Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Someone from an electronic recording company called SimpliFile visited the registry today. Simplifile is based in Utah but has developed a relationship here in Massachusetts with the Hampden County Registry of Deeds in Springfield. In Lowell, we continue to work on electronic recording with ACS, the company that provides our registry computers and software. Electronic recording is still in its infancy and there are a number of companies that provide this service. We want to make certain that the various products all work together. So we in the registry aren't confronted with multiple systems - that would just cause confusion and recording problems. There are really two components to electronic recording. To simplify things, we'll call them the front end and the back end. The front end is what the submitter uses to create an electronic document and transmit it to the gateway of the registry. The back end is the part within the registry - from that gatekeeper to the recording terminal. The registry only wants one company providing its back end, but a potentially infinite number of companies can provide the front end to the customers, so long as everything works together. It's a little like your telephone service. You might have Verizon and I have AT&T, but when we dial our phones, it doesn't matter. We can still talk to each other.

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