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Delrina
Delrina Corporation was a Canadian software company active from 1988 to 1995. The company was best known for WinFax, a software package which enabled computers equipped with fax modems to transmit copies of documents to standalone fax machines or other similarly equipped computers. It also sold PerForm and FormFlow, electronic form software. Delrina was acquired by the American software firm Symantec in 1995.
Delrina also produced a set of screensavers, including one that resulted in a well-publicized lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringement (Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina). The case set a precedent in American law whereby satiric commercial software products are not subject to the same First Amendment exemptions as parodic cartoons or literature.
It also sold online communications software with its WinComm product and produced a Web browser called Cyberjack. The firm was sold to Symantec in 1995. After the company was acquired by Symantec, various divisions were sold off and several of Delrina's former executives went on to found venture capital firms.
Delrina was founded in Toronto in 1988 by Zimbabwean expatriate Bert Amato, South African expatriates Mark Skapinker and Dennis Bennie and American Lou Ryan. Delrina was Bennie's third major entrepreneurial start up after co-founding Mission Electronics, a high-end home entertainment equipment producer, and Aviva Software, which became Ingram Micro Canada. Delrina's business strategy was to "establish technical and market leadership in niche markets", which it accomplished with its electronic form and PC-based fax software. A year before the firm was incorporated, Amato and Skapinker had quit their jobs to start work on an electronic forms product which would eventually become PerForm. Both would later meet with Bennie, who was then the co-founder and CEO of Ingram Micro Canada before becoming CEO of Carolian Systems International, a firm that made business software for Hewlett-Packard. Bennie facilitated an initial seed investment of $1.5 million CAD to finance a new start-up company, "Delrina", to develop this idea. In return, Carolian received 51% of Delrina's shares, Dennis Bennie would become chairman and CEO, Mark Skapinker President, and Bert Amato CTO of newly formed Delrina Technology Inc.
Delrina's initial corporate headquarters was located in a small office on Mount Pleasant Rd. in Toronto. A sales office was set up in San Jose, California which became its worldwide sales center run by co-founder Lou Ryan. From its Toronto headquarters, the company expanded by establishing branch offices in Kirkland, Washington; Washington, DC; and Lexington, Massachusetts. Other offices were later established in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
Delrina's initial product offering was an electronic forms application called PerForm. Amato and Skapinker came up with the idea for the product while working as consultants that what their clients wanted was a way to fill in forms electronically, rather than an easier way to create paper-based forms from a computer. There was significant and long-term uptake of electronic forms products within governmental agencies both in Canada and the United States, the latter spurred on in particular by the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act to reduce the total amount of paperwork handled by the United States government. One of the firm's early major software deals included a multi-year agreement to sell PerForm to the U.S. Navy in 1990. Soon after the software was installed on Compaq laptops that accompanied U.S. troops during the First Gulf War, where it was used to requisition "everything from Coca-Cola to privies". Other significant volume sales went to 3M and Rockwell International. What helped set apart Delrina's electronic forms from its competitors in product reviews included its easy-to-use interface, its extensive development tools, and its comparatively low price. It also scored highly when it came to workflow and routing functions as well as security features. In early 1991 InfoWorld selected PerForm Pro as its "Product of the Year" in the electronic forms category, and PC World Magazine gave the product its "Best Buy" designation. PerForm proved to be successful in its niche, effectively capturing the retail market by 1993.
In the early 1990s Delrina made deals with value-added resellers like NCR and GE Information Services who had the staff to customize the product to the needs of corporate customers looking to move away from paper-based forms. The forms products sold well and the annual revenues for the firm grew steadily; 1989 annual revenues (in Canadian dollars) were $5,630,393, in 1990 they were $8,759,623, and by 1991 they were $11,894,474.
Despite the growing revenues, the company struggled to make a profit. Heavy expenditures—primarily marketing along with research and development costs—drove the firm's losses from $500,000 from 1989 to $1.5 million by the end of the following fiscal year. For fiscal 1991 it posted a net loss of $1.7 million.
