Industry News

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INDUSTRY NEWS

Informative Graphics Corp. Announces Major Honeywell Purchase Agreement...

Informative Graphics Corp., a leading developer of viewing and collaboration software for engineering and manufacturing, announced the signing of a corporate purchase agreement with Honeywell. Under terms of the agreement, Honeywell will purchase up to $250,000 in Informative Graphics' products over the next three years, in addition to annual maintenance fees.

Informative Graphics will provide software that enables Honeywell to use documents and drawings electronically, either through a desktop or Web browser delivery. The MYRIAD product is the only leading commercial viewer to embed Adobe Acrobat for accurate PDF viewing and extend Acrobat for Web annotation with metadata print bannering and watermarking. MYRIAD provides a common interface to work with both legacy documents that have been scanned to TIFF, as well as new documents captured to PDF using a product such as Informative Graphics' MakePDF. The MYRIAD view and markup program is currently installed at the Honeywell MICRO SWITCH Division in Freeport, Illinois and the Business and Commuter Aviation Systems Division in Phoenix, Arizona. MYRIAD will be used in the change order/document revision process at both locations in conjunction with the MatrixOne PDM systems. The BCSD group will use MYRIAD on products that include flight instrumentation, radio and radar. The MICRO SWITCH Division products in the ECO process include electromechanical switching and sensing components. Eventually, MatrixOne and MYRIAD will handle the workflow on 35,000 products designed by Honeywell MICRO SWITCH.

Honeywell set out looking for a redline and markup tool with the ability to perform watermarking on both TIFF and PDF files, according to Alan Metzger, Honeywell's Director of Product Data Management Global Resource Center. "MYRIAD was selected for its ease of use and the simplified training requirements we felt it brought to the table," he said.

"We're very pleased with this agreement," said Gary Heath, CEO and President of Informative Graphics Corp. "It validates the business value we bring to Adobe PDF, as well as IGC's Web strategy. That strategy enables effective use of digital documents across the enterprise and beyond it. Given the variety and scope of projects Honeywell undertakes, we're glad to provide them with a full set of products that helps maximize their efficiency and streamline their design and engineering change processes."

About Informative Graphics

Informative Graphics Corp., based in Phoenix, Ariz., is the leading manufacturer of commercial software products for the information viewing process. The company has been developing software for national and international end-users, OEMs and systems integrators since 1986. Informative Graphics maintains a home page on the World Wide Web at www.infograph.com.

Contex Scanning Technology establishes US subsidiary...

Contex Scanning Technology, the world’s largest manufacturer of wide-format monochrome and color scanners for the CAD and reprographics industry, has established a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary under the name, Contex Scanning Technology, Inc. located in Ontario, California. At the same time, Contex has acquired Vemco Scanner Division, a firm which has been a major distributor of Contex products in North America for the past 11 years providing sales, marketing and support services. Contex Scanning Technology, Inc. will retain Vemco Scanner Division’s staff and their existing network of regional distributors in the United States and Canada. The establishment of a U.S. base is seen as a move to further strengthen Contex’ presence and position in the U.S. and to better support existing OEM’s and distributors. Furthermore, the U.S. office will be responsible for continuing to develop their growing business in Latin America. Key personnel at the Contex California office include Mr. William C. Mitchell and Mr. Henrik Vestermark, both experienced scanner sales managers, and Mr. Dan Bennett, Technical Support Manager.

About Contex

Contex Scanning Technology, located in Denmark, is the leading manufacturer of large format scanners and large format copy scanners. The product range includes 17 scanners, color and monochrome, with resolutions from 300 dpi to 1800 dpi. Latest product introduction is the 50-inch superwide format MAGNUM color scanners. Contex products are sold worldwide with more than 80 distributors in 60 countries. Visit Contex Scanning Technology at www.contexscan.com.

Adaptive Media Joins Forces With Genisys to Deliver A Visual Project Management System...

