Hewlett-Packard Co and Moscow-based Cognitive Technologies Ltd have signed an agreement for a version of the Cognitive Technologies CuneiForm optical character recognition software to be bundled with all Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 4S and ScanJet 4Si scanners sold in Russia. The agreement updates a similar one signed in 1994. Cognitive Technologies says in 1995 the volume of sales of Hewlett-Packard scanners in Russia increased by 60%. Today around 5,000 copies of bundled CuneiForm are now sold every month with Hewlett-Packard scanners. According to Cognitive Technologies, Russia has one of the highest scanner to computer sales ratios in Europe. However, Cognitive Technologies recently fell out with MAS Elektronikhandels GmbH, with whom it had a similar bundling agreement. MAS Elektronikhandels has now signed a contract with Moscow-based BIT, the great local rival of Cognitive Technologies, under which all of its Mustek brand scanners are to be bundled with FineReader 2.0, which is BIT’s competing optical character recognition software.
