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Delrina Corporation was an
electronic form Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...
company in Canada that was acquired by the American software firm
Symantec Symantec may refer to: *An American consumer software company now known as Gen Digital Inc. *A brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier ...
in 1995. The company was best known for
WinFax WinFax (also known as WinFax PRO) is a discontinued Microsoft Windows-based software product designed to let computers equipped with fax-modems communicate directly to stand-alone fax machines, or other similarly equipped computers. History The pr ...
, a software package which enabled computers equipped with
fax modem A fax modem enables a computer to transmit and receive documents as faxes on a telephone line. A fax modem is like a data modem but is designed to transmit and receive documents to and from a fax machine or another fax modem. Some, but not all, fa ...
s to transmit copies of documents to standalone
fax machine Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
s or other similarly equipped computers. It also sold
PerForm PerForm and PerForm PRO were electronic form programs, initially designed to work under GEM in DOS. Later versions were designed to work in Windows 3.1, at which point it was succeeded by FormFlow. The initial version of PerForm was created in 1 ...
and
FormFlow FormFlow was the name of a line of electronic forms products initially created and sold by Delrina in the early- to mid-1990s. History The first product in this line was PerForm, which was designed to work under GEM in DOS. The FormFlow and Fo ...
. Delrina also produced a set of
screensaver A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor ...
s, including one that resulted in a well-publicized lawsuit for
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
and
trademark infringement Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees (provided that such authorization was within the scope of the licence). Infringement may o ...
('' Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina''). The case set a
precedent A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great valu ...
in American law whereby
satiric Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
commercial software products are not subject to the same
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
exemptions as
parodic A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
cartoons or literature. It also sold online communications software with its
WinComm WinComm was a terminal emulator program for Windows that was offered by Delrina in the mid-1990s. Seeing a growing business in online communications utilities, Delrina launched WinComm PRO. It was used primarily to connect to Bulletin Board Syste ...
product and produced a Web browser called
Cyberjack Cyberjack was the name for a Web browser application created by Delrina in 1995. It was sold as a stand-alone product, and was also bundled as part of Delrina's CommSuite 95 offering. In addition to the Web browser application, it also included an ...
. The firm was sold to
Symantec Symantec may refer to: *An American consumer software company now known as Gen Digital Inc. *A brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier ...
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 Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
firms.


Corporate history

Delrina was founded in
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
in 1988 by
Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...
an expatriate
Bert Amato Bert Amato is an investor and consultant in the high-technology industry. He currently sits as an advisory board member of several firms, including XDL Intervest Management, Farelogix and Infotriever. Born in Rhodesia, he emigrated to Canada ...
, South African expatriates
Mark Skapinker Mark Skapinker is a Managing Partner at Brightspark, a software, Internet and Mobile venture capital firm with offices in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Brightspark has twice won the Canadian Venture Capital Association "D ...
and
Dennis Bennie Dennis Bennie is an entrepreneur and early-stage investor based in Toronto, Canada. He co-founded Mission Electronics in 1979; co-founded Aviva Software in 1982; co-founded Delrina in 1988; raised two venture funds under XDL Group and is currentl ...
and American Lou Ryan. Delrina was Bennie's third major entrepreneurial start up after co-founding
Mission Electronics The International Audio Group (IAG) is a Chinese manufacturer of consumer and professional audio & HiFi components. It is based in Shenzhen in China. It is owned and run by twin brothers Bernard and Michael Chang. Products In the past the IAG ...
, 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 PerForm and PerForm PRO were electronic form programs, initially designed to work under GEM in DOS. Later versions were designed to work in Windows 3.1, at which point it was succeeded by FormFlow. The initial version of PerForm was created in 1 ...
. 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 The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
. 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 Dennis Bennie is an entrepreneur and early-stage investor based in Toronto, Canada. He co-founded Mission Electronics in 1979; co-founded Aviva Software in 1982; co-founded Delrina in 1988; raised two venture funds under XDL Group and is currentl ...
would become Chairman and CEO,
Mark Skapinker Mark Skapinker is a Managing Partner at Brightspark, a software, Internet and Mobile venture capital firm with offices in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Brightspark has twice won the Canadian Venture Capital Association "D ...
President, and
Bert Amato Bert Amato is an investor and consultant in the high-technology industry. He currently sits as an advisory board member of several firms, including XDL Intervest Management, Farelogix and Infotriever. Born in Rhodesia, he emigrated to Canada ...
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 San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...
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 Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. A suburb east of Seattle, its population was 92,175 in the 2020 U.S. census which made it the sixth largest city in the county and the twelfth largest in the state. The city's downto ...
;
Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
; and
Lexington, Massachusetts Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, and was firs ...
. Other offices were later established in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.


