IBM has acquired Datacap, a company that provides a data and document capturing and processing software. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Datacap software automates image and data entry from a variety of documents and forms, including medical claims, tax returns and highly variable documents such as invoices and shipping documents for more precise business outcomes. Datacap extracts and converts data from a number of file types, including email files, JPEG and GIF image files, and PowerPoint presentations in seconds.
IBM says that the acquisition will help its customers “digitize, manage and automate their information assets, particularly in paper-intensive industries such as healthcare, insurance, government and finance.” Datacap customers the Chicago Department of Public Health, Virginia Department of Taxation, BlueCross BlueShield of Arizona, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and Dow Jones & Company.
IBM has been actively strengthening its foothold in the healthcare industry both through partnerships and acquisitions and this buy could only help Big Blue boost its offerings. I can imagine that healthcare companies, including insurance companies and hospitals, make up a big part of Datacap’s customer base.
This year alone, Big Blue has acquired Big Fix, Coremetrics, Sterling Commerce, Cast Iron Systems, Initiate and Intelliden.