Appligent Seeking Partners To Unlock New Markets

Appligent's new server, SecurSign 2.0, allows users to add digital signatures to PDF files. The software uses standard X.509 digital certificates from a commercial certification authority. It supports both 40-bit and 128-bit encryption and is compatible with Adobe Systems' Acrobat Digital Signature Mechanism, which is found in Acrobat 4.0 and 5.0, the company said.

SecurSign can be used to limit access to certain documents or to prevent users from making unauthorized alterations, said Virginia Gavin, president of Appligent, which works closely with Adobe as a technol-ogy partner.

For example, a pharmaceutical company could protect product information delivered via PDF on its Web site, or a university could use the technology in a distance-learning scenario.

"It really is about getting information out to customers in a very timely and custom manner. And in the case of SecurSign, it's about securing that information," Gavin said.

Appligent this month shipped SecurSign on a variety of server platforms, including Windows, Linux 7, AIX, Mac OS X, Solaris and HP-UX, Gavin said. The software is priced at $2,495 per server. Although Windows is a volume platform, sales for the Solaris and Linux versions continue to grow because of the large installed base of Unix servers in large corporations, she said.

Appligent, which is run by Gavin and her husband Mark, who is the company's CTO, has been around since 1988. The 21-person firm has specialized in PDF tools and plug-ins for the past five years and is an alliance partner and VAR for Adobe.

SecurSign joins Appligent products such as FDFMerge, which can be used to convert content from document management applications into PDF format for archiving purposes.

"Customers and VARs have asked to be able to store these forms as PDFs; that's where Appligent comes into play," said Scott Buchart, president of Optical Image Technology, an Appligent partner based in State College, Pa.

Optical Image uses FDFMerge to offer its customers an option for creating PDFs from within Optical Image's records management and workflow applications. Its XML FormFlow module handles the steps of this process automatically.

"Our job is to store anything you throw at it and send it through workflows," Buchart said.

Although Optical Image already offers its own electronic signature technology, the company plans to use SecurSign in the future, and Buchart believes the server will offer its own developers,and Optical Image VARs,more flexibility.

"The VARs don't have to focus on making things work. They can focus on 'How do I make your business process more effective?' " Buchart said.

Optical Image recently created two new positions to focus on building alliance programs, he said.

"I always encourage VARs to pool together complementary tools. That's where they can make their money," Buchart said.

Like Optical Image, Appligent is moving this fall to formalize its relationships with smaller VARs and integrators.

The developer has a strong presence in verticals, especially financial services firms such as banks, credit card companies, insurance companies and brokerage houses, as well as government accounts and pharmaceutical companies, Virginia Gavin said.

These markets have been developed in conjunction with companies such as Optical Image and OpenText, which uses Appligent's technology in its knowledge management and collaboration software.

The legal and education markets are among those segments that Appligent hopes to target with the help of solution providers, Gavin said. The Appligent Alliance program, which will cover relationships with VARs and integrators, will be structured according to volume and will, for a fee, give partners access to all of the company's applications and tools for development purposes, she said.

The ideal candidate for Appligent's program is a developer or VAR that has experience working with electronic documents and already is working within one of Appligent's target verticals.

"They would need to be people that are familiar with PDF," Gavin said. "They need to do scripting. We are not limiting by size, rather by experience."