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Samson InfoTech Sharpens Its Image-By Richard McCausland
If Samson Information Technologies has its way, imaging-enabled accounting software will soon become a middle-market norm. And New York-based Samson is counting on its value-added reseller network to help bring about that change.
"In the next two years, we believe document imaging will be an integral part of every accounting system," says Don Sullivan, Samson's executive vice president and chief operating officer. Toward that end, "in the VAR channel we're trying to get a mindset of: 'Imaging is a logical extension of an accounting system, and I should sell it with every system."'
Features of Samson's flagship ImageNavigator software package include document scanning, retrieval, viewing, annotation, and storage management. Through its partner resale program, the vendor targets mid-market end users who require automation of paper-intensive applications such as accounts payable, customer records, contracts, and product specifications. The target market is paper-intensive industries, including fields such as retail and manufacturing.
The partner resale program currently encompasses approximately 200 VARs affiliated with Samson's three accounting software partners: Great Plains Software, Accpac International, and most recently Macola Software. Samson's CD-formatted ImageNavigator is tightly mapped to Great Plains' Dynamics and Dynamic C/S+, to Accpac for Windows, and to the Macola Progression Series.
Sold exclusively through resellers, the imaging software is priced at $1,295 per seat. There is also a five-pack, which nets out at $1,095 per seat, and a twentypack, which nets out at $895 per seat. For a one-time sign-up fee starting at $395, a Samson reseller gets one not-forresale copy of ImageNavigator, a sixpage-per-minute color scanner, an eightminute self-running demo CD, and literature for end users. There are no inventory purchase quotas, and VARs get a 35 percent margin.
Additionally, Samson provides sales support and marketing assistance through its own efforts as well as through the co-operative marketing programs available from its software integration partners. The vendor has jointly conducted end-user seminars with its VARs, and has also provided resellers with unlimited direct mail literature for marketing campaigns.
"We...