As mobile phones' capabilities advance, companies are realizing that the handset can do a lot more than just make phone calls. ScanR is betting on that.

The mobile market has shifted in the past year because of bigger screens, faster mobile Internet connections and, of course, better handset cameras. BlackBerry smartphones, for example, did not include cameras until last year.

"ScanR lets you scan and fax with the camera on your phone," said Chris Dury, vice president of marketing at scanR, Palo Alto, CA. "The need to scan and fax is well established outside the mobile world.

"The challenge there was that to scan or fax, you need a big non-portable device," he said. "But with the launch of phones with better cameras we realized that we can help people scan and fax using their phones."

ScanR is a fairly new company that is using the capabilities of the newest camera phones.

The best-selling BlackBerry smartphones, the Curve and the Pearl models, both now offer up to 2 megapixel cameras.

Better cameras enable the full suite of scanR services, allowing people to scan business cards, office documents, magazines and books.

Consumers can get scanR Mobile for BlackBerry by visiting http://m.scanr.com on their phone or http://www.scanr.com on a computer.

Users can can copy documents and whiteboards using a camera phone and then share them online with friends and coworkers.

Many people already use scanR to copy and distribute handwritten notes without rewriting them in email.

Until now scanR only sent PDF files. This made it more difficult to collaborate with the team at work.

Online sharing lets users invite people to view the scanned image online in addition to downloading it as a PDF, text file or image.

Shared scans can be viewed on computers or mobile phones.

For people who need to access their information while away from their computer or don't have regular access to computers, scanR can send invitations to view scans in SMS text messages.

ScanR launched two years ago.

The company sees a lot of students using the subscription-based product to get notes for classes they have missed.

ScanR is being used in more than 60 countries.

"We do focus on certain segments," Mr. Dury said. "The segmentation is built around how often particular industries work with paper. Students are an obvious target."

Many companies nationwide and overseas have been using scanning mobile technologies for marketing purposes.

Mr. Dury said that ScanR is looking at the recognition and bar codes arena and may explore it in the future.

"The problem is, it is going to take some time before the whole ecosystem is there," Mr. Dury said. "It hasn't happened yet, but as soon as it does we'll be there."