Origins of PerForm

Delrina's initial product offering was an electronic forms application called
PerForm PerForm and PerForm PRO were electronic form programs, initially designed to work under GEM in DOS. Later versions were designed to work in Windows 3.1, at which point it was succeeded by FormFlow. The initial version of PerForm was created in 1 ...
. 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 The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (Pub. L. No. 96-511, 94 Stat. 2812, codified at ) is a United States federal law enacted in 1980 designed to reduce the total amount of paperwork burden the federal government imposes on private businesses and c ...
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 Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
laptops A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...
that accompanied U.S. troops during the
First Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
, where it was used to requisition "everything from
Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
to privies". Other significant volume sales went to 3M and
Rockwell International Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate involved in aircraft, the space industry, defense and commercial electronics, components in the automotive industry, printing presses, avionics and industrial products. R ...
. 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 ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...
selected PerForm Pro as its "Product of the Year" in the electronic forms category, and
PC World Magazine ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...
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 A value-added reseller (VAR) is a company that adds features or services to an existing product, then resells it (usually to end-users) as an integrated product or complete "turn-key" solution. This practice occurs commonly in the electronics or IT ...
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 The Canadian dollar ( symbol: $; code: CAD; french: dollar canadien) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, there is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviation Can$ is often suggested by notable style ...
) were $5,630,393, in 1990 they were $8,759,623, and by 1991 they were $11,894,474.


Struggle for profitability

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. Needing an infusion of funds, in April 1991 Bennie managed to raise $7.7 million in a
private placement Private placement (or non-public offering) is a funding round of securities which are sold not through a public offering, but rather through a private offering, mostly to a small number of chosen investors. Generally, these investors include friend ...
. The firm subsequently sought to find ways to more widely distribute its electronic form software, with Bennie saying in May 1992 that "we've barely scratched the surface of our market". In early 1992 word leaked to the press on a possible merger between WordStar International Inc., and soon after both firms made public the fact that they had signed a letter of intent on a merger deal. However, just over a month later word came out that the merger talks had fallen through, at the time cited to differences over "complex legal, accounting and management issues". WordStar, whose share of the
word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...
market had by that time fallen to 5% (from a high of 80%) was seeking Delrina's advanced technologies while Delrina was hoping to utilize the other firm's established global sales network. Despite the failure of the merger talks, Bennie said soon after that "we're still convinced that a larger sales force would give us the kind of marketing clout we need. I still believe that it's possible for us to become a global operation". Not long after WordStar merged with Spinnaker Software Corporation and SoftKey Software Products Inc. to form SoftKey International. Delrina subsequently signed deals with Wallace Computer Services, UARCO and
NCR Corporation NCR Corporation, previously known as National Cash Register, is an American software, consulting and technology company providing several professional services and electronic products. It manufactures self-service kiosks, point-of-sale termin ...
in an effort to gain greater sales distribution of its products.


Development of WinFax

In a deliberate attempt to diversify the business, The Company chose to move into the fax software market with its
WinFax WinFax (also known as WinFax PRO) is a discontinued Microsoft Windows-based software product designed to let computers equipped with fax-modems communicate directly to stand-alone fax machines, or other similarly equipped computers. History The pr ...
product. Software developer Tony Davis (another South African expatriate who had moved to Canada) was initially hired as a consultant to work on the forms line of products in the late 1980s, soon afterwards becoming part of that team. In his spare time he developed a prototype of what would become the first WinFax product, with the agreement that Delrina would be its publisher. In 1990 Delrina devoted a relatively small space to this new product at that year's
COMDEX COMDEX (an abbreviation of COMputer Dealers' EXhibition) was a computer expo trade show held in the Las Vegas Valley of Nevada, United States, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually ...
(a computer trade show), under a sign that said simply: "Send a Fax from Your PC". It garnered the most attention of any Delrina product being demonstrated at that show. This interest convinced the founding partners of the commercial viability of the product. Tony Davis went on to sell his product idea to Delrina, and stayed on as its lead software architect and designer. The initial version of WinFax only worked on fax modems containing a specific chipset, and was only capable of sending faxes; it could not receive them. This was remedied with the launch of the WinFax PRO 2.0 product during the summer of 1991. One of the key factors that differentiated this version of WinFax from other fax software packages of the time was the deliberate attempt to make the program compatible with all fax/modems. Prior to the introduction of WinFax PRO 2.0, competitors concentrated primarily on building software that would only work with a single brand of fax/modem hardware. At the same time that it launched its WinFax PRO 2.0 product, Delrina also announced an
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
version of the same product designed to be bundled with new fax/modems. Within a few months, eight modem manufacturers had agreed to bundle this
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
version (called "WinFax LITE") of the program along with their own product. By the summer of the following year this number had grown to 50
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
partnerships with various fax-modem and computer system manufacturers to bundle the "LITE" version of Delrina's WinFax software with their own products. By February 1993 this number had grown to over 100
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
partnerships. Bundling the LITE version of WinFax proved to be lucrative for Delrina. Whenever a person used the program for the first time and submitted their registration information by fax to the company, Delrina would subsequently mail the user an upgrade offer for the PRO version. This sales technique proved to be very effective, and the firm ended up making most of its sales from these upgrades. In order to reach Apple computer users in this marketplace Delrina acquired Solutions Inc. and their BackFax software for the
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
platform in December 1991, which would become "Delrina Fax Pro". A version of the program was also designed for use in
DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...
("DosFax PRO") which was launched in June 1992. Initially looking for ways to further improve its electronic forms software, in November 1991 Delrina had attempted to buy two associated firms that produced
Optical Character Recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...
(OCR) software, with the intention of incorporating OCR functionality into its forms products. The acquisition deal fell through, though by Fall 1992 Delrina had made a deal with
Caere Corporation Nuance Communications, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, that markets speech recognition and artificial intelligence software. Nu ...
to include its AnyFax OCR software within its products. This functionality was incorporated into WinFax PRO 3.0 in late 1992, and subsequently in FormFlow Despite the agreement with Caere, the subsequent version of WinFax used
Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
's TextBridge OCR engine instead. Based on strong sales of WinFax, by October 1992 Delrina posted its first profitable quarter in three years. At the same time, the firm also announced its intention to acquire other software firms that sold into the consumer software market.