Adaptive Media, Inc., a provider of real-time, Web-based 3D visualization software, announced an alliance with Genisys Information Systems to market a new software application called Visual Project Manager (VISPRO). This solution combines project management functionality with Adaptive Media's ENVISION3D to produce an intuitive, 4-dimensional display of project status information. VISPRO links project scheduling data from two leading project management applications, Microsoft Project and Primavera Project Planner(P3), with three-dimensional models in ENVISION3D. Project information is translated into meaningful colors in the 3D model enabling managers, engineers, and clients to visualize the progress of their construction and engineering projects.

Scan-Optics Signs Agreement to Acquire Agissar Corporation...

Scan-Optics, a provider of high volume document processing systems and information management solutions, announced that it has reached an agreement in principle to acquire 100% of the stock in Agissar Corporation for an undisclosed amount. In teaming with Agissar, they hope to provide an end-to-end solution in the paper-based transaction processing and image capture market. After the acquisition, they plan that their integrated solutions suite will incorporate four functional areas: mail extraction and performance monitoring, digital imaging, document storage, and customer service.

Altris Helps London Market Claims Service to Reduce Administrative Overload...

Altris Software, Ltd. announced that The London Market Claims Service has invested in an Altris Information Management Solution to ease administrative burdens and increase operational efficiencies. The modern insurance industry is intensely competitive. For the companies operating in the market this has meant downward pressures on premiums resulting in a constant search for greater operational efficiencies and more informed decision making. The London Market Claims Service (LMCS), set up ten years ago and owned by a US company, Metzler, is one response to achieving those improvements.

In another release, Altris announced an order for software and services worth more than $200,000 from Columbus, Ohio. The contract is for delivery of an enterprise-wide document management solution within the technical/engineering environment that will deliver zoning reference maps, zoning files, building cards, drawings and reference data accurate historical site and structure information. Included will be large engineering document formats incorporating high-speed document distribution, controlled access, easy annotation and secure change management as well as access to a variety of miscellaneous sized documents.

Anacomp to Provide Integrated DM Solution For Solothurner Bank SoBa...

Anacomp, Inc, a provider of digital document management solutions, announced an agreement with Solothurner Bank (SoBa) of Switzerland to implement an integrated document management system to provide delivery, retrieval, and storage of SoBa's customer account statements and financial reports. SoBa, a private retail bank owned by United Bank of Switzerland, needed to consolidate 20 separate branch storage systems, containing 25 million documents, into one electronic storage and retrieval system. The new solution had to meet high standards for security, offer a response time of 15 seconds or less for all system inquiries made by the bank's 400 concurrent users, and it had to be rapidly deployed without any interruption in service to the bank's customers.

In another release, the company announced an outsource-services agreement with Fiduciary Trust Company International to migrate customer investment statements from an existing optical-disc system to CD. New York-based Fiduciary Trust is an investment-management firm specializing in global investments for individuals and institutions. Under the agreement, Anacomp will initially convert 13 million documents to CD, including Fiduciary Trust's extensive archive of customer statements, and index the information for easy access. On a continuing basis, Anacomp's CD document services will transform more than 250,000 documents a month to CD.

Aspect Development and Ariba to Deliver Joint Business-to-Business eCommerce Solution...

Aspect Development, Inc. and Ariba, Inc. announced that the two companies will integrate their products to jointly deliver a seamless business-to-business eCommerce solution to mutual clients. Aspect, a provider of inbound supply chain management solutions, will make its extensive MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) and business essentials content databases available via its AspectWeb portal to Ariba customers through the Ariba Network eCommerce service. Ariba, a provider of business-to-business eCommerce solutions for operating resources, will also offer its solution to Aspect customers.

Aspect also announced its support for the RosettaNet standards and that it has joined the consortium as an Architect Partner. Aspect will contribute its domain expertise and technical resources to work with the RosettaNet members in defining and implementing a common set of business interfaces and content standards. The RosettaNet consortium, driven by trading partners and solution providers within the high technology supply chain, will adopt a set of global process standards that enable businesses to operate more effectively and lower the cost of business-to-business e-Commerce. The RosettaNet standards include the following elements: utilization of HTML/XML, definition of standard dictionaries and associated DTDs, and adoption of a set of standard e-Business process dialogs known as Partner Interface Processes (PIPs). The RosettaNet PIPs will initially cover such areas as product management, order and inventory management, and service/support.

