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Ricoh unveils cool new cloud platform: 'ICE'(Canada Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Integrated Cloud Environment (ICE) helps reduce document management costs and ease printing for mobile workers MISSISSAUGA, ON, Sept. 23, 2014 /CNW/ - Ricoh Canada Inc. today unveiled a bold new cloud strategy to help small and medium businesses, schools and other organizations lower costs and improve productivity by turning their multifunction products (MFPs) into portals that deliver Internet-based services. Ricoh's cloud platform, called the Integrated Cloud Environment (ICE), is a single interface connecting Ricoh MFPs to cloud services. It enables companies to use the Internet as their IT infrastructure, directly scanning paper documents to cloud storage services and automatically turning them into fully editable documents along the way. Mobile workers can access and print these documents from any location in the world via a smartphone, tablet, PC or the MFP itself. No local network connection or printer driver is required. The print capability follows the worker. "ICE is a breakthrough for making information work. It's an ideal way for cloud users to expand their capabilities and for companies to advance their bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategies," said Eric Fletcher, VP Marketing for Ricoh Canada Inc. Although other vendors are exploring cloud connectivity, ICE already supports a wide variety of cloud services – 16, in fact, including Google Drive, DropBox and Evernote – plus an optical character recognition (OCR) engine powered by ABBYY, a leading provider of document recognition solutions. OCR helps ICE convert scanned hard copies into searchable PDF, Word and Excel documents. With ICE: Scanned documents are no longer frozen as opaque image files. Organizations don't need to take multiple time-consuming steps to move them to the cloud. Customers don't need IT staff to buy, install and manage hardware and software for document management and OCR. Administrators don't need to type hard copy documents into computers to make them useful. Mobile workers who want to print a document no longer need to email it to colleagues at workstations to have them do the printing. Organizations don't need to lose valuable business information that, with ICE, could have easily entered the enterprise workflow. A salesperson, for example, can scan a purchase order and have it flow directly into Salesforce.com, accessible to everyone who needs to use the information for sales, service and support.People at work with ICE A law firm can use ICE to capture and store contracts electronically and easily find them for review. A manufacturer can easily share marketing collateral through ICE with its distributed mobile sales force's smartphones and tablets. Business travelers can scan their receipts directly to accounting software instead of stapling, packaging and mailing hard copies to their business office. Any worker can scan a document to any email address, automatically converting it to editable text. To scan documents to the cloud, users choose a destination through the ICE interface on their MFPs. To print from any smartphone or tablet, they access Ricoh Print Cloud through ICE, enabling them to release the document from any ICE-enabled MFP on the planet – simply by typing in a six-digit code. ICE data transmissions are secured by 128-bit SSL encryption. Ricoh's storage and OCR data center is SAS 70/SSAE 16-compliant. Customers with Ricoh's optional MFP browser enabled, which is available on virtually any Ricoh MFP purchased in the last four years (55 MFPs and counting) can add the ICE services in two parts: first, the Standard ICE Module, which includes numerous free scanning Apps, and second, Premium Apps, that provide advanced functionality, such as mobile printing. ICE supports all major mobile platforms, including iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Palm. "ICE helps companies overcome the challenges, including technical complexity and cost, associated with scanning, OCR and mobile printing," said Fletcher. "ICE dramatically enhances the value of an MFP, which now serves as an on-ramp to the cloud. The platform is right for the times of BYOD and increasing dependence on mobile computing." ICE currently supports 16 cloud services: Google Drive Evernote Egnyte Scan to Print Cloud Print from Print Cloud YouSendIt RCloud ECM Salesforce.com Concur SharePoint on premise/SharePoint 365 Drop Box Box.net Scan to email NetDocuments NetSuite eFax For details on Ricoh's full line of products, services and solutions, please visit www.ricoh.ca. | About Ricoh | Ricoh is a global technology company specializing in office imaging equipment, production print solutions, document management systems and IT services. Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh Group operates in about 200 countries and regions. In the financial year ending March 2014, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 2,236 billion yen (approx. 21.7 billion USD). The majority of the company's revenue comes from products, solutions and services that improve the interaction between people and information. Ricoh also produces award-winning digital cameras and specialized industrial products. It is known for the quality of its technology, the exceptional standard of its customer service and sustainability initiatives. Under its corporate tagline, imagine. change.,Ricoh helps companies transform the way they work and harness the collective imagination of their employees. For further information, please visit www.ricoh.com/about/. © 2014 Ricoh Canada Inc. All rights reserved. All referenced product names are the trademarks of their respective companies. SOURCE Ricoh Canada Inc. |