly comes up near the top. Loan folders are made up of dozens of documents, or hundreds of pages that need to be printed, faxed or fedexed between the different players in this complex industry - this for a mix of legacy, convenience and legal constraints. Not very “green” or sustainable overall.

But that is changing. With Mortgage Document Collaboration Networks such as BlitzDocs,  lenders, brokers and investors can circulate and share electronically the documents needed to underwrite, audit, collaborate, deliver and archive loan documents electronically. Some of these documents can be generated, transmitted, and remain electronic throughout their whole lifecycle.

Still, paper remained required for many documents because of legal compliance and signatures. But not anymore ! e-signature now allows these documents to remain electronic. See here a great coverage by Mortgage Technology of Xerox Mortgage Service’s recent announcement of the addition of e-Signature to simplify Loan processing.

Licensed through eSign Systems, a division of Wave Systems Corp., the  electronic signature capabilities will help expand the BlitzDocs’ network of mortgage participants – giving users access to a larger pool of financial lending institutions and other service providers - but equally important will be the reduction paper consumption.

A key technology for sustainability and the “Less Paper” office is ePaper. After the announcement of the Kindle last year, it was not clear how well Amazon’s and Sony’s ebook would sell - but some speculate that eBooks did really well, maybe even above estimates.

ComputerWorld published a very interesting and comprehensive roundup on the technology: “The Future of ePaper“. Although just a concept, I really like the Fabric PC, “a computer that’s soft, pliable, and can comfortably be carried like portfolio of paper”. It also mentions ways in which ePaper can render color, and predicts that “If e-paper grows from its current 0.1% of that market to even just 3% or 4%, you’ll be looking at a $9-$12 billion market.”

 The only missing bit is turning ePaper from a mere display medium into a fully interactive,  device: compared to paper, eBooks have today no or very limited annotation capabilities  (except for a few ones such as the Iliad IRex). However, this shortcoming should be overcome shortly, as Wacom and E Ink have recently announced a pen-input ePaper display.

We thought it was over - well maybe not ?

Brazil, India and South Africa have appealed against ISO’s approval of OOXML as a standard. Denmark protested too. Oh well… this might not be the end of the story after all.

More interesting than these endless ideological / political battles though is understanding the fundamental differences between OOXML and ODF. No need to read 6,600 pages (6,000 of OOXML specs plus 600 of ODF) anymore - this excellent document gives you a very succinct, (although maybe not totally unbiased ?) idea of the architectural and philosophical differences between the two standards.

For those of you who are interested in the topic of the  paperless /Less Paper Office and sustainability, here is a very interesting report published by InfoTrends.

Demand Drivers for Printing Paper (April 2008) gives very useful data on the paper evolution and outlines regional differences, esp. between Emerging and Mature markets. It complements very well the “Less Paper” Office White Paper and some of my latest blogs on the topic with very precise details on a few technologies (Transpromo document, Hybrid Printing). It finally gives a good overview of as well as driving forces and trends underlying the “Green movement” and its effects on the paper industry, including Recycling, Forest Certification, and Standards.Recommended reading !