CENTRA 2000 PDM Implementation for US Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM)...

Auto-trol Technology announced the successful implementation of a production CENTRA 2000 PDM system for the US Army CECOM in Ft. Monmouth, NJ. The new CENTRA 2000 system permits any authorized user in the Army or supplier organization to access the data simply by using a web browser. Under the previous system, it would take an average of 30 minutes for an engineer to access a drawing and recreate all the interdrawing dependencies. With the CENTRA 2000 PDM system, this can be accomplished in five minutes, saving an average of two hours per day per engineer. At a cost of less than $700,000, including software and professional services, the implementation is expected to have a quick payback.

Baan Plans Integrated Supply-Chain Management Suite (Story provided by Information Week, http://www.informationweek.com)...

Ailing enterprise software vendor Baan Co. said that it plans to offer by October a completely integrated supply-chain management suite that will rival suites from market leaders i2 Technologies and Manugistics in functionality and back-end integration to enterprise transaction systems, such as Baan ERP. Baan says the package is the result of nearly a year of integration work to interface applications it acquired in last September's purchase of supply-chain software vendor Caps Logistics. AMR Research analyst Bruce Richardson confirms the package offers functional depth, but says it's a "mini Frankenstein" patched together from 19 different applications, including those from Berclain Group and Caps Logistics. Baan is counting on demand for its supply-chain and E-commerce applications to bring the company out of the red, says Katrina Roche, general manager of Baan Supply Chain.

Northwest Airlines Completes OPTIX Installation...

With the recent removal of their microfilm data system, Northwest Airlines has become the first airline to completely computerize its aircraft maintenance manual system. NWA relies on the OPTIX Document Management system from Blueridge Technologies, Inc to make its manuals available to some 15,000 maintenance personnel over TCP/IP networks. OPTIX software now manages the production, storage, revision, and distribution of several hundred thousand pages of maintenance manuals for a fleet of more than 400 airplanes. Northwest mechanics can access the most up-to-date aircraft information on the company intranet using Windows workstations located in the hanger maintenance bays. With OPTIX Web software and a standard browser such as Netscape Communicator, mechanics can query the central server to retrieve information from the on-line manuals. The Northwest Airlines system consists of an OPTIX Archive Server residing on a Sun UltraSPARC with a Sybase database management and a RAID system, OPTIX software on Windows and Macintosh workstations, and OPTIX Web software.

EMC To Acquire Data General Corp. For $1.1 Billion (Story provided by Information Week, http://www.informationweek.com)...

Marking another milestone in the history of the computer industry, EMC Corp., a superstar in the high-end storage market, said that it will acquire struggling server vendor Data General Corp. in a stock swap valued at $1.1 billion. The combination of DG's well-regarded Clariion storage technology and EMC's marketing prowess should intensify competition among leading storage players: Compaq, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun. EMC says it will operate DG's server business, including its high-performance NUMA-based products, as a separate unit. EMC plans to integrate DG's Intel technology across its product line, including its flagship Symmetrix storage systems, which currently run on MIPS chips.

Hummingbird And Metastorm Announce Collaborative Workflow Solution...

Hummingbird Communications Ltd., new owners of PC DOCS Ltd., announced a comprehensive strategic alliance with Metastorm Inc. Hummingbird will embed Metastorm's e-work collaborative workflow software within its existing document management solutions and incorporate Metastorm technology in ongoing Enterprise Information Portal development. This alliance hopes to give Hummingbird users a single consistent environment to automate business processes, enable workgroup collaboration, and improve the capture and reuse of corporate knowledge.

