VisionShape Foresees Problems with Microsoft's Ending of Plug-in Support; Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 2 Dictates Active-X Version of TIFFSurfer

Business Wire, August 23, 2001

Business & Technology Editors

PLACENTIA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 23, 2001

VisionShape today announced that due to lack of support for plug-ins by Microsoft in Internet Explorer 5.5 service pack 2, it is developing an Active-X version of its popular TIFFSurfer plug-in, which should be available to users by mid-September.

TIFFSurfer is used extensively to provide document image functionality that is not natively supported by browsers. Registered users are being notified to change to the new version, but many shareware users, who have downloaded free TIFFSurfer viewing software, may find it no longer works if they upgrade their operating system.

In 1998, VisionShape developed TIFFSurfer in order to expand the functionality of browsers to support additional image viewing as a browser plug-in. Around the same time many other companies also developed software plug-ins, working under the open plug-in architecture first developed by Netscape and adopted by Microsoft with its Internet Explorer products. Plug-ins are used to expand the functionality of browsers, and as they have a common interface that users are familiar with, distribution and training is easy. To encourage use of their product, VisionShape made the basic viewer downloadable from the Internet free-of-charge. Then they expanded its functionality into scanning documents, indexing them, controlling them, and converting them to text, HTML and Adobe compatible PDF. It's been a successful strategy as TIFFSurfer now has over a quarter of a million registered users, including some of the US's largest corporations - some with 30,000 seats and more.

Although additional improvements and added functionality are planned for TIFFSurfer, an Active-X version was not. VisionShape learned of the problem from a major customer who had installed Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 2 and called to complain that TIFFSurfer would not work. Microsoft Technical Support confirmed that "support for Netscape style plug-ins was removed with the release of SP2 for IE 5.5." Microsoft also stated that "there currently isn't any resolution to this problem. However, very soon we will release documentation on our website". VisionShape feels that the only solution is to move to Microsoft's proprietary Active-X controls, which means that VisionShape, a small privately owned company, has to cease all new development to re-code its product and undergo testing in multiple sites. It is a costly development, and also expensive for its users. VisionShape has yet to decide whether to charge its customers for this change, but a first release should be ready to deploy to major accounts by mid-September.

Says Dan Borrey principal shareholder and Vice-President at VisionShape "we were blindsided by this decision. The problem is that we have no choice - Microsoft pretty much has a monopoly in browser technology with IE and because it is integrated with the operating system, the user gets no choice over using it. Some of our customers have already moved to IE5.5 sp2 so we have had to put all our resources into getting an Active-X version out. We have little time as we need to avoid disrupting our customers' operations, some of them being mission critical. But we will have to go through extensive Beta testing, because the customers all have slightly different environments, and some even have a "custom" version with specific features they paid for. Basically we have to do a three year job in two weeks. However, we believe we will be able to keep the disruption to a minimum level for our licensed clients."

"A bigger problem may be all the people who use TIFFSurfer as a free image viewer as we support formats which IE does not. We have over 300 downloads every day, but if a user doesn't register the software, we have no idea who they may be. I am concerned that as IE 5.5 sp2 and subsequent releases become prevalent, our phone is going to ring off the hook, as many of the free users are not computer people and have no idea how to remove and add software to their system. Most of the free users seem to be lawyers, real estate agents, or simply homemakers checking pictures of their children.. And it's really not our fault. Microsoft's dominant position has provided us with many advantages in the past, but this is going to cost money, resources, and a lot of aggravation.

We have placed information on our TIFFSurfer WEB site (www.TiffSurfer.com), but our users should try not to upgrade to IE 5.5 sp2 or later until we have developed the Active-X solution particularly as we understand that installing and then removing the SP2 upgrade does not return TIFFSurfer functionality. Also newly shipped systems probably won't be able to run TIFFSurfer at all."

VisionShape designs scanners and software toolkits for production document imaging and forms processing systems. Its products include high performance page and check scanners, industry leading barcode reading, image manipulation, character recognition and OMR, as well as image viewing software for the Internet with unique OCR features. It owns the first patent covering forms identification for automated forms processing systems. For more information please contact Dan Borrey at VisionShape (Phone: 714-792-3612, FAX: 714-792-3621), or via e-mail at dan@Visionshape.com. Information on VisionShape is available on the worldwide web at: http://www.visionshape.com.