Acquisition of Amaze Inc.

In October 1992 Delrina acquired Amaze Inc., based out of Kirkland, Washington. The firm created daily planner software, providing time management features while providing some humour by featuring licensed cartoon strips like
Cathy ''Cathy'' is an American gag-a-day comic strip, drawn by Cathy Guisewite from 1976 until 2010. The comic follows Cathy, a woman who struggles through the "four basic guilt groups" of life—food, love, family, and work. The strip gently pokes ...
,
Bloom County ''Bloom County'' is an American comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which originally ran from December 8, 1980, until August 6, 1989. It examined events in politics and culture through the viewpoint of a fanciful small town in Middle America, wh ...
, B.C. and
The Far Side ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealist ...
. The firm became a wholly owned subsidiary of Delrina in a deal which also paid down Amaze's $3 million (U.S.) debt and placed two of the firm's directors on Delrina's board. These two individuals were
Rowland Hanson Rowland Hanson (born 1935) is the current Chairman of CRH & Associates and the CEO of the HMC Company. He is known for his time at Microsoft, where he convinced the company to name their new graphical user interface (GUI) "Windows" over the origina ...
, former VP Corporate Communications for Microsoft and George Clut.


''Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina''

One of Delrina's
screensaver A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor ...
products was based on the licensed
Bloom County ''Bloom County'' is an American comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which originally ran from December 8, 1980, until August 6, 1989. It examined events in politics and culture through the viewpoint of a fanciful small town in Middle America, wh ...
characters
Opus the Penguin Opus the Penguin (Opus T. Penguin) is a fictional character created by artist Berkeley Breathed. Breathed has described him as an "existentialist penguin" and the favorite of his many characters. Opus has appeared in several of Breathed's creati ...
and
Bill the Cat Bill the Cat, or Bill D. Cat, is a fictional cat appearing in the works of cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, beginning with the comic strip ''Bloom County'' in the 1980s and continuing in '' Outland'' and ''Opus'' in the following decades. Bill also ...
. The initial ''Opus 'n Bill'' screensaver, launched in 1993, landed the company in court as its ''Death Toasters'' module depicted Opus taking shots at a number of flying toasters, a well-known emblem in Berkeley System's ''Flying Toasters'' module from their After Dark screensaver. Berkeley Systems sued for
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
and
trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...
infringement. The following court case of ''Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina'' was fought by Delrina on the basis that a software-based parody should fall under the same
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
protection offered to the press. A preliminary injunction was filed against Delrina in September 1993 which halted the sale of the product, and subsequently forced a recall of it through the court. The case drew political satirist
Mark Russell Mark Russell (born August 23, 1932) is an American political satirist and comedian. He is best known for his series of semimonthly comedy specials on PBS television between 1975 and 2004. His routines were a mix of political stand-up humor cover ...
to speak in defense of Delrina, who argued in favour of the screensaver as a valid parody, while the estate of composer
Irving Berlin Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russi ...
sided with Berkeley.Lesk. Michael Understanding Digital Libraries. p.300 Morgan Kaufmann. 1-55860-924-5 Commenting on the case involving his characters, cartoonist
Berkeley Breathed Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed (; born June 21, 1957) is an American cartoonist, children's book author, director, and screenwriter, known for his comic strips ''Bloom County'', '' Outland'', and ''Opus''. ''Bloom County'' earned Breathed the Pu ...
said: "If
David Letterman David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American television host, comedian, writer and producer. He hosted late night television talk shows for 33 years, beginning with the February 1, 1982 debut of ''Late Night with David Letterman' ...
can depict the
NBC peacock The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
wearing men's boxer shorts, then Delrina should be able to plug a flying toaster with hot lead". Judge Eugene Lynch found in favour of Berkeley, citing that a commercial software product was not subject to the same exemptions as parodist literature, and that the toasters were too similar in design. The total cost of the court case and the recalled product was roughly $150,000 U.S. In the court case, it was also cited that the design for winged toasters was not original and that the Berkeley Systems' design was itself derived from the
Jefferson Airplane Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to ac ...
album ''
Thirty Seconds Over Winterland ''Thirty Seconds Over Winterland'' is an album by the American psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane. It was recorded live in August and September 1972, at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago and the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. It was r ...
'', which also used flying toasters adorned with wings. Berkeley argued that the firm was unaware of the previous artwork until 1991, and that the album cover's toasters had clocks in addition to their wings. Jefferson Airplane later sued Berkeley Systems in turn for the use of the same flying toaster emblem. The rock group lost the case as they did not trademark the album cover at the time of publication. The court decision was interpreted by the writer L. Ray Patterson as an erosion of
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
rights over the increasing protection provided to copyright holders. While Delrina lost the court case, the publicity it generated was substantial, with coverage in over a thousand newspapers across North America, resulting in consumers turning out in droves to buy the offending program before it could be recalled. Delrina subsequently removed the wings from the toasters and replaced them with propellers in order to avoid trademark infringement. The module was also renamed from "Death Toasters" to "Censored Toaster Module". Thanks to the publicity from the court case, sales of this new version ended up being triple what had been expected. Updated modules for this particular screensaver were sold for the next couple of years. Josef Zankowicz, who managed the firm's publicity during this period, later commented: "We had the feeling that we might get sued—actually, we prayed to get sued. Because by suing us, the number one player in the marketplace opened up the door. Anyone can create an interesting product, spend $10 million and create awareness of it. But it's another thing to create a product and spend one-tenth that amount and create twice as much awareness." This division of the firm at its height only represented less than 15% of the company's total revenues.


