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Why EIP? There are not many times we have the opportunity to face a big change in the industry. We find ourselves in the beginning of a journey that will definitively change the way we interact with technology, not only in the office, but also in the rest of our lives. Users have taken the lead in deciding how they want to work and the economic situation has encouraged the evolution of the information worker. So, the time of providing access to information has gone and the challenge is to provide it in the way that people really want it. We decided to open the door of our systems to the world - this way they can adapt to the business, providing the right info to each user in the way it suits them. But that also means we can't do this journey alone - we need the rest of the players in the office value chain: our partners. The good news is that we know them and that’s a great position to be in. Of course, we are not alone. The competition is playing in this space too and this is great because it means we going in the right direction. Thankfully, the industry analysts see us as best positioned, so there is just one thing to do, hit the road. The 6th of September is the day.
Jose Nevado
EIP Marketing Manager, Office Group
Xerox Europe
 Last week I got a new mobile device and with one more step towards complete information mobility I realized that as much as I value the ability to be connected anywhere, I also rely more and more on infrastructure “outposts”. As it turns out, getting hardcopy or scanning a document is fundamental to my everyday work and the MFP is a key piece of technology I rely on.
The new Xerox Extensible Interface Platform lets me access the MFP in any office and get access to my personalized applications. I can collect print jobs at a convenient MFP and scan documents directly to my inbox without fiddling with email addresses. In short, the MFP becomes my mobile outpost in an otherwise virtualized and almost invisible computing and communications infrastructure.
As both a technology provider and an office worker, I share the day to day experience that our customers are facing; increased mobility with reliance on simple and reliable IT infrastructure. Many of our customers in the legal market face challenges every day serving the document intensive needs of mobile attorneys. With Xerox EIP, Equitrac is able to deliver solutions for secure and convenient access to these devices while providing cost recovery features right at the front panel of the Xerox MFP. Law firms get more done with less hassle, Help Desk calls are diminished, and business processes like cost recovery are simplified.
With Xerox EIP, all the cool technology I need is wrapped up in a nice package wherever I need it; Outpost MFP!
Chris Wyszkowski
VP of Product Marketing and Management
Equitrac--A Xerox Business Partner
As a pre-sales technical contact, the benefits of integrating into a platform like EIP are immense. EIP is an extremely open platform that gives us, in terms of being a development house, more control and thereby delivering the end user a more intuitive and rich experience at the panel of a Xerox device. The open calls allow us to control authentication and provide customization of the look and feel of the panel. We will be able to have custom forms on the panel of the device that directly integrate with standard scanning applications like being able to browse to folder and send to email. In addition we will be able to browse out to back-end applications, including DocuShare, right from the panel of the device giving the end user dynamic control over where they will be sending documents.
Additionally, since EIP is a web services based platform we will be able to have users identified uniquely by their credentials rather than just generically authenticating them as a user. What this means is that users can log in anywhere on a network of devices and see only the menus and forms that are assigned to them. This provides a tremendous level of personalization and is only possible through a robust and open platform like EIP. While it gives us more control over the look and feel it also provides us the ability to streamline management and administration of the system. Devices now can simply point to a web connector and rather than having to set a host of preferences on each individual device.
James Fischer
Senior Sales Engineer
Notable Solutions, Inc.--A Xerox Business Partner
EIP has a lot of capabilities, offers lots of opportunities, and will open lots of doors for new business. There are many good things about the way the EIP team designed this platform, and what it enables companies like Equitrac to achieve. However, from my point of view, there is one single capability that will make all the difference and puts EIP head and shoulders above the competition.
And that single feature? Integrated authentication.
By integrating the authentication into the EIP platform, every EIP application can easily and quickly leverage the authentication capabilities of Xerox Secure Access (or Equitrac Office). Users can authenticate using an identification card or by typing their credentials on the front panel -- and EIP will make the login credentials, including the user's email address, automatically available to all the EIP applications on the device.
Say "hello" to single sign-on. Say "goodbye" to multiple logins to do scanning. Say "hello" to quick and simple device access. Say "goodbye" to generic applications. Say "hello" to a fully personalized experience at the WorkCentre.
It's a new world out there. Say "hello" to the greatest feature of the EIP platform!
Tom Haapanen
VP Product Planning & Technology
Equitrac Corporation — A Xerox Business Partner
What is flexibility? According to the dictionary it is: “characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements.”
You will think, “What has this to do with the blog?”, well, if you ask me the Big ‘I’ is flexible and the little ‘t’ is not.
Technology is not flexible because it either works or it doesn’t. Deep within, technology can be only two things a 0 or a 1. Information on the other hand is flexible, because if it isn’t flexible it’s only a useless pile of data.
