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1994-03-21
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Delrina Announces Delrina WinFax PRO 4.0, Major Upgrade of the World's Most
Popular PC Fax Software
Usability Improvements, Functionality for Mobile Users, Expanded Messaging
Capabilities and Powerful New Features Take PC Fax to the Next Generation
SAN JOSE, CA and TORONTO, ONT - March 14, 1994 - Delrina Corporation
(NASDAQ:DENAF, TSE:DC) today announced Delrina WinFax PRO 4.0<tm>, a major
upgrade to its popular PC fax software for Microsoft Windows<tm>. Delrina
WinFax is the leading PC fax software in the world with more than 4 million
users. Most of the enhancements in version 4.0 are the direct result of
user feedback and usability testing.
Among the major improvements in Delrina WinFax PRO 4.0 are:
- Usability improvements focused on the areas of consistency,
customizability, flexibility, and bringing powerful functionality to the
forefront of the product.
- Special functionality to address the unique needs of mobile users.
- Expanded messaging capabilities that include: 1) Fax-a-File<tm>, a
fax-based file transfer capability that makes it as easy to send an actual
document file as it is to send a fax; and 2) built-in support for industry
standard electronic mail systems like cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail.
- Over 50 powerful new features, including Fax Viewer enhancements and a
more accurate OCR engine.
.
"WinFax PRO 4.0 represents a new generation of fax-based communications
software, said Mark Skapinker, Delrina president. Our challenge was to build
on the simplicity that WinFax provided first time PC fax users while making
our product even more powerful and expanding its messaging capabilities."
Usability Enhancements
Since the release of version 3.0 in November 1992, Delrina WinFax PRO has
been accepted throughout the PC world as the most powerful and the only
complete fax package available. Much of the emphasis of the new version 4.0
is on making enhancements to the product's interface to make it more
approachable to users of all skill levels.
Usability Testing
Delrina conducted extensive usability testing both internally and with
Usability Sciences Corp. of Irving, Texas, in the development of WinFax PRO
4.0 with the goal of making the tasks of sending, receiving and managing
faxes on a computer faster and simpler. This testing resulted in some
breakthroughs that fundamentally improve the usability of WinFax PRO, such
as the new AdapTable<tm> interface and the Quick Cover Page.
"Our objective at Usability Sciences is to work with a vendor in researching
how both novice and experienced people use, in this case fax software, in
various environments to gain a better understanding of their unique needs,"
said Jeff Schueler, president. "As a result of our work with Delrina,
WinFax PRO 4.0 delivers the features and functionality advanced users demand
without alienating those trying PC fax for the first time."
AdapTable<tm> Interface Places Fax Management on a Drag-and-Drop Desktop
WinFax PRO's AdapTable interface provides a consistent and flexible UI (User
Interface), customizability, and drag and drop features. The main
informational components in WinFax PRO 4.0 - the event logs (Send, Receive,
Scheduled Events), Cover Page Library, Phonebook and Attachments list (i.e.
fax-ready files) - have been designed so that once users learn one component
of WinFax PRO 4.0, they will know how the other components of the
application work.
Each of these components is fully drag-and-drop customizable so that WinFax
PRO users can simply and intuitively arrange their desktops to be exactly as
they like to work. Building on design principles seen in other popular
Windows applications like Microsoft Excel and Lotus cc:Mail, the
drag-and-drop fax desktop enables users to personalize their work
environments without even necessarily realizing that's what they're doing.
And since WinFax PRO comes configured for use right away, users can discover
and take advantage of this flexibility at their own pace.
For example, information about sent and received faxes is presented in a
tabular format, each column of which represents a different informational
field (date, time, or status of the transmission, for instance). These
columns can be resized simply by dragging their edges to the left or right.
Or they can be reordered by dragging entire columns.
- Consistency Speeds Learning - Since the same set of rules applies to each
major component of the interface, the user requires significantly less time
and effort to learn to use WinFax PRO's full functionality. For example,
each fax, phone book record, folder or other interface component is an
object with a menu of appropriate options available by right clicking on it.
Once users learn the principle of right clicking on an object to perform
operations on it, they can use those principles throughout WinFax PRO. This
sort of rigorous consistency greatly reduces the time to learn the product
by reducing the number of actual procedures to be learned into a fraction of
what it would be otherwise.
