"Softpro specializes in solutions for creating electronic signatures that are handwritten, yet provide all the advantages of a digital signature. Their SignDoc products offer an excellent addition to Adobe's portfolio - in particular our LiveCycle product family." says Hans Dahmen, Sales Manager Solution of Adobe Germany.
Ralph Maute, Product Manager for Softpro, sees Adobe LiveCycle as a feature-rich solution platform. Maute: "Adobe LiveCycle provides a rich platform for creating and managing intelligent electronic documents which have applicability in several industries. We are proud to work with Adobe in order to enrich the LiveCycle platform with convenient and simple electronic signatures that anyone can understand and put to practical use".
Customers of Adobe and Softpro increasingly inquire on whether it is possible to use a handwritten signature within contract process and yet keep the process electronic and at the same time ensure the authenticity of the signatures. The signature data captured in the revolutionary approach fostered via this partnership acts as a digital surrogate of the classical wet ink signature on paper. The data set uniquely identifies an individual based on biometric characteristics thus finally providing a solution for this market demand.
As a result of this combination a so-called "advanced electronic signature" - based on digitized handwritten signatures - is created. Legal experts confirm that these signatures provide a high level of evidence as to the identity of the signer ensuring trustworthiness comparable to the complex digital signature processes that have been on the market for several years. According to an assumption of leading officials of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology approximately 98% of all business processes are sufficiently secured when using this kind of electronic signatures.
The first installations of this new technology are currently being implemented at savings banks under the umbrella of the Sparkassen Informatik, the largest processing centre of savings banks. The banks are using these processes to enable electronic workflows while still allowing their end customers to sign contracts in the traditional and accepted way.
Dahmen is also enthusiastic about the global response to the new alliance which confirms the need for this practical and efficient solution. According to information provided by the companies, interest has been sparked in diverse verticals - not only in Germany but also in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa. Dahmen is highly convinced that this cooperation opens a new level of efficiency in various workflow processes while using established, well-known and secure elements of technology in order to create seamless, fully automated business processes.
The solution will be demonstrated at the Signature Pavilion at Cebit (hall 17 A01.15). Also exhibiting at this booth is Adobe's Partner Wacom which will present the very latest in signature capturing devices, plus Motion Computing - one of the world's most successful Tablet PC manufacturers which is also using Wacom's pen input technology ("Penabled"). They will demonstrate how electronic PDF documents of a mobile sales force (e.g. account opening) are signed with Softpro's SignDoc on state-of-the-art Tablet PCs.
According to the organizers of the sub-show Bank-Finanz-Systeme, which is part of Cebit, the Signature Pavilion is the ultimate one-stop-information centre for electronic signatures at the show in Hanover.
A free fully functional trial version of the software "SignDoc for Adobe's Digital Signatures" is available from Softpro's website.
