IBM buys data capturing company Datacap Inc

IBM yesterday said that it has acquired privately-held data capture and forms processing software company Datacap Inc, for an undisclosed sum.

Tarrytown, New York-based Datacap is a leading provider of software that enables organisations to transform the way they capture, manage and automate the flow of business information to improve business processes, reduce paper costs or manual errors and meet compliance mandates.

The acquisition will strengthen the Armonk-based IBM's ability to help organisations digitise, manage and automate its information assets, particularly in paper-intensive industries such as healthcare, insurance, government and finance.

"Datacap customers are among the most visionary organisations, using document capture and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions to streamline and transform their businesses," IBM said in a statement.

More than 200 clients across a variety of industries are using Datacap software to help capture and manage their data that include the Dow Jones & Company, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Chicago Department of Public Health, Virginia Department of Taxation, BlueCross BlueShield of Arizona, The Dutch Tax Office, California's Orange County Superior Courts, Hawaii Department of Taxation, and St. Vincent Hospital and Health Care Center.

Companies today are grappling with managing unstructured data while trying to reduce costs at the same time. It's estimated that 15 petabytes of new information is being generated daily, and 80 per cent of this new information is unstructured content.