DICOM Group plc: Announces New Version of Ascent Release for ERP; New Version Receives Certification for Integration with SAP NetWeaver®

Business Wire, Nov 16, 2005

BASINGSTOKE, England -- DICOM Group plc ("DICOM Group") (LSE:DCM), a global leader of information capture and communication solutions, today announced a new version of Ascent Release for ERP that enables seamless interoperability between the organisation's Ascent Capture application and the SAP NetWeaver(R) open integration and application platform. Ascent Release for ERP Version 2.0 is now certified for integration with SAP(R) solution-based systems and utilises the SAP Web Application Server (SAP Web AS) 6.40 component of SAP NetWeaver, helping ensure seamless integration of data for users of both SAP R/3(R) Enterprise Release 4.7 and the mySAP(TM) ERP 2004 solution.

Ascent Release for ERP directly connects SAP solutions with Ascent Capture, which accelerates and automates business processes by collecting paper documents, forms, faxes and e-documents; transforming them into accurate, retrievable information; and delivering the content into a business application or database.

While many SAP customers use external content management and workflow systems, use of SAP's native workflow capabilities is on the rise. These organisations require direct integration of incoming documents and data to SAP R/3 Enterprise or the mySAP Business Suite in order to automate business processes and streamline exception handling. DICOM and Kofax (a DICOM Group company) have been successful in automating invoice processing for SAP customers using "Ascent for Invoices," an invoice capture application that provides businesses with unparalleled automation and control over capturing and processing invoices.

Arnold von Bueren, CEO of DICOM Group, emphasises the benefits of the integration for users of SAP solutions: "To date, Ascent Release for ERP has been used primarily in conjunction with our popular automated invoice capture application, Ascent for Invoices. This new release of Ascent for ERP targets an important market opportunity for SAP solution-enabled enterprises that need to streamline their manual processes. Our focus will be on the added value of automated document and date capture within the procure-to-pay, dock-to-dispatch and recruit-to-retire processes."

Customers that integrate their SAP solutions with Ascent Capture benefit from cost and time savings, thanks to dramatic reductions in the manual keying of data and instant access to critical information. More importantly, improved business process automation can occur with information capture-initiated workflows.

In the case of scanned documents, the organisation's VirtualReScan(R) product (VRS), the de facto industry standard for image processing, ensures optimal image quality. Once the scanned image is optimised, a variety of character recognition engines can be deployed to extract necessary data from scanned images. The appropriate recognition engine depends on the document type, which can range from structured forms to completely unstructured documents, like general correspondence. Stored images and data are securely stored in any of the dozens of SAP ArchiveLinkTM-supported repositories or in SAP's HTTP Content Server.

About DICOM Group plc

DICOM Group plc ("DICOM Group", London Stock Exchange: DCM) is the global leader in Information Capture. Its leading edge capture and communication technologies and solutions enable Business Process Automation by managing the transformation and exchange of business-critical information (residing in various formats such as paper, fax, electronic documents, e-mail, SMS) among people, applications and devices. The company's centres for product development and marketing include Kofax, the world's leading provider of Information Capture solutions, and Topcall, a worldwide provider of Unified Communication technology. Through a global network of more than 1,200 authorised partners and its own sales and service organisations in Europe, the USA, Asia and Australia, DICOM Group help blue-chip enterprises in more than 60 countries to reduce cost, increase efficiency and minimise risk in their critical business processes. For more information, visit http://www.dicomgroup.com

The Group's Samsung General Agency (SGA) Division focuses on multimedia visualisation products for the IT, POI and Entertainment market in Switzerland. It operates as sole agency of Samsung's high performance flat screen display.

SAP, SAP NetWeaver, R/3, mySAP, SAP ArchiveLink and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and several other countries all over the world.

Kofax, Ascent, VirtualReScan and VRS are registered trademarks or trademarks of Kofax Image Products, Inc.

Other product and company names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.