Kofax will lay out $US5.5 million to acquire Atalasoft, a developer and marketer of imaging software development toolkits (SDKs), which it plans to offer for use with its Capture and Transformation Modules software.

"The widespread adoption of online applications provides another way for information to enter an enterprise," said Reynolds C. Bish, Chief Executive Officer of Kofax.

"Atalasoft's technology for image enabling these applications therefore fits squarely within our target market and combining our offerings will allow us to better serve our customers' needs."

Kofax users will be able to capture enable portal and internet browser based applications and thereby extend their capture solutions beyond firewalls to include line of business applications accessible over the web.

Using a mortgage application process as an example, most lenders allow prospective borrowers to apply for mortgages via traditional, paper based processes or online via portal and internet browser based applications.

Applicants using the latter approach still have to provide paper copies of documents evidencing their proof of identity, income and other supporting information to the lender for processing.

Capture enabling these web applications will allow applicants to easily scan those paper documents and submit all information electronically. This will in turn eliminate the need to submit paper copies, accelerate the mortgage application process, better serve customer needs and allow lenders to gain competitive advantage.

Atalasoft's flagship product - DotImage - is an SDK for document scanning, viewing, annotating and processing in Microsoft .NET environments for traditional client server, portal and internet browser based applications. Its customers include over 2500 end users who license the SDK for internal software development purposes, and system integrators and independent software vendors (ISVs) who use the SDK to develop proprietary applications that they then resell to end users.

Commenting on the acquisition, Bill Bither, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Atalasoft, said: "We're excited to now be part of Kofax, a proven leader in the capture market and natural fit for Atalasoft. The expanded resources and market reach now available to us will help expand our product offerings and innovate at a more rapid rate. I'm very happy to continue as the General Manager of Kofax's Atalasoft business unit and along with the entire Atalasoft team remain fully committed to our end user customers and developer community."