Hello Sign might have the answer, but it remains to be seen if it will catch on with consumers. More than likely, businesses will run with the paperless office idea first:
The elusive paperless office: HelloSign says it has the answer
The new product from Y-Combinator’s HelloFax aims to replace printing and scanning documents while taking a consumer approach to the fabled office of the future.
HelloFax is known for letting people send and receive faxes, request signatures, and fill out forms — all without a physical document. From that service, the company is launching HelloSign, which lets people sign documents digitally.
Through HelloSign, Walla hopes to accomplish what many companies have tried and failed to do: create a paperless office. It was a dream born in the dot-com era but never realized, as workers still cling to physical paper despite the financial and environmental benefits of not doing so.
“The paperless office is this massive failure,” Walla said. “It’s something that has been promised to us for more than 10 years and it just has not come around.”
He described the current era as an “in-between period,” where people are increasingly mobile — with their personal life and at work — but they still need a scanner or printer. When a signature is needed for a legally binding document, people have to print out the doc, sign it, and then scan and send it or fax it.
“It wastes a tremendous amount of time,” Walla said. He thinks HelloSign is the next step in reducing the need for paper documents.
HelloSign is remarkably slick for an e-signature program. It’s a Web-based program that lets users drag and drop documents for uploading. Users can upload or create a signature that’s inserted into the doc. Even the text-functions (used for filling out forms) are easier to use than those in other programs I’ve experienced. After the document is signed, users just plug in an e-mail address, add a custom e-mail message if they want, and hit Send….More at The elusive paperless office: HelloSign says it has the answer – CNET
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