Cloud Communications

Brother Rolls Out Cloud Capabilities with New Desktop Scanner

By Erin Harrison Executive Editor, Cloud Computing

As more and more small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) look to the cloud to achieve greater efficiencies, Brother International Corporation has launched a new desktop scanner, the ImageCenter ADS-2500W, which includes cloud capabilities.

The standalone desktop scanner offers wireless scanning and Scan-to-Web cloud capabilities. The ImageCenter ADS-2500W – which supports many of the latest operating systems – includes features that help businesses collaborate, update and access documents while embracing the convenience of cloud, according to Steve Feldstein, director of marketing for Brother Laser and Scanner products.

“Businesses of all shapes and sizes are being driven to ramp up to the digital era for reasons ranging from convenience and efficiency to new industry regulations and even security,” Feldstein said in a company statement. “We’re excited to offer this high-quality, innovative and easy-to-use business solution for busy work groups and small-to-medium businesses that have critical hard-copy documents they need to quickly and easily convert, manage and store to a variety of business destinations.”

The ImageCenter ADS-2500W will be available at office superstores, retailers, dealers and online resellers starting in late September.  

Scanned documents can be sent directly from the scanner to a variety of cloud storage destinations including Google (News - Alert) Docs, Evernote, Dropbox, Facebook, Flickr and Picasa Web Albums, as well as Microsoft SharePoint through the included Nuance PaperPort software. The ADS-2500W also scans to local destinations such as e-mail servers and FTP sites, USB flash memory drive and as well as Android (News - Alert) phones and tablets.

Company officials said the ADS-2500W is the first machine in its class to offer wireless and Ethernet network connectivity with a 3.7” color touchccreen display with shortcuts and one-touch settings. The ADS-2500W also includes high-speed, single-pass duplex scanning to encourage efficiencies in the office. The unit also includes features such as continuous scanning, automatic image rotation, multi-feed detection, skip blank page, 2-in-1 scanning and searchable PDF capabilities. 

In June, ftopia, a provider of cloud-based data collaboration and storage services, and Brother announced a partnership aimed to help businesses to securely scan files and directly upload them to the ftopia cloud service. The partnership marks the first cloud-based file sharing and storage solution that is part of Brother Online, a suite of smart, web-based business services and solutions.

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