- Track, Sort, and Manage Faxes in Drag-and-Drop Folders - WinFax PRO 4.0
stores all faxes, attachments, cover pages, and phonebook records in
user-definable folders and sub-folders. Users can drag and drop items into
folders, which represent and do different things depending on which
component of the application the user is in. For example, when a fax is
dragged into an Archive folder, the associated images are automatically
compressed to reduce disk space, while in the Phonebook, fax broadcast
groups are created by dragging and dropping individuals into Group folders.
- Variable "Views" - Users can get various expanded "views" of a highlighted
item in the AdapTable interface. Expanded views, which appear along the
bottom portion of the screen, provide more information about an item. For
example, in the receive log, the user can see the actual fax, a detailed
synopsis of the fax transmission (date, time, status, transmission speed,
etc.) or the thumbnails of the fax.
- Context-Sensitive Menu Bar and Menus - The main menus in WinFax PRO 4.0
have been reorganized along common lines, so that tasks such as setting up a
fax modem or setting up receiving options are accessed from a single Setup
menu. As users move through the various components in WinFax PRO 4.0, the
Menu Bar changes, offering only the capabilities which are relevant to the
component. Alternatively, users can access the most common tasks, such as
viewing a fax or changing an expanded view, from context-sensitive menus by
clicking the right mouse button.
Object-Oriented Customizable Button Bar
WinFax PRO 4.0 has an object-oriented, customizable button bar that provides
instant access to commonly used functions, such as sending or viewing a fax,
or for quickly accessing different components, such as the logs or
Phonebook. For example, a user who wants to resubmit a failed fax can drop
it onto the SEND button on the button bar.
Special Functionality for Mobile Users
An increasing number of portable computers today come equipped with a fax
modem. WinFax PRO 4.0 includes special functionality that caters to the
unique needs of these mobile users including:
- Fax Autoforwarding<tm> - Fax Autoforwarding lets a user automatically
forward faxes received on his PC to another location. This enables the
mobile user to receive faxes at another location, while out of the office.
- Fax Polling and Remote Fax Retrieval - WinFax PRO now supports fax polling
and remote fax retrieval with Class 1 fax modems, which enables a mobile
user to dial into his desktop PC, check for received faxes, and then
automatically retrieve them on to their portable computer.
- Built-in Support for Enhanced Fax Services - WinFax PRO 4.0 includes a new
drop-down menu that enables users to easily access the Delrina Fax Broadcast
Service. Delrina Fax Broadcast is a service that enables users to broadcast
a fax, while retaining the full formatting, font control and graphics of the
original document, to up to 500 recipients with a single call. A special
introductory offer for up to US$50 worth of Delrina Fax Broadcast usage is
included with WinFax PRO.
- Robust Dialing Sequences - In order to access different services or use
different credit cards for long distance fax calls, users need to quickly
change and maintain many different dialing sequences - with prefixes and
suffixes. Many mobile users use more than one service or long distance
credit card, so having the flexibility to change and maintain multiple
dialing sequences is essential. In WinFax PRO, this is accomplished from a
single Setup dialog which supports up to 6 different dialing sequences.
- Phonebook Preferences - Users can maintain settings for up to three
different locations. For example, this would allow a mobile user who lives
in one area code but works in another, to maintain a different area code and
dialing prefix for each location. The user can quickly change his locale
from the Setup menu when he changes locations.
Expanded Messaging Capabilities Including E-Mail Support WinFax PRO 4.0
includes expanded messaging capabilities for faxing actual documents rather
than fax images, sending and receiving electronic mail within WinFax PRO,
and transmitting error-free faxes.
- Fax-a-File<tm> - Until now, sending a fax meant sending a bit-mapped
rendition or image of a document. However, new fax transmission protocols
enable users with Class 1 fax modems to send their original documents or
actual files (binary file) in the same easy way they currently transmit
bit-mapped images. WinFax PRO 4.0 supports binary file transmission through
several protocols: 1) the ITU's (formerly the CCITT) T.434 protocol for
transmitting binary files; 2) Microsoft At Work, which Microsoft has
included in the latest Windows for Workgroups product and plans to add to
its future versions of Windows. WinFax PRO 4.0 also supports all the
security and encryption capabilities under Microsoft At Work; 3) a special
binary file transfer capability between WinFax PRO 4.0 users that does
"on-the-fly" compression to reduce transmission time; and 4) CAS file
transfer, a special protocol available for Intel and other CAS compatible
fax modems. Transmission preferences for individual recipients are
maintained in the Phonebook, enabling a user to fax an image to some
recipients and fax a file to others.
- E-Mail Support - WinFax PRO 4.0 has "universal messaging" capabilities the
enable users to send, receive and manage electronic mail as well as faxes.
