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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microfilm CAR conversion capability to clients who have outdated and mostly unsupported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.
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