Bill Bither's Insights : Atalasoft

The Big Deal – Kofax to Acquire us!

Bill Bither — Fri, 20 May 2011 12:10:22 GMT

Today, Atalasoft announced it is being acquired by Kofax, a publically traded software company and the market leader in the Document Capture space.

As you may know, I founded the company in 2002, and bootstrapped it all the way. We never took outside funding, and grew the company by differentiating in an already established imaging SDK market. Selling the company wasn’t my motivation, but this opportunity changed my mind. I view this acquisition is very positive in many ways.

The Atalasoft business remains autonomous
No jobs are going away as a result of this acquisition, our office is not moving, and we get to keep our quirky company culture
We continue selling our products under the same licensing terms, and goto market strategy
We are given additional resources to innovate our products even faster
Positive exposure to the large enterprise market
Myself and employees with equity incentives get to pull some cards off the table
We join a winning team - have you checked Kofax’s stock lately?

Why did Kofax choose Atalasoft? Simply stated they found our products to have the best web-based imaging and capture technology on the market and found our team and business model to be very solid. I’m staying on for a couple years to ensure a successful transition and to continue to lead the business as General Manager.

In the last 12-months we’ve booked 5.2 million in sales with GAAP revenues of 3.8 million. In the last 12 months, our sales have grown 51% and revenues have grown 29%. With the added resources and Kofax’s enterprise market penetration we will continue this trend as a separate Kofax business unit.

What does this mean for our customers?

We have over 2500 customers in every imaginable market from small development shops to the Fortune 1000. Our licensing model is innovative – we have been successful in offering fixed fee royalty free licensing of our document imaging SDKs. That’s not changing. We will be offering new imaging capabilities at a more rapid rate, and will be integrating some of Kofax’s very unique technology over the coming months.

I’m very excited about the opportunity and looking forward to the next phase in Atalasoft’s growth!

Reflection on Growing Atalasoft in 2010

Bill Bither — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 20:59:50 GMT

Just over eight years ago, I left my job as a mechanical systems engineer at Hamilton Sundstrand on the hunch that I could build a successful software company. I learned a lot working in a large aerospace company, and was proud of my work. My last job was a systems engineer on the Convergent Nozzle Actuation System (CNAS) for the Joint Strike Fighter. See the photo below*.

I spent the entire previous year in 2002 learning to become a new dad, and building Atalasoft on nights and weekends. I barely slept! My day started at 6:45am where I would wake up and head to the office. I’d be home by 6 and spend a couple hours with my wife helping out with the baby. At about 7:30 or 8, I was programming until about 2:00 – 2:30am where I’d feed the baby and get to bed. Weekends were pretty much all programming and I survived on 4-hours of sleep. At the end of 2002, I realized I was earning more money at Atalasoft than I was as an engineer. My measure of success was to make a six figure income, and I was easily doing that between two jobs, and managed to pay off my credit card debt. In January my 401K was vested after being with the company 5 years. I knew I could pay my mortgage and other bills on my 2002 Atalasoft income of $85,000, so I walked out that door in January 2003 as a 28 year old clueless entrepreneur with the mission to build the first Imaging Toolkit for .NET developers.

Fast forward eight years, and here I am looking back at 2010**. What a remarkable year! After a flat 2009, our 2010 sales growth was 48%. Like most companies, 2009 was a particularly challenging year and the first time our growth trend turned upside down. IT budgets were frozen and companies weren’t buying anything – including Toolkits for their developer teams. It impacted us, but we overcame the challenge by focusing on profitability and NOT laying off our workforce. I’ll write a future post specifically about how we managed to reduce our expenses to get out of the slump and end up with a profitable 2009 with record breaking Q3 and Q4’s.