WinFax

The increasing sales of the WinFax product lead to significant growth in revenues for the firm; by 1992 its sales had climbed to $19,208,420, and more than doubling the next year to $48,583,932. The product soon overtook that of the initial forms product in terms of revenues, and within a few years of its launch, WinFax would account for 80% of the company's revenues. By 1994 the firm had sold more than 3 million copies of WinFax, and it regularly featured in the "Top 10" lists of software applications sold during this period. The rapid growth in sales of this product was unexpected, with Bennie quoted in an interview from late 1993 as saying "the success of WinFax really caught us by surprise". With the success of the WinFax product, the company grew rapidly. By early 1993 the number of employees had grown to 250, and by the end of the year to 350. The increasing success of the WinFax product consequently led to significant strains on the firm to handle the increasing volume of calls to its Technical Support department, as each of the over 300 modems on the market at the time had their own nuances in how they implemented the fax data standard. Delrina spent roughly $800,000 in an improved telephone infrastructure in an attempt to get wait times to under five minutes. In December 1993 Delrina hired 40 additional people to help alleviate the growing number of calls to the firm for technical support. By the end of 1994 the situation had improved to the point where noted industry commentator
Robert X. Cringely Robert X. Cringely is the pen name of both technology journalist Mark Stephens and a string of writers for a column in ''InfoWorld'', the one-time weekly computer trade newspaper published by IDG. InfoWorld Mark Stephens was the third author t ...
put Delrina in his shortlist of firms providing "exceptional" product support. In order to further enhance the appeal of its new flagship product, in 1993 the firm established a Communication Services division, designed to tap into the commercial market. The firm started making deals with major
telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
companies, such as
BellSouth BellSouth, LLC (stylized as ''BELLSOUTH'' and formerly known as BellSouth Corporation) was an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after ...
and
MCI Inc. MCI, Inc. (subsequently Worldcom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. Worldcom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunic ...
in preparation for the services the firm was about to offer. In November of that year the division launched its Fax Broadcast service. The Fax Broadcast service allowed subscribers to upload a single fax and a recipient list to Delrina. Systems at Delrina would then send out the fax to the recipients on that list, to a maximum of 500 fax numbers. A subsequent Fax Mailbox feature—which enabled subscribers to remotely access both fax and voice messages from a single phone number—was initially held up following a dispute with AlphaNet Telecom for the rights to the technology. This dispute was resolved by June 1994, though with both sides publicly disputing the story of the other, and with AlphaNet receiving an undisclosed sum in compensation. By late 1994 the firm was considered one of the fastest-growing software companies in North America, and employed over 500 people, most located at its offices in Toronto. The firm's financial situation improved greatly, and by February 1995 Delrina was reported to have captured almost three-quarters of the fax software market, was debt-free and had $40 million in the bank. The firm was shipping 200,000 units of WinFax a month, and had an installed base of four million users. The cost of doing business had also improved, as the firm's
cost of sales Cost of goods sold (COGS) is the carrying value of goods sold during a particular period. Costs are associated with particular goods using one of the several formulas, including specific identification, first-in first-out (FIFO), or average cost ...
was now 25% of net sales, down from 30% the previous fiscal year, improving the firm's gross profits.