In other news, the company has signed an agreement to sell CMS/Data Corporation, the time-based billing software subsidiary of recently-acquired PC DOCS Group, to Solution 6 Holdings Limited of Australia. They also have signed an agreement to sell their Datenrevision subsidiary to gedas GmbH, the fourth-largest information technology consulting firm in Germany, for approximately US$12.4 million.

Market Forces, Not Government Regulations, Will Best Alleviate Internet Privacy Concerns...

Avoiding government regulations and instead harnessing the profit incentives driving businesses is the best Internet privacy policy, according to a new study by the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI), a California-based think tank.

"A free-market approach to privacy helps consumers protect their privacy, protects the freedom and enterprise that underline the Internet’s promising future, and ensures that the U.S. Constitution remains intact," says Justin Matlick, author of Governing Internet Privacy: A Free Market Primer and director of PRI’s Center for Freedom and Technology. The study shows that the most effective strategy to protect Internet privacy would:

* Protect consumer privacy by allowing economic forces to dominate. Businesses are rapidly responding to alleviate concerns about Internet privacy by enacting privacy policies and by creating and distributing technologies - such as the "platform for privacy preferences" (P3P) - that allow Internet users and web sites to automatically communicate about privacy preferences and practices.

* Leave the legal framework that simultaneously allows for privacy and free speech intact. A complicated mix of statutes, judicial decisions, constitutional provisions, and legal interpretations already exists to strike the necessary balance between competing constitutional interests while allowing individuals - including Internet users - to exercise varying degrees of control over their personal information.

* Protect the economic forces driving the Information Age. Government-imposed consumer protection requirements over the Internet, including privacy regulations, would force web

sites to bear the costs of implementing these requirements, the costs of complying with them, and the liability costs of noncompliance. The costs would likely prevent many entrepreneurs from starting online small businesses, would be passed on to consumers in the form of price increases, and would limit the ever expanding choices available to consumers online.

"Until regulation advocates realize the pitfalls of new Internet privacy regulations, it seems likely we will continue marching forward with legislative proposals that will harm consumers, hinder electronic commerce, and set dangerous legal precedents," states Matlick. "That's a dangerous path to follow, considering what an integral part electronic commerce, the Internet, and telecommunications will be playing in the future of our economy and society."

Furon Enables Enterprise Information Management With Intra.doc!...

IntraNet Solutions, Inc., a provider of Web-based document and content management solutions, announced that its Intra.doc! system has been chosen by Furon Company, a global designer, developer and manufacturer of engineered polymer components, as its intranet management system. Intra.doc! is enabling Furon to move all its paper sharing and routing processes to the Web without heavy IT administration for over 1700 users at 30 locations worldwide. Furon had a variety of departmental document management systems and was looking for a solution that could tie all of its information systems together. The company needed a scalable solution to become its enterprise-wide intranet that would support open Web standards and would additionally allow limited IT administration and ease of integration with other corporate data stores, like its ERP (enterprise resource planning) system. With Intra.doc!, Furon is managing all types of information from vendor invoices to call reporting logs for its sales force. Furon is five months into the implementation, and expects a return on its initial investment in Intra.doc! within one year.

Marion County, Indiana Selects ManTech to Streamline Vital Record Process...

ManTech Advanced Systems International (MASI) announced that it has been selected by Indiana’s largest county to develop an image-based workflow system for its local vital records registration, processing and issuance. The system, which will be fully implemented by the end of this summer, will streamline how Marion County’s Health Department, Office of Vital Statistics staff retrieves, issues and stores more than 250,000 vital records and related documents every year. MASI will design the system to integrate the capture, indexing and storage of birth, death, and fetal death documents with data that Marion County vital records staff has keyed into legacy systems. All document images and associated index data will be stored in Hyland Software’s OnBase document management and workflow application. MASI will configure the OnBase workflow to allow data entry and coding staff to work on the same batch of vital event documents, while the system monitors the overall distribution of work. When one user’s productivity is slowed down, the system will automatically reroute the work in the queue to an available resource for continued productivity and faster processing of vital event data.

