BUOYED by the booming economy, document management solutions firm Fuji Xerox is expecting to end its fiscal year with 'double-digit growth', according to the head of its Singapore operations.

'The business as a whole is growing, and the next nine months will be very strong,' Fuji Xerox Singapore's managing director Koh Ching Hong said in an interview with BizIT last week.

Mr Koh declined to provide updated revenue numbers pending the close of its financial year on March 31, 2007. However, in August last year he told BizIT that he expected to end this financial year at about $185 million in sales, up 16 per cent from the $160 million recorded in the previous year.

He noted that its Fuji Xerox Global Services (FXGS) business has been a particularly strong performer, recording annual growth of some 40 per cent. FXGS, the company's services arm, helps large organisations and governments reduce their document management and printing costs by managing their entire document management needs. Fuji Xerox said last year that it planned to pump in $5 million to grow its services business.

To cope with its growing business, Fuji Xerox has added some 40 people since August last year, taking the headcount of Fuji Xerox Singapore to 590 people. Of this, some 100 people are from its FXGS unit, and Mr Koh expects to double headcount of this division by next year.

This year, Fuji Xerox will also aim to focus on selling more industry-specific solutions, focusing on four verticals - logistics, banking, education and medical, said Mr Koh.

As part of its strategy to grow what Mr Koh calls 'value-added services', last week, Fuji Xerox announced its alliance with five software vendors who have developed applications which run on the Apeos platform used by Fuji Xerox's multi-function copiers. 'We expect this (alliance) to generate $1 million in revenue for Fuji Xerox Singapore this year,' said Mr Koh.

Fuji Xerox's Apeos platform extends the functionality of its multi-function copiers by allowing the machines to host various software applications. Other major copier vendors also have similar platforms - Canon has its Java-based Multifunction Embedded Application Platform (MEAP); Sharp has its Web-based Open Systems Architecture (OSA); and Ricoh has its Java-based Embedded Software Architecture (ESA).

The company touts its Apeos platform as an 'open platform' where the application programming interface (API) is made publicly available and software developers wanting to develop applications for it can do so with the help of software development kits available from Fuji Xerox.

Of the five Fuji Xerox software partners, three of the firms are based in Singapore - Asiasoft Global, Innofax Systems, I-Magination Group. The other two partners are US-based Cardiff and UK-based Dicom Systems. Between them, they offer applications ranging from content management solutions to workflow solutions, for Fuji Xerox's Apeos platform. The licensing of these applications will be sold by Fuji Xerox's direct sales team or its existing channels on a revenue-share model. First-level support will be provided by Fuji Xerox's team, and escalated to the respective partners should further support be required.

While these applications will initially be available in Singapore, they will also be made available to other countries in the region soon, said Mr Koh. He said Fuji Xerox will add more than five new alliance partners, which is expected to be announced later this year. This is in line with the company's strategy to grow the range of applications available on its Apeos platform, via partners and alliances, he said.

This article first appeared in BT on April 02, 2007