We made some changes in late 2009 and in the beginning of 2010 that accelerated the growth of our toolkit business, enabling us to achieve nearly 50% sales growth. Significantly growing an established company in one year generally requires making some pretty aggressive changes that always has the chance of backfiring. We bit the bullet and made these changes anyway. They included decreasing our SDK costs, requiring active maintenance to deploy runtime royalty free to desktops, and offering an OEM license that allows any type of server deployment for a reasonable fixed yearly fee. I can now tell you these changes were very successful. The chart below speaks for itself.

Since I founded the company, our financial goals have constantly increased. First it was to make more money than my engineering salary, then to hit $1 million in sales, and a few years later it was $5 million. In 2009, the goal quickly changed to just remain profitable! Today, I know we have the team, the vision, the customers, and the resources that will bring Atalasoft to the next milestone of $10 million in sales. Not in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be in this position when I walked out the door of Hamilton Sundstrand eight years ago. I owe my loving family, my brilliant team, and our great customers for making this a reality. I truly look forward to continuing this trend in 2011, meeting our new employees and customers, and having a lot of fun along the way!

* - Since I left, I believe they have gone through at least 3 more iterations, and it’s STILL not in production.
** – My family and I took a 2 week vacation in January before my wife went back to her PhD studies, so my reflection occurred a bit later than normal

Note to our DotImage Customers

Bill Bither — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:00:02 GMT

As 2009 comes to a close, I want to take this opportunity to wish you a happy holiday and thank you. You have helped fulfill my vision when I set out on this entrepreneurial journey ten years ago. That vision was to become the leading provider of .NET document imaging toolkits backed by remarkable in-house customer service. With thousands of SDKs sold and our continued focus on .NET Imaging technology, I believe we have met this vision.

While we experienced slowed growth in the first few months in 2009, we were lucky enough to see record sales growth in the second half of this year. However, in light of the fact that this economy has hit some businesses quite hard, we have introduced some reduced pricing in our latest version of DotImage including:

Additional developer/build licenses priced at 1/3 of the original SDK cost.
As always, royalty-free single-user desktop licensing is included in the SDK
We have new OEM pricing available where Royalty-free SERVER distribution is available starting at $30k/yr. - or $6k/yr. for startup companies.
Patent pending Advanced Document Cleanup (ADC) is included in DotImage Document Imaging.

We do have a lot in store for 2010 as we grow our customer service team, and release even more features in DotImage 9.0 this spring. I sincerely hope you have a prosperous 2010 and that we can continue to be your .NET imaging partner.

Visually Finding Documents in SharePoint

Bill Bither — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:58:00 GMT

A critical piece of any ECM is robust search capabilities. With SharePoint 2007, Microsoft scores well in search according to Gartner in their ECM Magic Quadrant, but will fair even better next year with the enhanced search features in SharePoint 2010. Atalasoft has recognized the need to improve the retrieval of documents in SharePoint by enhancing search of documents in the recent release of Atalasoft’s SharePoint Document Viewer, Vizit SP 2.0, which is available now and does not require a FAST license. These new search capabilities improve user productivity by reducing the time it takes to find and view documents stored in SharePoint.

Thumbnail Previews in Search Results

Thumbnail previews in search results make finding a document buried in search results much quicker. This capability is included in SharePoint 2010 only with an upgraded FAST Search license. However there is no need to wait for SharePoint 2010 and upgrade to an expensive FAST license. VizitSP 2.0, includes quick thumbnail previews in search results and is available for SharePoint 2007 and WSS 3.0.

There are some differences between the thumbnail previews in FAST and the thumbnail previews in Vizit SP. Vizit SP renders the thumbnails real-time eliminating the need for caching your entire database of documents. The rendering is triggered by clicking on the document bringing up a very lightweight scrollable viewer. Vizit SP also uses TIFF and PDF decoders that are optimized for the web.

Once the document is identified, it can be opened into a zero-footprint viewer without the need to download the document to the client and exit the SharePoint browsing environment.

Search on Specific Properties and Specific Content Types

SharePoint 2007 has an basic search capabilities that only allow you to search on indexed content and narrow results on specific properties of default content types. Many of your documents, such as a contract, purchase order, or invoice will have extended properties and be stored as a custom content type. Vizit SP 2.0 gives you column-based search where you can perform logical searches on specific fields, such as invoice number. The search results can be previewed, sorted, and opened directly into Vizit SP.