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Delrina
Delrina Corporation was a Canadian software company active from 1988 to 1995. The company was best known for WinFax, a software package which enabled computers equipped with fax modems to transmit copies of documents to standalone fax machines or other similarly equipped computers. It also sold PerForm and FormFlow, electronic form software. Delrina was acquired by the American software firm Symantec in 1995.
Delrina also produced a set of screensavers, including one that resulted in a well-publicized lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringement (Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina). The case set a precedent in American law whereby satiric commercial software products are not subject to the same First Amendment exemptions as parodic cartoons or literature.
It also sold online communications software with its WinComm product and produced a Web browser called Cyberjack. The firm was sold to Symantec in 1995. After the company was acquired by Symantec, various divisions were sold off and several of Delrina's former executives went on to found venture capital firms.
Delrina was founded in Toronto in 1988 by Zimbabwean expatriate Bert Amato, South African expatriates Mark Skapinker and Dennis Bennie and American Lou Ryan. Delrina was Bennie's third major entrepreneurial start up after co-founding Mission Electronics, a high-end home entertainment equipment producer, and Aviva Software, which became Ingram Micro Canada. Delrina's business strategy was to "establish technical and market leadership in niche markets", which it accomplished with its electronic form and PC-based fax software. A year before the firm was incorporated, Amato and Skapinker had quit their jobs to start work on an electronic forms product which would eventually become PerForm. Both would later meet with Bennie, who was then the co-founder and CEO of Ingram Micro Canada before becoming CEO of Carolian Systems International, a firm that made business software for Hewlett-Packard. Bennie facilitated an initial seed investment of $1.5 million CAD to finance a new start-up company, "Delrina", to develop this idea. In return, Carolian received 51% of Delrina's shares, Dennis Bennie would become chairman and CEO, Mark Skapinker President, and Bert Amato CTO of newly formed Delrina Technology Inc.
Delrina's initial corporate headquarters was located in a small office on Mount Pleasant Rd. in Toronto. A sales office was set up in San Jose, California which became its worldwide sales center run by co-founder Lou Ryan. From its Toronto headquarters, the company expanded by establishing branch offices in Kirkland, Washington; Washington, DC; and Lexington, Massachusetts. Other offices were later established in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
Delrina's initial product offering was an electronic forms application called PerForm. Amato and Skapinker came up with the idea for the product while working as consultants that what their clients wanted was a way to fill in forms electronically, rather than an easier way to create paper-based forms from a computer. There was significant and long-term uptake of electronic forms products within governmental agencies both in Canada and the United States, the latter spurred on in particular by the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act to reduce the total amount of paperwork handled by the United States government. One of the firm's early major software deals included a multi-year agreement to sell PerForm to the U.S. Navy in 1990. Soon after the software was installed on Compaq laptops that accompanied U.S. troops during the First Gulf War, where it was used to requisition "everything from Coca-Cola to privies". Other significant volume sales went to 3M and Rockwell International. What helped set apart Delrina's electronic forms from its competitors in product reviews included its easy-to-use interface, its extensive development tools, and its comparatively low price. It also scored highly when it came to workflow and routing functions as well as security features. In early 1991 InfoWorld selected PerForm Pro as its "Product of the Year" in the electronic forms category, and PC World Magazine gave the product its "Best Buy" designation. PerForm proved to be successful in its niche, effectively capturing the retail market by 1993.
In the early 1990s Delrina made deals with value-added resellers like NCR and GE Information Services who had the staff to customize the product to the needs of corporate customers looking to move away from paper-based forms. The forms products sold well and the annual revenues for the firm grew steadily; 1989 annual revenues (in Canadian dollars) were $5,630,393, in 1990 they were $8,759,623, and by 1991 they were $11,894,474.
Despite the growing revenues, the company struggled to make a profit. Heavy expenditures—primarily marketing along with research and development costs—drove the firm's losses from $500,000 from 1989 to $1.5 million by the end of the following fiscal year. For fiscal 1991 it posted a net loss of $1.7 million.