The impact of Windows 95

In November 1992 Skapinker met
Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
at a
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
-sponsored dinner where he asked whether there were any plans to include any fax functionality in their forthcoming operating system (which could become
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...
). Gates replied that there were plans to include " base-level fax capability" in the next version of Windows, and suggested that Skapinker get in touch with his development staff in order to produce a value-added product for it. The firm decided to work on a suite of applications designed to be an enhancement on what was to be available in
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...
. In response to a question about Windows 95, Bennie responded by saying: "We are quite convinced that on top of Windows 95, we can build four different applications and will encompass fax, data, telephony or digital voice, and Internet access". This would later become the
CommSuite 95 CommSuite 95 is a communications software suite launched in 1995 by Canadian software company Delrina. History Beta testing started in August 1995. CommSuite 95 was a collection of 32-bit programs created specifically for use with Windows 95. It i ...
product. In 1994 the firm acquired AudioFile, a company that specialized in computer-based voice technology. The company created a product called
TalkWorks {{Unreferenced, date=June 2008 TalkWorks was a program designed to allow computers equipped with an appropriate fax-modem to act as a voice mail program. Original work was done on the program by AudioFile, a company that specialized in computer- ...
, which enabled users to use certain fax/modems as a
voice mail A voicemail system (also known as voice message or voice bank) is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to ind ...
client. Seeing a growing business in online communications utilities, Delrina licensed
Hilgraeve Hilgraeve is a software firm based in Monroe, Michigan, and is best known for its HyperTerminal Private Edition and HyperACCESS programs. In earlier years, HyperTerminal had been licensed for use by Microsoft in versions of Windows ranging from W ...
's
HyperACCESS HyperACCESS (sometimes known as HyperTerminal) is a family of terminal emulation software by Hilgraeve. A version of HyperACCESS called HyperTerminal is included in some versions of Windows. History It was the first software product from Hilgr ...
terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote termin ...
system in 1993, and used it as the basis for the initial version of its
WinComm WinComm was a terminal emulator program for Windows that was offered by Delrina in the mid-1990s. Seeing a growing business in online communications utilities, Delrina launched WinComm PRO. It was used primarily to connect to Bulletin Board Syste ...
online communications software. The initial version of the product was originally bundled with WinFax as part of the Delrina Communications Suite, but in March 1994 was issued as a standalone product. It was a relative latecomer to the market, which was then dominated at the time by
Datastorm ''Datastorm'' is a video game for the Amiga published by Visionary Design in 1989. Written by Søren Grønbech, it was inspired by the horizontally scrolling ''Defender (arcade game), Defender'' arcade game and the ''Defender''-like ''Dropzone' ...
's
Procomm Datastorm Technologies, Inc., was a computer software company that existed from 1986 until 1996. Bruce Barkelew and Thomas Smith founded the company to develop and publish ProComm, a general purpose communications program for personal computers. ...
series of communications software. Delrina tried to expand aggressively into this market space, first by acquiring the Canadian online bulletin board service CRS Online, and then using it as a distribution channel for free versions of its WinComm LITE and DOS-based FreeComm products in March 1995. When the Internet was opened to commercial interests in the mid-1990s, Delrina started to expand in this nascent market space with their Cyberjack 7.0 product, launched in December 1995. Created by a development team based in South Africa, it included a
Web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
,
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
news reader,
ftp The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...
client,
IRC Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called ''channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and ...
and integration with the Microsoft Exchange email program. The program used an interesting variant of the now-common bookmark, using a "Guidebook" to store information for various Internet addresses.
CommSuite 95 CommSuite 95 is a communications software suite launched in 1995 by Canadian software company Delrina. History Beta testing started in August 1995. CommSuite 95 was a collection of 32-bit programs created specifically for use with Windows 95. It i ...
shipped later that same month, bundling WinFax PRO 7.0 along with WinComm PRO 7.0, TalkWorks and the Cyberjack suite of Internet components. With the release of Windows 95 in August 1995, Delrina was now competing directly against Microsoft in the fax/electronic communications marketplace, as Windows 95 included a basic faxing application as an accessory, along with a licensed version of
Hilgraeve Hilgraeve is a software firm based in Monroe, Michigan, and is best known for its HyperTerminal Private Edition and HyperACCESS programs. In earlier years, HyperTerminal had been licensed for use by Microsoft in versions of Windows ranging from W ...
's
HyperTerminal HyperACCESS (sometimes known as HyperTerminal) is a family of terminal emulation software by Hilgraeve. A version of HyperACCESS called HyperTerminal is included in some versions of Windows. History It was the first software product from Hilg ...
communication package, (which was also used as the basis for Delrina's own WinComm program). While these applications offered only rudimentary fax and online communication services in comparison to the mature Delrina products, Microsoft was perceived as a potentially serious future competitor in the communications market space. The release of the initial version of Microsoft's
Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...
in late 1995 as a free product effectively killed off the early emerging market for non-free browsers, creating a market where Delrina's Cyberjack browser could not hope to compete.