For more information on Vizit SP’s new search capabilities, please watch this video and visit www.vizitsp.com to learn more.

Zero Footprint Document Image Viewer For SharePoint

Bill Bither — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:59:59 GMT

Last month Atalasoft launched Vizit SP, a zero-footprint document image viewer for SharePoint. When we released DotImage in 2003, our goal was to help organizations build web-based document imaging solutions faster and with better technology. We did this by providing a powerful, yet easy to use API with many UI controls focused on document imaging including the very first AJAX based Zero-Footprint Image Viewer. Fast Forward to 2009 with our 7th major release of DotImage and with tens of thousands of successful server installations of our zero-footprint viewer. We solved the document image viewing, editing, and annotating problem pretty well for .NET developers. With the popularity of SharePoint we knew we had the right technology at the right time and made the decision to build Vizit SP (see my August 2008 blog article). This article explains more about the benefits of Vizit SP and a bit about how it works.

Vizit SP’s core technology is DotImage and our zero-footprint document imaging technology. It provides a user interface for viewing, annotating, and editing scanned and faxed documents inside of SharePoint. We could have built a simple document viewer web part for SharePoint (many of our customers are doing this now with DotImage). However, after some research, we determined that a full viewing application was required that would include a view of not only the image, but a library explorer, property editor, and annotation tree. Think of Vizit SP as the RIA (Rich Internet Application) interface to work with document images in SharePoint. It’s a productivity application that leverages all of the document management features already a part of SharePoint, in a very easy to use, modern UI.

There are many uses for Vizit SP. Here are a few general ones.

Document Capture

Vizit SP really shines after the documents are submitted to SharePoint from a capture application when part of a workflow. I visited an insurance company recently where they had a requirement to manually QA a certain percentage of their indexed documents. You can do this in SharePoint by building a relatively simple workflow that emails QA staff with a link that opens the document directly into the Vizit SP viewer without requiring that the document be downloaded to the client, and without requiring any software installed on the client. The document can then be reviewed, properties edited to fix indexing mistakes, and if the document came in damaged, dirty, or upside-down, it can be cleaned up within the Vizit SP interface. To continue to collaborate on the document, annotations can be added, such as a text note and a freehand markup circling the problem area in the document.

It doesn’t matter where the images come from, it can be a desktop scanner, MFP, fax, production scanner, etc. There are many great capture solutions on the market today that probably fit your business quite well. Many of them have or are currently working on tight integrations with SharePoint. Some of these applications are built using TWAIN, ISIS, Image Viewing, and cleanup technology from our own toolkit, DotImage.

Document Retrieval

Vizit SP can be very helpful in finding documents stored in SharePoint. With the previewer functionality (available for no cost), you can quickly view a thumbnail preview of a document before deciding to open it. This prevents the user from downloading many documents before finding the correct one. When combined with the Vizit SP viewer, even more time is saved as only the first page of the document is downloaded to the client. The document is viewable much faster than downloading the entire document to the client, then opening in a client viewer.

Universal Document Viewing

The Previewer combined with the Vizit SP viewer provides a universal web-based viewer for all your common document formats stored in SharePoint including TIFF, PDF, and MS Word. Very soon Vizit SP will have the ability to open nearly 100 various formats including legacy formats, all office formats, and CAD documents. It’s unlikely that a user will have a client viewer installed that supports all flavors of TIFF plus 100 other formats. IT Administrators will no longer have to install or maintain client image viewing software. Help desk calls are reduced as the same viewer is used for remote clients and for Windows, Mac, and Linux PC’s.

