Hoping to make it easier to turn paper documents into digital ones, Microsoft and Xerox have unveiled plans to share technology and co-market products.

The companies will integrate Xerox's Document Centre into Microsoft's Exchange Server messaging software. Xerox also will license Windows NT Embedded 4.0 for future Document Centre products. In addition, Microsoft will license Xerox's WebForager, technology developed at Xerox PARC providing a 3-D interface that lets people flip through pages in a digital book as if it were a real one. Products containing the integrated technology will ship in the third quarter.

Microsoft President Steve Ballmer and Xerox CEO Rick Thoman said the project would make it simpler for people to scan, sort, send and store digital documents, and eventually the alliance will incorporate devices such as digital cameras and handheld computers.

Ballmer 'super excited'
"I'm super excited about what we have to announce today," Ballmer told a group of reporters and analysts at Xerox PARC.

To illustrate how they will work together, the companies showed a video of technology the Wisconsin legislature is already using.

Instead of photocopying thousands of pieces of paper containing amendments to bills and other information -- and then delivering them by foot to each lawmaker -- a page on the legislature floor showed how he ran the paper documents through a Xerox machine, which then automatically sent them to each legislators' laptop.

After the video, Ballmer joked that Microsoft CEO Bill Gates used to be a Congressional page.

"He used to tell me what a glorious and glamorous job it was. Now it's one we're apparently trying to make go away, " he said.

One person in the audience asked the executives why the documents had been printed out in the first place, and not just sent to people directly. The executives said that partnership right now was designed to address the glut of paper documents in offices today -- and the lack of easy tools to digitize them. "They're still too complicated, too hard," Ballmer said.

Building on NT
Xerox and Microsoft pledged to work together a few years ago, but the alliance didn't yield any significant products. This time around, the companies are building on NT and targeting devices whose prices have dropped significantly, Ballmer said.

Xerox's Thoman said this partnership wasn't exclusive and the company plans to continue a similar, though less extensive, relationship with Lotus Development Corp.

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