Acquisition by Symantec and aftermath

In late Spring of 1995, Delrina Chairman Dennis Bennie met with Symantec CEO
Gordon Eubanks Gordon Edwin Eubanks, Jr. (born November 7, 1946) is an American microcomputer industry pioneer who worked with Gary Kildall in the early days of Digital Research (DRI). Eubanks attended Oklahoma State University, where he was involved as a me ...
to discuss the possibility of merging the two firms. In September 1995 Delrina's founders—who owned a controlling interest in the firm—sold the firm to
Symantec Symantec may refer to: *An American consumer software company now known as Gen Digital Inc. *A brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier ...
in a stock deal worth $415 million US. The deal was first announced on July 6 of that year, with shareholders from both firms approving the merger on November 20. The merger was completed on November 22, 1995 and Delrina officially became part of Symantec. The deal made the merged company the fifth largest American software firm at the time. The firm became the "Delrina Group" within Symantec, which brought under its control other communication software products that belonged to the parent firm, such as
pcAnywhere pcAnywhere is a discontinued suite of computer programs by Symantec which allows a user of the pcAnywhere remote program on a computer to connect to a personal computer running the pcAnywhere host if both are connected to interconnected networks ...
. Bennie joined the Board of Symantec and was also appointed an Executive Vice President. At its height the company employed more than 700 people worldwide, the majority based in Canada. Symantec was following a general trend of large American firms buying smaller Canadian software companies. Other contemporaneous examples include Softimage and Zoom-it being bought by Microsoft, and Alias Systems Corporation, Alias being bought by Silicon Graphics. Parts of the company were subsequently sold off, such as the sale of Delrina's Electronic Forms Division to JetForm in September 1996. JetForm, which later changed its name to Accelio, was in turn bought by Adobe Systems. Adobe officially discontinued the electronic forms products in 2004. Creative Wonders bought the rights to the Echo Lake multimedia product, which was re-shaped as an introductory program on multimedia and re-released as Family Album Creator. Though the market for fax software would shrink significantly as the use of email became more pervasive, WinFax brought in significant revenue for Symantec; a year after the merger sales of fax software accounted for 10% of Symantec's revenues.


Post-Delrina

Delrina was a catalyst for entrepreneurial talent and greatness, as many of the principals and employees of Delrina went on to find new successful ventures. With investments from Skapinker and Amato, and Bennie as lead Director, Davis went on to form Lanacom, which developed an early Internet "push content" product. This firm and its technology were sold just over a year after its inception to Backweb, a NASDAQ listed software company; Davis remained president and Bennie was brought on as Director. Skapinker and Davis then went on to found Brightspark, a software venture capital firm. Brightspark Ventures raised a number of VC Funds from Canadian Financial institutions raising $60m in 1999 and $55m in 2004. Brightspark employed a number of ex-Delrina employees including Allen Lau, Eva Lau, Sandy Pearlman, Marg Vaillancourt. Brightspark Ventures has twice won the Canadian Venture Capital Association "Deal of the Year Award", for the sale of ThinkDynamics to IBM and for the sale of Radian6 to Salesforce.com. Bennie would move on to found XDL Capital, a company which manages venture capital funds. XDL Capital—appropriately named after "Ex Delrina"—raised money for two funds: XDL Ventures (XDL), raising $25 million in 1997, and XDL Intervest (XDLI), raising $155 million in 1999. David Latner, former legal counsel for Delrina, was a partner in both funds, and Amato (former partner, Delrina) was an advisor and major investor to XDL Capital. He also participated in several investee companies as a Director and/or Advisor. XDL Intervest focuses primarily on internet-specific entrepreneurial companies and Bennie brought in two new principals: Tony Van Marken, former CEO of Architel Systems Corp. (ASYC), and Michael Bregman, former CEO of Second Cup Ltd. (T.SKL). XDL has assembled an established board and advisory team, which includes Canadian billionaire Robert Young, a native of Hamilton, Ontario, who co-founded Red Hat Inc (RHAT) and remains its chairman. Several of XDL's venture investments were in companies started or run by ex-Delrina employees who founded successful businesses, fostered by the innovative and entrepreneurial environment of Delrina. A few of the successes today are listed below: Delano Founded by Bahman Koohestani, another early developer at Delrina, was a company which developed e-business solutions for corporations. XDL Capital provided seed capital prior to Delano listing publicly. Bennie was the Chairman. Delano was listed on NASDAQ (DTEC) was subsequently sold to Divine (corporation), divine in 2003. Pinpoint Software Corporation a supplier of software solutions for managing networked PCs, was founded in 1992 by Lou Ryan. Ryan was CEO & President with Bennie acting as director. Pinpoint was partially funded by XDL Capital. Pinpoint changed its name to ClickNet Software in 1998. Uniting the company name with the successful ClickNet product family name strengthens the product and corporate identity. The company was eventually renamed Entercept Security Technologies Inc. In 2004, Entercept was sold to Network Associates for $120M where they incorporated Entercept's technology into its McAfee line of antivirus protection and other security products. Protégé Software was formed in 1996 and was founded by Larry Levy, Delrina's European Managing Director. Levy acted as President and CEO with Bennie as the principal investor. The company raised a $120M round of finance with XDL Intervest participating in 2003. Protégé has successfully launched 20 U.S. companies in Europe, nine of which are among Red Herring Top 50 Private Companies. In addition, five of these companies have gone public during Protégé's tenure with them. The company was ultimately sold to various buyers including Warburg Pincus after the internet bubble burst. Netect Ltd., an XDL financed venture developing network security software, was purchased by Bindview Development Corporation (NASDAQ:BVEW) in 2001. Marc Camm (Ex Delrina GM Desktop Communications Business Unit) was brought on by Bennie to manage Netect. After the Company was purchased, Camm joined Bindview as the E.V.P. of Marketing. Prior to joining Netect, Marc was the general manager of Symantec and systems group product manager for Microsoft Canada. Within a few years all of Delrina's major market focuses—fax and form software—would be overtaken or superseded by email, e-commerce and the Internet. Daily planning software remains a niche market, and the immersive 3D environment used for creating multimedia presentations has (so far) fallen by the wayside in favour of more traditional user interfaces. Symantec ended support for its final WinFax PRO product in June 2006. Delrina is best remembered by its former employees as an incubator for ideas and for providing industry experience to the many people who would go on to work at subsequent software and hardware companies, many in the Toronto region. A forum exists on Yahoo called "xdelrina", where many former employees of the firm continue to keep in contact with each other.


