Sun Names ADVANCE, Incorporated, Reseller for Document and Image Management Solutions; ADVANCE Will Port Imaging for Notes to Sun Computers

Business Wire, April 11, 1995

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 11, 1995--Sun Microsystems Computer Company (SMCC) today announced that ADVANCE, Incorporated, a value-added reseller and developer of document imaging and management products, has been named a Sun reseller. Sun and ADVANCE will now work together to deliver a full range of high-performance, open networked solutions to help customers manage all aspects of workflow, document storage, usage, retrieval and archiving. As part of this new relationship, ADVANCE will port Imaging for Notes, its proprietary product that adds imaging capabilities to Lotus Notes, to the SMCC's SPARC(R)/Solaris(TM) network computing platform later this quarter.

The announcement was made at the AIIM (Association for Information & Image Management) conference taking place in San Francisco.

Based in Arlington, Virginia, ADVANCE provides document imaging solutions to meet various usage requirements. To support large environments, ADVANCE offers the best-selling products of FileNet Corp., a leading document imaging and management company. As a leading FileNet reseller and integrator, ADVANCE's installed base includes customers such as the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. of Washington, D.C. Among the FileNet products resold by ADVANCE is FileNet's Image Management Services (IMS) software -- announced today for the Sun platform.

For mid-sized environments (up to 250 seats), ADVANCE offers Imaging for Notes, enabling integrated imaging applications for the popular Lotus Notes program, a prime benefit for workgroups users in banking and financial services, healthcare, and education. FileNet Workgroup(TM), the new midrange solution from FileNet, rounds out ADVANCE's solution set.

"As this relationship with ADVANCE demonstrates, Sun's strategy is to partner with key workflow and document management vendors, as well as resellers, to deliver powerful solutions that can span the full spectrum of customer requirements," said Doug Kaewert, director of market development at SMCC. "We're combining our expertise in markets like financial services and healthcare with the industry's best workflow and document management technology to help customers end the paper chase and manage their workflow more efficiently."

Kaewert added that SPARC/Solaris features such as an excellent price/performance ratio, fast processing, fully open UNIX architecture and advanced network management are ideally suited to document and image management, with its intensive performance and response time requirements. On the software side, the Solaris Imaging Library enhances image presentation on the desktop, while computers like the affordable SPARCstation(TM) 5 computer, with its 24-bit graphics, are ideal as a document management platform.

"We are excited about the opportunity to market Sun systems," said Craig Deans, director of network integration marketing at ADVANCE. "After analyzing many UNIX computer companies, we decided to concentrate our efforts on Sun, because our two companies share so much of the same vision for network management, imaging and other core technologies to enable workflow and document management."

Porting Imaging for Notes to the SPARC/Solaris platform will deliver much greater performance and robustness for the application, which currently runs on PC-based networks, Deans said. Since SPARC/Solaris was the first UNIX platform to run Lotus Notes, the Imaging for Notes product port will serve the needs of the many users who want imaging capabilities with the robustness of a UNIX server.

ADVANCE, Incorporated, founded in 1980, provides a broad array of systems integration, imaging, groupware, multimedia and data communications services to clients that include major defense, government and commercial enterprises. In addition to providing value-added services, ADVANCE also develops products, primarily in imaging systems. ADVANCE has strategic alliances with Lotus, Intel, Microsoft and FileNet.

Sun Microsystems Computer Company (SMCC), the world's top supplier of open network computing solutions, is part of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Built on Sun's legacy of "The Network is the Computer(TM)," SMCC's SPARC/Solaris workstation and server family leads the UNIX market. The company has its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

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