I have a small 8 person branch office. They have had a decent Lanier MFP with which they did their scanning. It supported SMB, so I set that up to deliver scans to their folders directly. Recently, the scanning volume has increased substantially, and I have been tasked with finding a better scanning solution.
My first thought was to get a good network capable document scanner, so I called a local reseller that I use to get some advice. They informed me that network capable scanners are usually not as fast or durable as a stand alone scanner. I went online and found that I can get a much better USB scanner for less money than a networked one. This seems to be true across multiple brands (e.g. Kodak, Fujitsu, etc.)
The price difference is so much, that I could put in a little computer like a NUC and have the scans delivered to a common network share. There are only 8 people, so they can coordinate that much, anyway.
What are your thoughts on a scanner for a small office? It looks like I should ditch the idea of a network scanner, and go with a USB + extra computer. Any software to make routing the scans work like before? Any ideas on making the computer headless; most scan software I've seen sometimes requires keyboard and mouse input? General thoughts? Other suggestions?
Thank you.