Xerox Imaging Systems subsidiary and UK printer and scanner distributor Kurzweil Computer Products Ltd, Reading, Berkshire, has launched itself into the Sun Microsystems Inc workstation environment, with a Unix-based text and image scanner. The Xerox-designed, Japanese-made A3 ScanWorX is aimed at the pre-press market, incorporating large companies which produce their own manuals and local government agencies – the UK Ministry of Defence is expected to among the first to place an order. The scanner, which has been available in the US for three months and is available now in the UK, is designed to cope with the demands of high volume processing, says Kurzweil general manager Sharon Wilmer, being able to scan pages up to 11 by 17 in under four seconds, and collating double-sided pages. It incorporates Xerox Imaging Systems’ proprietary Intelligent Character Recognition software, which identifies the features which make a letter unique, rather than trying to match it to a standard font. ScanWorx can be networked, possibly justifying the cost of UKP15,000. The system runs with Sun’s SunView graphical user interface on the Sun 3X, Sun 4, SLC and Sparc workstations. Versions for the RS/6000, Digital Equipment Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co environments are planned. Until now, Kurzweil has marketed its products on a direct-only basis, but the new Sun alliance – which, for Sun’s part, is a way into the office systems market – paves the way for value-added resellers to be brought in, in the pre-press arena to begin with.