Mutoh Europe Forms Strategic Alliance With Color Savvy Systems...

Mutoh Europe, CAD/CAS peripherals & large format plotter manufacturer announces its strategic alliance agreement with the U.S. based Color Savvy Systems Limited, specialist in color measurement instrumentation for digital imaging applications. The first spin-off of this alliance, a low-cost fully automatic product for color calibration and characterization applications in combination with large format inkjet printers, will be shown as an engineering preview at the Color Savvy booth at the Seybold show in San Francisco. The Focus24 is a joint product development in which Mutoh has invested its technology in high accuracy x,y positioning and flexible friction-drive media handling expertise, whereas Color Savvy signs for the incorporated measuring device and accompanying software. The Focus24 application field will include stand-alone generation of ICC profiles via bundled software, used in combination with high-end RIP software packages (which incorporate routines for the creation of ICC color matching profiles and/or linearization profiles) as well as calibration applications in combination with calibration software.

Océ-Usa And Autodesk Announce Technology Partnership...

Océ-USA continues to enhance relationships through partnering with industry-leading Autodesk in their Autodesk Developer Network (ADN). ADN offers powerful advantages for Océ-USA in the industry through the products they develop and the services that they provide to customers of wide-format, high-volume printing devices. Océ-Engineering Systems has developed numerous products and software programs that interface or integrate directly with Autodesk design software, AutoCAD. This partnership allows Océ-Engineering Systems to utilize AutoCAD's leading edge, object-oriented technologies and have more direct access to Autodesk's three million customers in 160 countries.

Speaking of Oce' Engineering, Océ-USA Holding Inc. recently announced that it has reorganized Oce' Engineering and two other of its core business units to address the rapidly changing nature of its customers’ document printing, reproduction and distribution needs. The reorganization is part of the company’s plan to transition to a provider of complete enterprise-wide document-management solutions that combine Océ’s industry-leading analog, digital and color output devices with emerging software, networking and internet technologies. As a result, Océ’s Engineering Systems, Office Systems and Printing Systems groups have been replaced by Strategic Business Units (SBUs) respectively named Wide Format Printing Systems, Document Printing Systems and Production Printing Systems. Each of the new SBUs comprises two Business Groups, one focusing on existing applications and one on new applications.

SolCom Announces New Document Management Installations...

SolCom Incorporated, a developer of AS/400 knowledge management solutions including document imaging, workflow and COLD announced to their stock holders new account sales in the first two quarters of 1999. The following compose some of the accounts mentioned as part of this announcement:

Miami Valley Hospital, Frankford Hospital, Insurance House and Permanent General selected SolCom as their preferred document imaging vendor to expand their existing AS/400 imaging implementations.

Sandia Credit Union is using SolCom’s document imaging and workflow solution in their report processing and mortgage departments.

Fey Industries has chosen SolCom to implement a document management/workflow solution integrated with their computer aided design system and Lotus Notes to create a paperless product design process.

Spatial Signs Integration Technology Solutions as a Distributor...

Spatial Inc., a software developer of 3D modeling technology and interoperability solutions, and Integration Technology Solutions, Inc. (ITS) announced that they have signed a distributor sales agreement. Under the agreement, ITS will resell Spatial's IntraVISION visualization solution and IGES Toolkit. ITS is a solutions integrator with experience in complex systems integration, integration project management and networking. In the past, the primary focal point for ITS solutions has been in Engineering and

Manufacturing systems, linking Product Data Management (PDM), Enterprise Resource Management (ERM), and Manufacturing Data Management (MDM) systems using ITS' Business Process Driven Integration methodology. ITS is extending its integration solutions to encompass the supply chain found in the manufacturing, and health care industries.

Technology Builders and Software Productivity Centre Announce Integration of Requirements Management and Project Estimation...