Delrina software and services


Forms products

The company's first product was PerForm, an electronic forms software package. PerForm and its sibling product, FormFlow, (which was aimed at workgroup and enterprise-level electronic forms processing and delivery) became one of the best selling products in its market. Delrina competed against WordPerfect's Informs package,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's Electronic Forms Designer, Novell's Informs, Lotus Software's Lotus Forms, Forms and JetForm's JetForm Workflow software. PerForm and FormFlow were designed to allow users to create self-contained form applications which could be passed back and forth across a network. Both PerForm and FormFlow consisted of two distinct parts: "Designer", which created the form application, and "Filler", so users could submit the forms either by fax or, later, e-mail. The program could ease repetitive fill tasks, include mandatory fields, and use an input mask to accept only data entered in a valid format. The information could be saved and restored in a dBase file that used a Public-key cryptography system to encrypt the data running from client to server. The initial version of PerForm was designed for the Graphics Environment Manager (better known as "GEM"), a DOS-based windowing system. Later versions of this program, known as PerForm PRO, were designed to work under Windows 3.1 and subsequent Windows operating systems. PerForm PRO 3.0 included integration with Delrina's own WinFax software, and included a range of automation tools. As PerForm captured the retail market, it became apparent that there was a need for electronics forms delivery and processing at the workgroup and enterprise levels. In 1994 Delrina FormFlow was released, which was designed to meet this need. One of the key features of FormFlow 1.1 was forms integration with email, and its Filler module was available for DOS, Windows and Unix.


WinFax

WinFax enabled computers equipped with fax-modems to send faxes directly to stand-alone fax machines or other similarly equipped computers. Several versions of the WinFax product were released over the next few years, initially for Windows 3.1x, Windows 3.x and then a Windows 95-based version. WinFax PRO 2.0 for Windows was released in July 1991. The Windows versions were also localized to major European and Asian languages. The company made further in-roads by establishing tie-ins with modem manufacturers such as U.S. Robotics and Supra, Inc., Supra that bundled simple versions of the product (called "WinFax LITE") that offered basic functionality. Those wanting more robust features were encouraged to upgrade to the "PRO" version, and were offered significant discounts over the standalone retail version. All of this rapidly established WinFax as the de facto fax software. By 1994 almost one hundred companies were bundling versions of WinFax in with their own product, including IBM,
Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
, AST Research, Inc., AST Research, Gateway 2000, Intel and
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
. WinFax PRO 3.0 was launched in late 1992 for Windows 3.x machines.Bertolucci, Jeff. "WinFax Pro 3.0: Sophisticated Fax Software" PC World p.86 January 1993 This was followed by a version for Macintosh systems. The "Lite" version of WinFax 3.0 was bundled as
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
software by a number of fax-modem manufacturers, which was later be superseded by WinFax Lite 4.0 a couple of years later. The release of WinFax PRO 4.0 in March 1994 brought together a number of key features and technologies. It introduced an improved Optical character recognition, OCR engine, introduced improvements aimed specifically at mobile fax users, better on-screen fax viewing capabilities and a focus on consistency and usability of the interface. It also included for the first time the ability to integrate directly with popular new email products such as cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail. It was preceded by a Workgroup version of the same product, which allowed a number of users to share a single fax modem on a networked system. The stand-alone version of the product was also later bundled with a grayscale scanner, and sold as WinFax Scanner. The final Delrina-branded version of WinFax was WinFax PRO 7.0, which shipped in late 1995, the subsequent version 8.0 being a Symantec product. There was no intervening version 5.0 or 6.0, and the jump to version 7.0 was purely a marketing decision, based on keeping up with the suite of products in Microsoft Office which were then at the same number. It also reflected the development effort required to develop the first full 32-bit application version, designed to work with the
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...
operating system, which set it apart from its competition at the time. By the time WinFax PRO 7.0 was being sold from retail shelves, Delrina had been acquired by Symantec.


