BCL Streamlines SEC Filing Process for Companies

Business Wire, July 12, 2000

Business/High-Tech Editors

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 12, 2000

BCL Computers is making it easier for companies to handle filing with the SEC (the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) and get word out on the web to the new breed of information-hungry online investors. Publish to SEC(R), BCL's newest repurposing software, automatically converts companies' financial documents into SEC-compliant HTML 3.2, and is capable of reflowing the content for viewing on smaller display devices.

After more and more investors started using the web to look for information about the companies they want to invest in, the SEC began converting its filing and database architecture to an Internet-based system using HTML 3.2 - in an effort to give the investing public the information they need in a format they understand. However, while the switch has made it easier for the consumer, it's made the filing process more difficult for companies.

Converting highly complex financial documents (with detailed graphs, tables and varying formats) into HTML is no small feat under normal circumstances. Converting them to a searchable, downloadable format that includes SEC tags and complies with all SEC standards multiplies the challenge. At the same time, consumers are clamoring for investor-friendly content on company web sites.

Using BCL's patented technology, Publish to SEC(R) takes a graphically complex document - such as one with multiple columns, tables, graphics and even a change of format in the middle of a page (such as a shift from two columns to three) - and automatically separates its structure into zones. Each zone consists of a single element - a simple picture, piece of text, list or table.

Publish to SEC(R) then automatically sequences these zones into a natural reading order, and passes them into BCL's output filters. These filters can output to SEC-compliant HTML, HTML 4, or RTF, depending on the user's requirements. For additional control, the zone editor allows users to either fine tune or resequence (or both) the zones. This allows for unprecedented control over the output without having to resort to an HTML editor to refine the document's final appearance.

For those who want to take repurposing and dissemination a step further, Publish to SEC(R) is also available with output filters that reflow documents for the smaller screens of hand-held devices, including PDAs such as the Palm(R), making documents accessible to the quickly-growing segment of consumers who use hand-held devices to search for and retrieve investment content on the web.

Repurposing documents for these small-screened devices normally poses an additional challenge for companies already faced with multiple repurposing demands, because the reduced screen area of handhelds makes the complex tables, multi-column text, frames and wide, high-quality graphics common to financial documents difficult to display. However, Publish to SEC(R) solves the problem using the tagging capabilities and reflow technology of HTML 3.2. When the conversion process targets output for hand-held devices, it reflows content, so that the document can be displayed on smaller screens with original content and "flow" intact.

Using Publish to SEC(R)'s capabilities, a company can address the most technical filing needs of the SEC, as well as the on-the-spot informational needs of the "on-the-go" web consumer with one quick (Publish to SEC(R) is capable of converting documents at a rate of about one page per second), efficient conversion package.

"Today's financial marketplace has put many extra demands on publicly-traded companies. Publish to SEC(R) can help alleviate those demands by streamlining not just the filing process, but the public information process as well." said BCL CEO Hassan Alam. "Not only will documents converted by Publish to SEC(R) meet SEC standards; they'll make sense on your ebook too."

The technology behind Publish to SEC(R) is based on BCL's ground-breaking repurposing software solutions, designed for content providers who need efficient ways to take documents originally published for the more traditional print media and repurpose (or convert) them for a variety of electronic media. Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., BCL Computers conducts research in, and develops products for, computer-based document management and computer command and control systems. Areas of expertise include neural networks, fuzzy logic, document analysis, information retrieval, database technologies, natural language processing and knowledge representation. BCL has been successfully working with companies to improve their workflow efficiency since 1994 with products such as JADE(R), Magellan(R), and GoHTM(R). The company's policy has always been not only to give an immediate solution to meet its clients' needs, but also to help companies grow in their respective fields.