Microsoft Office Document Imaging: There, Waiting for Mass Adoption

Obviously, Microsoft is a gigantic company that has tentacles into nearly every area of the tech world, from Internet search to database software to small business consulting. One area where Microsoft is clearly excelling is in the burgeoning document imaging industry.

On the corporate scale, Microsoft's SharePoint server software is, as of now, the leading widely-used document imaging collaboration environment in the corporate market.

But Microsoft is not ignoring the consumer market. In fact, Microsoft is slowly but surely implementing more document imaging capabilities into Microsoft Office.

By including the Microsoft Office Document Imaging module in new version of office, Microsoft appears to be poised to capitalize on the growing familiarity of the common office worker with document imaging technology.

The opportunity is huge if only for compatibility issues. The ability to bring scanned documents directly into other Microsoft applications, such as Word and Excel, and then bring the document out again, presents an excellent convenience factor for the frequent user.

As of now, the Microsoft Office Document Imaging module is not included on all versions of Microsoft Office. To see if it's on your machine, go to "All Programs," then "Microsoft Office," then "Microsoft Office Tools."

It should be in that folder, if you have it.

If not, do you want it?