Technology Builders, Inc. (TBI) and Software Productivity Centre Inc. (SPC) announced the integration of two award-winning applications: SPC's software project planning and estimation tool, ESTIMATE Professional and TBI's requirements management system, Caliber-RM. The integration allows software project managers to provide immediate estimates and analysis for project plans, budgets, development efforts and costs required to deliver the set of functionality described in the requirements. The importance of having a sound estimate based on valid input, such as well-defined requirements, cannot be underplayed given shocking industry statistics. A 1998 Standish Group survey of 8,000 software projects found that:

· The average project exceeds its planned budget by 90% and its schedule by 120%.

· 33% of all projects are over budget and late.

· 52.7% of projects will cost 189% of their original estimates. Only 16.2% of projects will be completed on time, on budget.

· The average time overrun is 222% of the origina estimate. In large companies, only 9% of projects come in on time, on budget.

As development partners, SPC and TBI are teaming up to provide a powerful solution for the leading causes of software project failure - poorly defined requirements and poor project estimation. By integrating ESTIMATE Professional with Caliber-RM, project managers obtain comprehensive requirements-based estimates to help them better allocate resources, and more accurately project timeframe and costs in the early phases of a project.

SoftQuad and Object Design Form Strategic Alliance for Next-Generation XML Web Publishing Applications...

SoftQuad Software Inc. and Object Design Inc. announced a strategic alliance to integrate and jointly market SoftQuad's XMetaL XML authoring environment and Object Design's eXcelon XML eBusiness information server. The integrated products provide customers with a complete solution for developing, managing and publishing XML content for a wide variety of eBusiness applications, including knowledge management, web product catalogs, web publishing, etc. The rapid growth in web applications such as e-commerce, web portals, document management and customer relationship management is fueling demand for XML content. XMetaL is an advanced, simple-to-deploy XML authoring tool with a familiar word processing-like interface that delivers ease-of-use to authors while shielding them from the complexities of XML.

Standard Register Renews and Expands DM Contract with BOC Gases...

Standard Register announced that it has entered a five-year, $7 million contract with 20-year client, BOC Gases in North America, which broadens the scope of document management services from traditional business forms printing to pressure sensitive labels, product tags and business cards. Under the agreement, Standard Register produces more than 500 items, covering BOC Gases' entire product line according to diverse product and shipping compliance requirements. BOC Gases maintains its forms in a centralized inventory using Standard Register's Internet-based document management and electronic commerce service, SMARTworks, and supplies these documents to more than 200 end-users nationwide.

Tech Data Corporation Completes Acquisition of Globelle Corporation...

Tech Data Canada Inc. has taken the final step in doubling its presence in Canada with the completion of its acquisition of all the outstanding common shares of Globelle Corporation. The acquisition was completed through a merger of Globelle, Tech Data Canada and GLP Acquisition Corporation, an entity established by Tech Data Canada to facilitate the acquisition. The company will operate as Tech Data Canada Inc., a subsidiary of Tech Data Corporation. Tech Data Canada had previously acquired 82 percent of Globelle through a tender offer to Globelle Corporation shareholders. Under the terms of the merger, the remaining Globelle common shareholders received one redeemable retractable preferred share of Tech Data Canada for each Globelle common share held. The preferred shares do not convey voting or dividend rights and may be redeemed by the holder at any time for Cdn. $2.50 cash per share. After the redemption of all of the preferred shares, Tech Data Canada will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Tech Data Corporation.

Delavan Deploys WTC OpCenter To Optimize Product Development...

Workgroup Technology Corporation (WTC) announced that Delavan Gas Turbine Products has licensed WTC OpCenter, WTC's deliverables-based program management solution. Delavan will utilize WTC OpCenter to optimize the design, development and manufacturing of gas turbine fuel injection components used in products varying from auxiliary power units to the most advanced military fighter engines. Delavan will implement WTC OpCenter to provide its product development teams with the real-time information needed to optimize and compress development cycles, enhance customer service, increase return on investment and maximize shareholder value. Delavan will begin rolling out WTC OpCenter to a select business unit in early July and then plans to expand the solution throughout 13 business units through the end of the year.

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