Lawsuits Render Document Imaging Recession-Proof

Kodak recently announced earnings off 24 percent, with sales of document imaging systems contributing to that shortfall. The larger economy continues to struggle.

However, as noted repeatedly, it's during slow times that great businesses and great business ideas are born. John Mancini hit on this hopeful point in a superb post over at the AIIM blog, Digital Landfill.

Mancini sees six silver linings for document imaging among the IT spending freeze. One in particular is probably more reliable than any of the other ones.

Mancini writes: "Given the mess of the last few months, there is a new wave coming: A surge of litigation—as the blame game goes ‘round and ‘round—and a tsunami of regulatory mandates, as members of Congress find people to point fingers at other than themselves."

With lawsuits come piles of paper. With paper comes the need to reduce paper without losing the information on it. It's called "eDiscovery," and document imaging is a big part of it.

Some industries may in fact go away. Document imaging isn't one of them and neither is records management.

Unless people stop suing each other, which they won't.