Large Format TIFF and PDF Viewing

We specifically optimized our TIFF and PDF codecs for viewing large documents on the web. Our Zero-Footprint viewer breaks each page into tiles, then streams these tiles to the client in a similar fashion to Google maps. Very large scans, such as CAD documents, Oil Well Logs and Strip Charts that are stored as TIFFs cause most client viewers to be very sluggish or crash. Vizit SP will view these documents in just a couple of seconds. Zooming occurs instantly while the server creates a higher quality scale version with our optimized Scale-To-Gray resizing.

More information about Vizit SP can be found at www.vizitsp.com.

31 Applications - Done!

Bill Bither — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:50:13 GMT

Last month marked the successful completion of our 31 Apps in 31 Days effort where Atalasoft developers (including yours truly) developed and deployed 31 applications using the DotImage 6.0 Toolkit in 31 days, with full source code. The goal was to create small applications using our toolkit during our normal workday. It was quite an undertaking for us, but demonstrates just how quickly developers can build something interesting (and useful) using our toolkit. Most of these apps took less than 4 hours for a single developer to create - and some make some pretty useful tools.

I managed to submit 2 applications of my own:
Document Capture to the Amazon S3 Cloud and FlingScan: Searchable PDF Service.

Some of my favorites are:

These days I rarely open up visual studio as my CEO duties generally prevent that; but it's nice to get my hands wet every now and then.

Anyone at TechEd this week? If so, see you in Orlando.

Roses are Red, Technical Support doesn't have to be Blue

Bill Bither — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Before picking up the phone to call a software company's technical support, how many of these questions cross your mind?

They wont talk to me until I show them the money
I'll be on hold forever, just to leave a voicemail that goes unanswered
I'm going to be directed to someone in India
I'm going to be speaking to someone who knows less about the product than I do.

My guess is all of the above, and then some. Why do so many software companies not invest in technical support? Most software executives see technical support only as necessary, or sometimes unnecessary, overhead. For a company with hundreds or thousands of customers there's no question that good technical support is very expensive.

At Atalasoft, we recognize that supporting our customers is worth the cost of hiring friendly, bright, and experienced engineers that work right alongside our product development team - yes, right here in Western Massachusetts. If you call our support department (and I encourage you to do so, even if you aren't yet a customer) you will probably speak with Elaine or Kevin, our full time developer support engineers, who yes - unlike the title of Elaine's blog, are very good software developers themselves.

Let me share with you a recent email from a customer. In it reads:

"The project is a little behind schedule, but I kind of expected that. We have completely converted our document management system from [a competing vendor] to Atalasoft. The project is in beta testing now.

Support has been great, no complaints from me. With the help of your support team, I was able to extend the SDK and create my own cloud annotation. I was a little worried at first, because [the competing vendor] told me that your support group was outside of the USA."

This struck me, because obviously all our employees are within the US, including our support department. Our competitor's sales department mislead their customer; perhaps out of desperation because they were going to lose the deal. Our value proposition was enough for the deal to go our way, even with the misconception that our support would be outside the US.

How many software companies have fans that will provide free Pizza because of our helpful support. And what about those 2-dozen yellow roses that were sent to Elaine for helping out a particularly happy customer! (I can't mention the company yet, but lets just say the gift is right up their alley)

With the release of DotImage 6.0 just over a month ago, EVERY customer receives our gold level of support for 3 months. At Atalasoft, we understand customer support can be the difference between a project's wild success or utter failure, and ensure the best service we can possibly deliver.

Atalasoft, Inc. - 5 Years Old

Bill Bither — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:48:24 GMT

Wow, has life changed since Atalasoft, Inc. was incorporated in August 2002, just over 5 years ago. The turning point for me in founding Atalasoft was the aftermath of 9/11. I did not want to be at the mercy of a large corporation in aerospace facing a downturn. I would seek a new challenge with a simple vision. I realized Microsoft was putting a lot of energy into .NET and it was the next step for software development. I also recognized that Imaging was an interesting and emerging field; one that I had taken a keen interest in. And finally that software was the best way to create a company with minimal startup funds. The vision was to create a company that would leverage Microsoft's new .NET developer framework by offering the best possible imaging technology to .NET developers. I didn't perform any market research, I didn't care about any competitors. I'd like to say that I knew an easy-to-use imaging toolkit for .NET would open the door for other ISV's to create vertical document management solutions, and that the industry would continue to grow at an increasing rate. But I had no idea, just a vision and a goal. The goal of building a company that would provide a better life for myself and my new family.