Multimedia products

Screensavers were designed to ensure that there would be no phosphor burn-in of images left on a Cathode ray tube, CRT-based screen. Delrina added sound and basic interactivity with its series of screensaver products, arguably qualifying it as an early form of multimedia. Under Delrina several of the already-licensed cartoons brought over from their acquisition of Amaze Inc. were further developed into screensaver applications. The "Opus 'n Bill Brain Saver", which would land the company in court for copyright violations, was launched in 1993. Subsequent screensavers include a licensed version based on the first The Flintstones, Flintstone live-action movie, and "The Scott Adams Dilbert Screen Saver Collection" which came out in September 1994.


Echo Lake

A notable multimedia software program produced by Delrina was Echo Lake (software), Echo Lake, an early form of scrapbook software that came out in June 1995. During development it was touted internally as a "cross [of] Quark Xpress and Myst". It featured an immersive 3D environment where a user could manipulate objects within a virtual desktop in a virtual office and assemble video and audio clips along with images, and then send them as either a virtual book other users of the program could then access, or its content could be printed. It was an innovative product for its time, and ultimately was hampered by the inability of many users to easily input or playback their own multimedia content into a computer from that period.


List of Delrina products

* Electronic Forms Products ** Delrina PerForm – October 1988 ** Delrina PerForm PRO – August 1990 ** Delrina PerForm Tracer – June 1991 ** Delrina PerForm PRO Plus – August 1992 ** Delrina FormFlow – October 1993 ** Delrina FormFlow 1.1 – June 1994 ** PerForm for Windows 3.0 – November 1994 * Multimedia Products ** The Far Side Daily Planner and Calendar Publisher 3.0 – September 1991 ** Delrina Intermission 4.0 Screen Saver – November 1990 ** Opus 'n Bill Brain Saver – November 1993 ** The Far Side Screen Saver Collection – June 1994 ** Opus 'n Bill On The Road Again Screensaver – September 1994 ** The Scott Adams Dilbert Screen Saver Collection – September 1994 ** Echo Lake – June 1995 * Fax-related Products (released by Delrina) ** WinFax 1.0 – December 1990 ** WinFax PRO 2.0 – June 1991 ** WinFax Lite – April 1992 ** DosFax Lite – April 1992 ** DosFax PRO 2.0 – June 1992 ** WinFax PRO 3.0 – November 1992 ** Delrina Fax PRO 1.5 for Macintosh – September 1993 ** WinFax PRO for Networks – November 1993 ** WinFax PRO 4.0 – March 1994 ** WinFax Scanner – 1994 ** WinFax PRO 7.0 – November 1995 * Fax-related Products (released by
Symantec Symantec may refer to: *An American consumer software company now known as Gen Digital Inc. *A brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier ...
) ** WinFax PRO 7.5 (bundled with
TalkWorks {{Unreferenced, date=June 2008 TalkWorks was a program designed to allow computers equipped with an appropriate fax-modem to act as a voice mail program. Original work was done on the program by AudioFile, a company that specialized in computer- ...
) – October 1996 ** WinFax PRO 8.0 (bundled with TalkWorks PRO) – March 1997 ** TalkWorks PRO 2.0 – August 1998 ** WinFax PRO 9.0 – August 1998 ** TalkWorks PRO 3.0 – August 1999 ** WinFax PRO 10.0 – February 2000 * Online Communications Products ** Delrina Communications Suite (WinComm and WinFax) – March 1993 ** WinComm (Standalone) – March 1994 ** Cyberjack – December 1995 ** CommSuite95 – December 1995


References

{{Symantec Communication software Terminal emulators Defunct software companies of Canada Defunct companies of Ontario Software companies established in 1988 Software companies disestablished in 1995 1988 establishments in Ontario 1995 disestablishments in Ontario Gen Digital acquisitions 1995 mergers and acquisitions Canadian companies disestablished in 1995 Canadian companies established in 1988