Our branch is responsible for making and keeping this information flexible. We are the ones that must keep this ever-increasing, information monster under control. With ScanFlowStore we make a Xerox-machine far more flexible. We’re not only making a flexible product, we are, as an organization, also flexible.
Flexibility in an organization doesn’t always depend on the core processes of your organization. Like the flexibility to your customers or the flexibility of your support center, those are processes that are, according to the customer supposed to be flexible.
The core of flexibility in an organization can be found in the most valuable resource, the employees. An organization can gain the most flexibility when the employees become inter-flexible and have the ability to share information amongst themselves by knowing, who has what information. With such flexibility the business to business communication will also become more efficient.
Flexibility is, for me, a magic word and if we all put effort into making IT flexible, our business and our customers will notice a positive effect.
Wouter Koelewijn
CEO
X-Solutions – A Xerox Strategic Partner
We all work hard, and many days, we deal with all types of communications. Filtering out the junk emails and cold calls takes time away from the tasks at hand, especially when you’re traveling or out for a day and come back to 800 emails, of which over half are advertisements. As a marketing person, I’m definitely guilty of distributing the advertisements and sales calls, and probably shouldn’t mind getting a taste of my own medicine, but it still frustrates me. Even more so, at home, when a pesky automated call interrupts dinner, or I race to answer the phone leaving my little one in the tub for just a moment.
All of this said, there have been a few evening calls that have helped me to organize my hectic schedule. In the midst of dirty dishes, I answered the phone with a wet rubber glove, to hear an automated voice reminding me of my child’s doctor appointment the next day. Thank goodness, since I had forgotten. A few days later at work, I was racing around printing materials for a meeting, and I received a call to notify me that my flight out that afternoon was delayed, and a fax of the flight schedule was conveniently sitting in my email inbox. Good to know, since I was running behind anyway. Upon my return from the meeting a few days later, my message light blinked offering information on a package that was being held and required a signature for delivery. I had worried about it being stolen off of my porch while I was gone.
So after all, those automated, digitalized voices, emails, and faxes can be helpful, and maybe even a life-saver.
Shelley Marian
Marketing Communications Coordinator
Streem Communications--A Xerox Business Partner
I had a dream,
A dream in which a multifunctional was more than just a multifunctional.
A dream in which the functionality of a machine became exponentially larger
A dream in which that machine became the entrance and exit of a network.
A dream in which one machine stood at the beginning and at the end of an information flow.
A dream in which information was never lost again.
A dream in which the machine became intelligent.
A dream in which everybody could find information with just the tip of their finger.
A dream in which the paperless office became a few steps closer.
The next day I heard Xerox was going to release a new Platform called EIP (Extensible Interface Platform), and I realized that my dream could become reality. Because that new platform from Xerox can make it all possible.
The new Extensible Interface Platform (EIP) can cause a revolution in the current assumption of information flow within organizations.
We are ready for it!
Wouter Koelewijn
CEO
X-Solutions--A Xerox Strategic Partner
What an honor to be able to make the first post to our AIIM/EIP Blog! It would be hard to go overboard describing how Excited we at Xerox are about the potential that EIP has for our customers and partners.
[A sidebar for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about: EIP stands for Extensible Interface Platform--it's a software platform. We added it to our multifunction products so developers can use standard web-based tools to create server-based applications that can be configured for the touch-screen or user interface. In other words, with EIP, developers can easily create applications that are tailored to meet specific business needs like “fax to accounts payable” or “submit to claims department.”]
And now back to my Excitement…
We’ve all seen how technological development waxes and wanes on any given product. Sometimes a steady evolution and other times more of an explosion. In my view, today’s tricked-out digital copier is in the latter camp, bursting with capability and potential. But the most useful innovations – the most powerful – are those that (despite their power and capability) are intuitive and simple to the end user. And, it seems to me that the most likely innovations are those that are enabled by platforms that are not only powerful, but also easily within the reach of the largest number of developers. That’s why EIP is so exciting – it allows developers to fine-tune their applications to work just the way our customers want by providing (among other things) complete access to the user interface. This affords the developer tremendous creative freedom to make the highly capable appear simple and intuitive. And since EIP is based on standard web technologies, the development environment is straightforward and easily within reach of even a beginning developer.
So there it is! Why I think EIP is so cool (and useful)! Tell us what you think--we're going to be blogging about it right up to and throughout the AIIM/On Demand tradeshow (where we'll be showcasing the applications). The show is in Boston April 16-18. The posts about EIP will be labeled as such, but regular blogging will continue and we'll also be chronicling the entire show on an event blog--stay tuned.
If you are a customer – challenge us with what you would like us to add – or change. If you are a developer tell us what you think about EIP, what you think you can do with it, and what we can do to make it better for all of us!
Best Regards,
Roger
Roger Ellefson
Manager, Office Solutions Marketing
Xerox
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