Entering Digital World...: Sharp Open Source Architecture/OSA Technology

Designed for today’s mobile and flexible workplace, Sharp’s new OSA-enabled MFPs deliver unparalleled efficiency, control and convenience. How?

With seamless integration, Sharp OSA provides a window into your business applications, so you can access what you need, when you need it, right from the LCD display. Plus, with the potential for customized integration with your business-specific applications, Sharp OSA can eliminate redundancy and streamline processes, helping to save time and optimize productivity. It’s time to change the way your business communicates.

With the ability to access integrated applications directly from the LCD panel, Sharp OSA-enabled MFPs allow you to work more efficiently and be more productive. Now you can start and finish a task in one simple operation. With this innovative, secondgeneration technology, your MFP becomes a gateway into your network, providing fast, flexible access to documents no matter where you are in the office.

Further, Sharp OSA-enabled MFPs allow you to control access and track usage more effectively by offering tighter integration capabilities for network security and cost accounting applications. With such comprehensive control, you’ll be able to manage your document workflow easily, efficiently, and more securely. In essence, Sharp OSA transforms your Sharp MFP into something much more: a flexible resource that can evolve as your business needs change.

A Sharp OSA-enabled MFP gives you a walk-up window into your networked business applications right from the front panel display, giving you immediate access to what you need, when you need it. Thanks to Sharp OSA, the MFP has evolved into a bridge between your applications and the way you use them,

opening a whole new dimension of productivity in the workplace.

Sharp OSA has three Soft Key modules, each of which extends the functionality of the MFP in a different way:

1. The Application Integration Module lets users add data to scanned documents before sending them directly to applications for processing or archiving.

2. The Application Communications Module lets remote applications create, configure and execute scanning and printing jobs on the MFP.

3. The External Accounting Module tracks usage by individuals and workgroups, as well as giving administrators the ability to restrict usage according to individual access rights.

REDEFINING THE MFP CONCEPT

By giving you the ability to access your networked applications directly from the MFP’s LCD panel, Sharp OSA lets you work more efficiently and productively by completing multi-step processes in a single operation. With this innovative, Third-generation technology, your MFP becomes a gateway into your network; providing fast, flexible access to applications even when you’re away from your desk.

What’s more, our Sharp OSA-enabled MFPs allow you to control access and track usage more effectively by offering tighter integration capabilities for network security and accounting applications. In other words, Sharp OSA transforms your Sharp MFP into something much more: a flexible resource that lets you work smarter and faster and which can evolve as your business needs change.

INSIDE SHARP OSA : GETTING TECHNICAL

Sharp OSA leverages the versatility of XML, SOAP and XHTML for streamlined development and broad platform compatibility. Using a standard web application development model, developers can quickly and easily create applications that can dynamically display custom user menus on the MFP’s LCD panel. These applications can also control the functions of the MFP. The custom menus, which are defined in XHTML, are provided by the application to a web browser on the Sharp OSA-enabled MFP. MFP operators can interactively navigate and communicate with the application screens, just as they would from their PCs.

Applications can also control MFP functions using a Web Service. The Sharp OSA Web Service allows applications to send commands formatted in XML/SOAP to the MFP for configuring and executing jobs, enabling and disabling features, and retrieving status information. Because all application code runs on the network server rather than the MFP, you’ll have more storage capacity and increased processing speed to handle even the most complex applications. Plus, there’s no costly middleware, which means that third-party applications can be deployed with minimal time and investment.