Today, all I can say is WOW. What luck!! I can honestly state that we have the best .NET Imaging technology on the market highlighted by our ASP.NET Imaging Technology for Viewing and Annotating documents with a zero footprint thin-client.

In 2007, Atalasoft's revenue grew by 57% (previous year's growth was 60%). Since inception, Atalasoft has been profitable and has never taken on outside funding other than a few small bank loans. Sure, we have had our share of growing pains. We are about to grow out of our 3rd office space in 4 years. We've had to change our phone system and telecom provider to support our growing workforce, and had some recent unplanned phone outages (sorry for any missed calls). In maintaining my role as President and CEO, I'm no longer engineering software, but spending more time engineering a business. To me, it's the same thing, but an even greater ongoing challenge that continues to keep me up into the wee hours; not because I have to, but because I want to.

Obviously our goals have continued to evolve over the years, but our vision has remained the same. It's been written down, refined, and the words change frequently, but however you want to word it, we are still about providing value to .NET developers that are building solutions that require the use of advanced imaging and document technology. Will this vision maintain our 60% growth for the next 5 years? Please stay tuned!

Financial Stability of a Bootstrapper

Bill Bither — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:40:19 GMT

This past week the high tech firm GetConnected of Boston suddenly closed their doors after eight years and $20 million in funding. This left over 100 employees unemployed. I'm sure these former employees wont have too much of a problem finding a job in today's economy, but how could this happen in the first place? Atalasoft is a bootstrapped company, and hasn't taken any outside funding. Some clients look at this lack of outside investment as a problem with stability. Why should a client of ours spend tens of thousands of dollars on a company that doesn't have a significant financial backing?

Since the inception of Atalasoft, it was critical from day one to be profitable. How can this be done without a significant boost of capital? This is the tough part, but it can be done! In my case, I continued to work my day job building a small source of revenue for the company on the side that could eventually sustain myself and my family. After a year I left my day job on good terms and with revenue growing at a good clip. It only took a month to hire the first two employees. I only hired them when I had the revenue to support them.

The first few years were tough, no doubt, but we had a good idea, a good team, and better yet, the revenue to support it. I suppose an advantage I had over some starting out is that my standard of living wasn't too high. I had only worked in the engineering field for 5 years and was guaranteed not to get a raise after 9/11. My salary wasn't even close to 6 figures. It didn't take that much to make ends meet.

These first few years really shaped the company. Banks wouldn't finance us because we didn't have a track record or any tangible assets. I didn't have wealthy family or friends. I was also unwilling to give up equity for early stage investment, and quite frankly, at the time I was more interested in developing the product versus meeting with investors. Atalasoft grew organically. We only hired new employees when we could afford them. Did we take risks? Absolutely. But they were measured risks. Not all of them were worthwhile, but because most were, we succeeded. That's because we had to be. If I failed, I'd have to go back to my former job with a LOT of debt and tail between my legs.

Today, our company continues to grow at a rate of about 75% per year in revenue. Most of our profits are invested back into the company which is how we continue to innovate and grow. Unlike some VC backed startups, we have learned to be careful with spending, take measured risks, and manage the company our way. As a result, we have had virtually no turnover, we've outgrown 3 office spaces, I field calls from Venture Capitalists every other day, and now banks are more than willing to extend us financing that suits our immediate needs.

When investigating a company's financial backing as a decision metric (whether it be to work for, or do business with), consider the stability of a company grown to 20 employees without outside investment forced to be profitable to stay in business vs. a company of 100 employees burning through 20 million in multiple rounds of VC funding. This isn't to say that Venture Funding is always a bad idea as there are plenty of examples of successful VC backed companies. Even Atalasoft could take a form of outside investment at some point for the right reasons. However, in the example of GetConnected stated in the first paragraph, the sign on the front door reads "CLOSED. Good-bye ALL." Which basket would you put your eggs in?