Direct support is built in for industry standard LAN-based systems cc:Mail
(VIM 2.0) and Microsoft Mail (MAPI 1.0). Users can even send a single
document to several people and WinFax PRO will automatically fax it to some
and e-mail it to others using cc:Mail or Microsoft Mail.
- Error Correcting Mode - The current protocol for fax transmission relies
on perfect line conditions to ensure quality faxes. However, adverse line
conditions cause errors in fax data transmission, which typically appear as
random blemishes or half-lines on a page. The problem is further magnified
when attempting to fax at the higher transmission speeds of 14.4kbps. WinFax
PRO 4.0 supports Error Correction Mode (ECM), which allows fax data errors
to be fixed during transmission and is an essential requirement for
Fax-a-File. ECM enables users with Class 1 fax modems to send perfect faxes,
over any phone line, at any speed to other fax devices that also support
ECM.
Over 50 Powerful New Features
WinFax PRO 4.0 adds powerful new features and enhancements for Attachments,
Cover Pages, the Fax Viewer, converting faxes into editable text, and much
more.
- "On-The-Fly" Attachments - Attachments are fax-ready files that are
documents which have been saved to disk. In previous versions of WinFax
users had to create Attachments before sending them. In WinFax PRO 4.0,
Attachments can be created "on-the-fly" by selecting documents from a
Windows file list when sending the fax.
- Cover Page Enhancements - WinFax PRO 4.0 includes several enhancements for
cover pages that provide greater user control and speed up faxing. There is
a quick cover page option for users who want to simply select a recipient
and add a quick message without going into the WinFax Cover Page dialog.
Full font control is now available so users can mix different fonts,
attributes and sizes within a single text block. This feature is available
within the Cover Page Designer and for a cover page selected at the time of
transmission. An on-line spell-checker is included that can be accessed in
a cover page at both the design and filling stage.
- Fax Viewer Enhancements - The Fax Viewer in WinFax PRO 4.0 has been
optimized for speed. For example, rotating a page is about 50 times faster
than in previous versions. Additional functionality includes Invert, a
feature that changes the fax image to display white characters on a black
background making them easier to read on monochrome and LCD displays. A
Highlight and Zoom feature lets users quickly frame any part of a fax and
zoom in up to 200%.
- New Annotation Tools - New annotation and image manipulation tools similar
to those found in paint programs have been added that enable users to
quickly mark-up and modify a fax at the bit-map level. The object-oriented
annotation capabilities from version 3.0 - in which annotations can be saved
as a separate layer - are still available in version 4.0 with some added
features. For example, users can "stamp" their signatures or other graphics
directly on to Cover Pages and faxes. Also, users can mix multiple fonts,
sizes and font attributes within text annotations and in text blocks on
cover pages.
- Xerox TextBridge<tm> OCR - Delrina WinFax PRO 4.0 includes improved OCR
technology from Xerox. TextBridge is substantially more accurate and faster
than the OCR capability in WinFax PRO 3.0. It also directly exports the
text converted from a fax to 26 different file formats including Microsoft
Word, WordPerfect, Ami Pro, Microsoft Excel, and Lotus 1-2-3.
System Requirements, Availability and Pricing
Delrina WinFax PRO 4.0 requires an IBM PC or compatible with 386 or higher
microprocessor; Microsoft Windows 3.1 or higher; 4MB of memory and 10MB of
hard disk space. Worldwide availability of the English version of WinFax
PRO 4.0 through resellers is March 1994 at a suggested retail price of
US$129. Customers who purchased WinFax PRO 3.0, the Delrina Communications
Suite or Delrina WinFax PRO for Networks 3.0 on or after February 1st, 1994
can upgrade to version 4.0 at no charge. Users of WinFax PRO 3.0, WinFax
LITE or previous versions of WinFax can upgrade directly from Delrina for
$49. In addition, Delrina has initiated an aggressive Channel Upgrade
Rebate Program so users can easily purchase an upgrade to WinFax PRO 4.0
from their local retailer.
Delrina is recognized as the technical and market leader in PC fax and forms
software and a leading publisher of content software sold worldwide. More
than 100 system manufacturers, fax modem makers and software vendors include
Delrina WinFax with their offerings including IBM, Compaq, AST Research, and
Hewlett Packard. Founded in 1988, the company employs over 450 people with
headquarters in Toronto, Canada; and offices in San Jose, CA; Kirkland, WA;
Washington, DC; the United Kingdom; France; and Germany. Delrina can be
contacted at 1-800-268-6082.