Prepress
Flipping PDFs for Cash
Wednesday 08. July 2009 - Numerator to Part with the First of Its PDF Solutions : Factorial
Numerator LLC, a supplier of cost-reducing software, announced today that its Factorial solution will be sold in July 2009. Factorial converts PDF or ASCII documents to XLS with high first-pass accuracy. Interest is growing in data extraction tools as demand increases for cost-savings.
Factorials application is available through a web service, and can be trialed now. Its sourcecode can be studied anytime until it is sold.
“numerator approached the formidable problem of PDF conversion and beat it, twice,” said numerator CEO Steve Lander. “Each of our PDF conversion solutions – Factorial and FrogForm – convert broad suites of PDFs to XLS with high accuracy. Factorials code will be sold to spur anticipated growth in FrogForm, and will bring data integrity and cost control to its new owner. We expect interest to be abundant.”
“Its rare for a firm to sell its smarts to a would-be competitor but this must be seen in a broader context” continued Mr. Lander. “Well take the lead developing the multi-billion dollar market for PDF and ASCII conversion. The new owner of Factorial – be it a business process outsourcer, an IT firm or a multinational – may join us in building awareness that there are more cost-effective methods to obtain data than to rekey and use a grab-bag of technologies.”
Firms bidding can access Factorial details here. Factorial is the first chance to purchase PDF extraction code since Xinhua purchased Praedea in 2006.
Factorial factsheet
Background : Factorial is owned & operated by numerator LLC. The codebase is tightly integrated and generously commented (4,500 of 15,000 lines).
Features
Converts PDF or ASCII documents, across a broad range of structures and languages
Identifies, extracts and renders tables to XLS or HTML
Employs standard Microsoft components ; maintains a tiny footprint
Converts a 1.5MB input file each second, on a standard PC
Can selectively extract tables based on keyword search
Participants : Factorial should attract five types of bidders.
BPOs : The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is growing without profit. Annual revenues and growth exceed $100b and 15% respectively. But participants suffer from industry fragmentation and labor cost inflation. Access to data is at the core of a BPO; improvements in IT magnify its earnings.
Investors: Google Book Search is pushing new data loads onto the consumer; data extraction is next. Demand for, and valuation of, data extraction software should grow as the global downturn intensifies.
IT firms: Rolling out a high-volume, transaction-based PDF extraction service to BPOs, OCRs and multinationals can be done at low cost. Data extraction is ideal for software firms building relevance to high-volume customers.
Multinationals: Pinched revenues lead to new demands for IT solutions. Ones that already work, are applicable to large expense line items, and can deliver edge through ownership and ongoing development.
OCRs : Providers of optical character recognition require extension into BPO business (paper through to database). Clever data extraction software paves the way for this extension.