Visiting London

Bill Bither — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:16:36 GMT

Our Sales Manager John Casanova and I are visiting London this week meeting with a number of clients and partners. My first trip to London in 7 years! Unfortunately, with our schedule we wont have time to tour around much although we will make a point of riding the "London Eye", after visiting a fair number of pubs. I did learn that pretty much everything closes at 10:30pm on Sunday, which is unfortunate when hungry and jet lagged at midnight.

If you are in London, or able to make it to London this week (July 16 - 20) and would like to meet us, please call our main office and talk to Lisa so she can schedule it with us. We do have a couple breaks in our busy schedule during the week.

See you at Tech-Ed - Get your free T-Shirt and Zune

Bill Bither — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 02:43:28 GMT

This week we'll be traveling to Orlando for Microsoft's TechEd. Last year, our ".NET Imaging with Mojo" T-Shirts were very popular and went very fast. This year we will be giving away even more ".NET Imaging with Muscle" T-shirts. A spotter who finds someone wearing an Atalasoft T-Shirt at the show will be given free Microsoft Zune media players. We'll be giving away Zunes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Looking forward to seeing some of you at TechEd! Please stop by Booth #1329 for your free T-Shirt. Be sure to wear your T-Shirt to win your Zune!

New Wave at Atalasoft

Bill Bither — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 03:55:00 GMT

I never thought the day would come when I would have to consult with our office manager to find out how many employees we have at Atalasoft. Well that day has finally come as I've honestly lost track. I just got off the phone with our new Professional Services Director who accepted the job tonight; a job we've been recruiting for the past couple months. Tomorrow we have a new wave of entry level employees starting. Three full time, and one summer intern. Today I met with the owner of the building we lease from so we can get started on building out the space next to us as our office we just moved into a year ago will soon be bursting at it's seams.

The good news for our customers is that very soon we'll be able to provide a whole new level of service. Our enterprise customers will be able to choose a company to implement their document management solutions who are true experts in document imaging technology. While two distinct groups at Atalasoft, the core product team and professional services will feed off each other. Our product team will benefit from experiences in the services division by better understanding industry requirements and demands to better enhance our Imaging SDK's. In the same breadth the services division will benefit from the wealth of core technology knowledge in the product team. We have been fulfilling document imaging technology needs for over 6 years. Within the next few months we will also be capable of fulfilling your entire document management application needs with a team of product managers and experienced .NET application software engineers dedicated to your projects that employ the same Agile engineering practices that have led to the success and rapid growth of our Imaging SDK's.

To Ken, Rick, Jacob, Eric, and Tyler. Welcome Aboard!!

Business West's 40 under 40

Bill Bither — Fri, 18 May 2007 04:38:00 GMT

This week the business magazine for Western Mass, chose me as one of 40 business leaders under 40. I'm truly honored to be included in this list of talented business people in the region. While Western Mass is certainty outside the technology hub of the Greater Boston Area, it's nice to know that there are other young entrepreneurs that call this area home.

With that said, I am terribly disappointed that out of the nearly 40 companies represented, Atalasoft was the only technology company. No bio-tech companies. No software companies (except Atalasoft). No nanotech companies. No engineering firms. Very few people with a technical background. That's not to say that the other company's represented don't use technology; of course they do. That's also not to say that these people don't exist! They also do, but obviously fell short on getting nominated for the 40 under 40.

Perhaps the problem with this list is that Business West magazine is targeted to local businesses, with local clients. Many of the selected are lawyers, accountants, and educators. Those companies are the ones who most often read the journal, and also are the advertisers. I'm not trying to knock the accomplishments of anyone who was selected; just share my disappointment in the lack of technology represented. Each named individual demonstated significant personal and business accomplishments, with most contributing to the local community much more than I as only recently have I been active in the community since surfacing for air from building Atalasoft.

