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Company Background:

Alexander Brunner (“ALEX”) has been in the information services business in Detroit since 1969 when he first took over the Michigan branch of the Mark Larwood Company, then a California company specializing in “Title take-off services” for Title Insurance Industry. In eight years ALEX built the two man Larwood operation into Michigan’s largest microfilm service bureau and then acquired the Michigan Division from Mark Larwood in 1977

At the AIIM show in Chicago in 1975 ALEX introduced the first prototype of his unique microprocessor controlled microfilm reader-printer (VISCO) with great success. He continued the innovative development with interfaces to 3M, Kodak, Bell & Howell, Minolta, Canon and other manufacturers in the then new micrographics industry. In 1978 ALEX sold the COM portion of his service bureau to Midwest COM and a part of the source document conversion business to Graphic Sciences of Michigan in order to pursue his dream to manufacture and distribute VISCO controllers worldwide.

In the 1980’s Alex expanded his service bureau business with in-house developed Computer Assisted Retrieval (CAR) software and hardware solutions providing document management solutions for Lawyers Title Insurance Corporation in Detroit, Chicago, Richmond (Virginia), Atlanta, Boston, Washington DC, the Ford Motor Company and the US. Navy. In 1992 ALEX sold his sophisticated raster to vector engineering drawing scanning service bureau to Lason to pursue his then new idea of “ScreenScan” a retrofit film scanner for microfilm readers. ALEX arranged a partnership with Nanomach AG, a Dr. F. Porsche Company in Liechtenstein for development and eventually sold his ScreenScan interests in 1996 after arranging OEM opportunities with Bell & Howell and Eastman Kodak Company.

From that time on ALEX has been involved in hybrid document imaging software development first marketed under the name of “Blue Water Software” (VersaCAR) in 1992 and later known as “VersaIMAGE Software”. VersaIMAGE provides microfilm CAR conversion capability to clients who have outdated and mostly unsupported legacy CAR systems from Kodak, Bell & Howell, 3M, Canon, Minolta and others. VersaIMAGE provides very unique hybrid imaging solutions by interfacing with most legacy micrographics hardware devices via custom developed drivers and virtually all ISIS and TWAIN controlled paper and microfilm scanners combining “old” and “new” technologies in one user friendly system. VersaIMAGE now also offers full image text search retrieval capability of microfilm and paper images.

More recently ALEX has been involved in specialty industry conversions including automotive engineering and manufacturing projects such as the “Print Room Audit Solution” in partnership with Pitney Bowes Management Services (PBMS) a global leader of management services solutions.

Alex’s son Nicolas (Nick) Brunner joined the company in 2005 as COO. Nick is a graduate from Michigan State University and has 10 years of involvement in all aspects of VersaIMAGE software development, testing and applications. Nick has been instrumental in the development of the ScanCART program for in-house use by large corporate clients and service bureaus. Nick also manages large format print (KIP) CAD application support for the “Print Room Audit Solution” requirements.

AIIM Pioneer Award:

ALEX is a well known imaging and information systems innovator, was one of the first Presidents of the Michigan AIIM Chapter. He received the prestigious “AIIM Industry Pioneer Award” known today as the Carl E. Nelson Innovation Award from the Association of Information and Image Management (AIIM) in Chicago in 1996. This coveted award is not necessarily given every year and only recognizes major contributions to furthering the information industry as a whole for a period of 25 years or more.

ALEX has been a frequent speaker at AIIM, ARMA, SME organizations and has development, sales and marketing contacts throughout the industry worldwide.

Innovation Highlights…

  • First industry application of microprocessors. Used primarily for the automated retrieval of analog microfilm images with the VISCO microfilm controller in1975 VISCO controllers became an industry standard and were sold by Bell & Howell worldwide under OEM relationships as the “Image Search controller”. Kodak, Canon, Minolta, Anacomp, Agfa, Imtec, Zeutschel and many other companies had OEM relationships with VISCO. A few of the highlights are listed below.
    • Information Handling Services signed a $1,000,000 contract for VISCO microfilm controllers in 1978
    • EDS installed 50+ controllers at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Dallas in 1979 with 3M reader printers
    • 100+ VISCO / Canon controllers were installed at AMEX credit card facilities in 1980 in London UK, Toronto, New York, Ft. Lauderdale and Phoenix, AZ.
    • 120+ VISCO controllers were installed in 1982 at Ford Motor Company’s North American central accounting facility in Dearborn using Bell & Howell microfilm reader printers.
  • 1984: Development of highly specialized VISCO microfilm scanners, document feeders and 300 dpi RASTER COM plotters under contract for Ziff Davis Corporation.
  • Development of the first automated SGML conversion service bureau using digital images and OCR/ICR technologies in 1986 to perform SGML document conversions for the US Navy. STS Information Systems later became the STS division of IBM Canada.
  • Invention of the ScreenScan device that received the 1994 Imaging Product of the Year Award. ScreenScan converts microfilm readers into a digital scanner by replacing the “reading” screen with a special “scanning screen”. (www.screenscan.com)
    • OEM ScreenScan sales to Bell & Howell in 1994
    • Fidelity Investments and Chicago Title buy ScreenScan for Kodak IMT, IDW and Minolta workstations.
    • Kodak OEM introduction
    • Acquired by Indus International Corp. in 2004
  • 2000 Development of Bi3.Net Bi3.Net is the Business Intelligence Industry’s first ASP (Application Services Provider) offering low cost OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) services over the web. This service is geared to bring Business Intelligence Services to small and midsized companies that cannot afford to spend the large dollars required for Business Intelligence applications today. www.Bi3.net
  • 1990 – Current: Development of “Blue Water Systems” hybrid Windows imaging software (VersaCAR & VersaIMAGE) allowing universal digital and analog image management within the same imaging system. See “VersaIMAGE Software Corporation”. www.versasoftware.com or www.versaimage.com
    • 1997 Exclusive VersaIMAGE Software Distribution agreement with DocuCOM for Canada
    • 2000 OEM release of the AgfaIMAGE 32 hybrid imaging solution in Europe with AGFA N.V.
    • 2002 Development of the MicroDAX 5.0 document and microfilm scanning software solution for Konica-Minolta Corporation.
    • 2004 Development of the “ScanCART”, an innovative document imaging system “on wheels” allowing mobile, local, secure imaging conversion services to CD and servers via wireless networks.
    • 2004 Development of the “Print Room Audit Solution” for the automotive manufacturing and engineering industry utilizing VersaIMAGE 32.
    • 2005 Final release of the VersaIMAGE-GOLD full image text search software solution for mortgage, health (HIPAA & SEC) and other document image management applications.
    • 2007 Release of the VersaView .NETTM internet browser capability for VVersaIMAGE-GOLDTM and VersaIMAGE-32TM

 

VersaIMAGE and related Versa names are trademarks of VersaIMAGE Software Corp. Windows, .NET, MS-SQL, MS Access are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. ISIS is a trademark of Pixel translations and other trademarks are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright 2005-2008.