Blueridge Unveils the First Dual-Storage COLD System

Flint Hill, VA - November 17, 1995 - Blueridge Technologies, "The Internet Document Management Company," announced OPTIX COLD, the first dual-storage COLD system (computer output to laser disk).

OPTIX COLD is the first COLD system that allows you to archive your mainframe documents in either ASCII or image form. Both formats have their advantages. ASCII documents require less storage space, but require a proprietary viewer so that the stored ASCII files can be formatted properly for viewing. Images require more storage, but can be read in any Group IV TIFF viewer, distributed across a network, and archived in any document management system, not just the system that created them.

According to Craig Landrum, President of Blueridge Technologies and Chief Engineer for OPTIX, "Storing ASCII offers unique benefits. So does storing images. Other systems force you to choose between the two, but IS managers need both. OPTIX COLD is the first software that gives them both."

OPTIX COLD is a scalable client/server system built around industry standard SQL databases like Oracle, Sybase, and Informix and running on popular UNIX servers like Sun SPARC, IBM RS/6000, and DEC Alpha. OPTIX COLD is a fully integrated member of the award-winning family of OPTIX document management products, including workflow, document imaging, and text retrieval.

Benefits of OPTIX COLD include:

1. OPTIX COLD allows you to easily move mountains of mainframe documents off your expensive mainframe storage, and onto inexpensive, long term optical storage--yet still allows your authorized users to have instantaneous on-line access to those files.

2. OPTIX COLD allows you to choose how you store your mainframe computer-output--as ASCII files or as industry-standard TIFF images of the original documents. You can even do both.

3. OPTIX COLD automatically indexes your documents based on the information contained in the documents themselves. You simply tell OPTIX what data you want to use for indexing, and the software does the rest.

4. Exclusive OPTIX FilterText technology allows you to handle a wide variety of EBCDIC or ASCII records, including those with variable line and page delimiters, fixed line and page lengths, encoded IBM vertical forms control information, and non-printable characters.

5. Your archived files may be viewed against any kind of background you desire, including blank backgrounds, scanned images of blank forms, as well as any other kinds of raster images.

6. OPTIX COLD supports optical jukeboxes of almost unlimited capacity, from hundreds of gigabytes to terabytes.

7. OPTIX COLD allows you to retrieve any document in a matter of seconds using the indexes the system automatically creates.

Founded in 1988, Blueridge Technologies is one of the industry's oldest and most respected providers of electronic document management systems (EDMS). Long the leading industrial-strength document imaging and workflow system for Apple Macintosh computers, in 1994 OPTIX became the first electronic document management system to offer workflow, document imaging, document control, COLD (Computer Output to Laser Disk), and natural language text retrieval for both Windows and Macintosh workstations. Via the new OPTIX WEB interface, OPTIX also supports popular Web browsers, including Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer from Microsoft, Mosaic, and all the client platforms these products support, including Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX workstations. An online demo of OPTIX WEB is available at http://www.optixweb.com. Blueridge Technologies is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Metters Industries.

OPTIX systems begin in the range of $40,000 and include server software, client software for both Macintosh and Windows, installation, training, and support.