Acquisition

RNS Number:6982J
Dicom Group PLC
07 April 2003



DICOM Group plc

US$6.4m Acquisition in cash of Mohomine Inc, a US EDC Software Developer





DICOM Group plc ("DICOM Group"), the global leader in the Electronic Document
Capture ("EDC") market, announces the acquisition of Mohomine Inc. ("Mohomine"),
a San Diego based software developer specialising in automated text
categorisation and extraction, for an initial consideration of $6.4 million in
cash. An additional payment of up to $1.0 million may be payable depending on
the performance of Mohomine for the period to 31 December 2003.



The purchase was made from three major investors, including In-Q-Tel, a private,
non-profit enterprise funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. Mohomine
management will remain with DICOM Group.



Mohomine develops software that automatically classifies and extracts text from
unstructured documents. These are documents where the location of salient
information cannot be easily predicted. Examples of unstructured data are
e-mails, web pages, PDF files and paper contracts. According to research firm
Gartner Group, approximately 80 percent of all business data is unstructured.



The acquisition increases DICOM Group's market potential substantially. It will
extend its current addressable market, estimated at #1.2 billion, by #1.5
billion for non-paper based capture and information extraction applications.
Additionally, the Mohomine acquisition will accelerate growth in DICOM Group's
existing EDC market by offering solutions that have not been economically
feasible without the use of Mohomine's automatic classification and extraction
features.



Mohomine brings two patented technologies to DICOM Group's product range:
MohoClassifier and MohoExtractor. The technology greatly enhances the
affordability of unstructured data capture. Until now, unstructured data capture
required heavy use of expensive manual categorisation and indexing. Mohomine's
software reduces manual labour costs and improves the speed and quality of
information access. A person can classify 20-100 documents per hour while
Mohomine software can classify 20-100 documents per second.



The integration of DICOM and Mohomine technologies will provide a solution with
a greater level of automation, reducing the operating costs of the capture
solution and improving the level and quality of indexing and data capture. It is
ideal for application to markets where DICOM Group's Kofax product range is
already strong.



Mohomine's customers include Oracle, Peoplesoft, IBM, US intelligence agencies
and the US Department of Defence, focusing solely on the US market. The new
integrated products will be marketed in DICOM Group's 25 operating territories
throughout Europe, the US, South East Asia and Australia. Mohomine's
technologies are based upon pattern recognition techniques that are language
independent and have been applied to many European languages as well as Chinese
and Arabic, without any modification to the core software engines.



For the financial year to 31 December 2002 Mohomine reported revenues of $1.0
million and a loss before interest tax, depreciation and amortisation of $2.0
million. As at 31 December 2002 the company had net assets of $0.1m. These
figures are unaudited. Mohomine is expected to contribute positively on an
operating profit level in DICOM Group's forthcoming financial year.



Arnold von Buren, Chief Executive Officer of DICOM Group said:

"Mohomine operates in a substantial marketplace in the US, which we plan to
expand overseas. It has few competitors, focusing on the OEM space for its
solutions, whilst competitors focus on end-user sales. We are excited about its
technology, customer base, and plan to integrate Mohomine with our existing
Kofax products. There is little overlap with DICOM Group's existing customer
base and the acquisition significantly increases DICOM Group's potential market.
The consideration paid by DICOM Group reflects these benefits and our belief in
the future potential of Mohomine's proprietary intellectual property."









For further information please contact:


DICOM Group plc                                                   Binns & Co Public Relations Ltd
Christoph Loslein        Executive Director                       Peter Binns
Dr. Bettina Moschner     Investor Relations Manager               Paul McManus
Tel:                     [phone] or
                         [phone]
Fax:                     [phone]                     Tel : [phone]
                         [phone]                    Mob:  [phone]
E-mail:                  [e-mail]        [e-mail]
                         [e-mail]
Internet:                http://www.dicomgroup.com                http://www.binnspr.com



About DICOM Group plc



DICOM Group plc ("DICOM Group") is the global leader in the Electronic Document
Capture ("EDC") market, a fast growing segment of the Office Automation
industry. EDC improves the performance of many business applications such as
document and content management and converts non-digital and digital documents
into structured data streams. Its implementation allows substantial increases in
office efficiency and offers high returns on investment.



DICOM Group's core competence is consulting, development and provision of EDC
products and services. More than 10,000 organisations world-wide have
implemented DICOM Group developed products, supported by 800 employees in 25
countries in Europe, the US, South East Asia and Australia.



US-based Kofax Image Products, DICOM Group's software development centre,
designs solutions to manage the capture process of large volumes of data and
documents and products that substantially improves document capture speed.
Ascent Capture allows document capture of text, forms, office documents, audio
and video data. Web based components and server products enable the
administration of the capture process independent of its location and the
availability of processing resources. Its patented and industry award winning
VirtualReScan (VRS) technology improves the image quality and the scanning
process in real time.



DICOM Group's European and Asian sales and service organisation offers a broad
range of services and complementary third party EDC products. Its network of
pre-sales, after-sales and consulting organisation addresses the increasing
demand for internationally deployed EDC solutions, project management and
professional support.



The Group's SGA Division focuses on multimedia visualisation products for the
IT, POI and Entertainment market. In Switzerland, it operates as sole agency of
Samsung's high performance flat screen display.












                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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