Blog Posts Business Management Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Kofax builds its RPA credentials with Kapow 10

With Kapow 10, Kofax has created itself a position in the fast-moving Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology marketplace. Its new integration engine, providing support for automation of Windows-native applications as well as providing embedded mainframe terminal connectivity, means Kapow now has the ability to span the breadth of ‘legacy’ applications that so often populate environments where RPA works best.

Top takeaways

A significant heritage in web automation

Kapow’s heritage stretches back 10 years, when Kapow Software was founded as a web integration technology company to commercialise the engine that underpinned a popular online marketplace. Kapow has over 500 customers, with particular strengths in insurance, banking and logistics industries; and in finance and accounting automation cross-industry.

A significant heritage in web automation

A usage-based licensing model

Rather than licensing Kapow on a per-robot basis, Kofax licenses the Kapow RPA Platform on the basis of usage (robot invocations) according to several pricing tiers. In environments with uneven or unpredictable demand for automation, the Kapow licensing model is likely to confer advantages over a robot instance-based licensing model.

Kofax Kapow: from website automation to RPA

A significant heritage

Kapow Software was originally founded in 2005 as an independent software specialist focusing on website integration and data extraction tools. Kapow Software was acquired by Kofax in 2013, and Kofax was in turn acquired by Lexmark in 2015.

Kapow’s product and customer base both have significant heritage and so not surprisingly, some of the 500 or so Kapow customers have very extensive operations: one customer runs around 10,000 Kapow automation robots, for example. To date, Kapow’s sweet spots have been in logistics, banking and insurance industries; with particular hotspots in finance and accounting functions (for example in supporting AP and AR automation).

Until relatively recently the Kapow product was positioned as a data integration platform – with its ability to automate user-website and portal interactions with software robots to enable ‘synthetic APIs’ positioned as one element within its wider capability. However, with the rise in popularity of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) concepts, the Kapow team has rebranded its offering as the Kapow RPA Platform.

Kapow 10: adding desktop and mainframe application automation

Crucially, version 10 of the Kapow RPA Platform now adds support for automation of applications that have Windows-native (including Java on Windows, and Silverlight) and character-terminal clients. Now, with version 10 of the platform, it’s able to work effectively and quickly across the mainstream variety of legacy applications that RPA platforms need to support in practice, including common enterprise applications like SAP and Oracle E-Business Suite. In the case of SAP, native automation connectivity is part of Kapow 10.

For its web automation capabilities, Kapow’s technology has long embedded a ‘headless’ web browser, meaning clients don’t need to run Kapow against separate virtual machines running instances of a browser. With Kapow 10, this approach is also implemented for mainframe terminal connectivity – meaning customers don’t have to deploy separate terminal emulation software. However, clients can also make use of any existing investments they might have in terminal emulation clients from the likes of Attachmate and Rocket Software.

Inside the Kapow RPA Platform

Kapow’s platform, like other RPA platforms, is designed to automate data entry, data gathering and other repetitive, routine tasks usually carried out as part of high-volume, repetitive work – for example, service fulfilment work in call centres, shared-service centres, and back-office processing environments.

As with other RPA technologies, the core technology at the heart of the Kofax platform is an automated software component that can be configured to drive applications and retrieve and update application data by mimicking a human user interacting through existing application user interfaces. Kapow robots support both attended and unattended operations.

The Kapow RPA platform has six main elements, as shown in the figure below:

>>> There’s more to this report, but you don’t currently have a subscription to read it.

Do you already have membership (like 6,500+ others)? If so, make sure you’re logged in.

>>> For free articles, Sign up for a free membership.

>>> For access to 120+ Premium articles, you’ll need Individual Premium membership, or get access through a Corporate subscription.
Get started with a 7-day free trial now!