German neural computer company, Parsytec Computer GmbH has signed an exclusive original equipment manufacturers partnership agreement with Samsung Electronics Co’s Samsung Data Systems division in Korea to replace existing optical character recognition technology in the country. The companies will work together to implement new Intelligent Character Recognition technology which moves away from traditional data recognition technology which is only capable of reading standard typed characters. Parsytec, based in Aachen, developed the main software used in the new ICR technology, while Samsung developed the components needs to read the more complex Korean character formats. The alliance will see Samsung and Parsytec mainly targeting the finance and banking industry in Korea, where Samsung has already installed some 1,500 reading systems, holding a 90% share of the market. The companies believe the banking sector alone has a potential 7,000 systems, with the insurance, credit card, education and government markets also likely targets. Parsytec moved into parallel computing almost ten years ago with hardware built using the Inmos Transputer (CI No 938), but later moved to systems based on the PowerPC chip. Over the last few years the company has been re-defining itself as a software and imaging firm. In its 1995/6 financial year parallel computer system revenues declined from the equivalent of $13m the previous year down to $575,000, while image recognition business soared to $16.4m, around 75% of its total business. The company hopes for revenues of around $25m this year