The problem is, what will support all of these law firms, accounting firms, and bankers in Western Mass in the future? Who will help them prosper and grow? The major employers in the area will continue to contribute for sure (Mass Mutual, UMASS, Bay State Hospital, and a handful of others) but that only goes so far as the economy changes. The Textile and Paper Industry held up this region for a hundred years. After that industry was basically sent over to China, it was Precision Machining and Aerospace. Now precision machine shops are having trouble with some of that industry heading to China. It's time for this area to adapt to the globalization of our economy and reap the benefits from the good that comes from it. Invent new products and services that are used beyond the borders of the Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts, New England, or even the United States. Build off of and learn from the successes of other companies. What will sustain and grow Western Mass for the next 100 years? Biotech, nanotechnology, software, and the endless opportunities to deliver technology world-wide.

Kudos to BusinessWest for their first 40 under 40, and congratulations to all those selected. It's a great way to recognize those who have contributed to the local economy and community. I hope this inspires more young technology entrepreneurs to start their own businesses in this area and contribute to the local community. I know for a fact that there are other local leaders under 40 who have contributed their ideas, inventions, technology but were not selected or nominated. Please nominate yourself or make sure you get nominated next year! Prove to me and my naysayers that Western Mass is a great place to grow a technology company.

April Update

Bill Bither — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 02:21:49 GMT

Let me tell ya, it can be hard thinking about blogging when running a company. I've started a few essays, but haven't had the time to bring them to life yet. So what's been going on with myself and Atalasoft this past month? Here's the abridged version:

1) We started using SCRUM at Atalasoft and delivered DotImage 5.0 nearly on time on March 13. Agile now has a new meaning here at Atalasoft.

2) On March 22 I presented "Blogging Basics" for the RTC along with Mike Taber and Marwan Zubi. Mike gave a great blogging presentation. I backed it up with a case study of corporate blogging. Marwan presented on some interesting legal issues of blogging. The Podcast of the presentation should be available soon.

3) Sunday March 25 I was surprised to be on the front page of the Springfield Republican (our local newspaper). Guess it was a slow news day. =)

4) Atalasoft's revenues grew by 69% in Q1 2007 over Q1 2006.

5) We decided to start a new consulting division at Atalasoft. Looks like a win-win for Atalasoft. Our customers are requesting these services. We can't provide these services without losing focus on innovating our core products which is our primary goal. Therefore we are creating a new services division specializing in document management / ECM enterprise applications where we can dogfood our own toolkit. Interested in building this division with us?

6) We've released our AJAX Document Annotations Demo on our public website. This demonstrates some of Atalasoft's latest innovations in browser based document imaging bringing annotation capabilities to our existing thin-client document viewing/processing component.

7) Lou Franco will be presenting "Bringing your Document Imaging Applications to the Web with AJAX" at the AIIM conference in Boston next week. If you're going to be at AIIM, please signup for the sessions. I promise, you'll learn something about AJAX by attending. This isn't a marketing fluff talk.

Looking forward to seeing some of you at AIIM next week. Send me an email or stop by Booth #3229 if you'd like to meet up.

EyeBatch to Charity - In Memory of Dad

Bill Bither — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 05:49:00 GMT

My most memorable Christmas was the Christmas I got my first computer, a Commodore 128 when I was in 6th grade. The $1000+ my parents spent on that was at least 5 times what they had ever spent on Christmas for me in the past. While all my friends would later be playing video games on Nintendo, I was busy programming pixels in BASIC and hacking games on those 5-1/4" floppies. It lasted through my senior year in high school, and for creating spreadsheets for my landscaping business. Although neither of my parents used computers at their jobs, my Dad was friends with an appliance technician who also happened to service these computers that were sold at Sears. My Dad was a small engine technician as Sears. Looking back at it, I think that's how I got my first computer. In thinking about this, I realized just today that my Dad understood technology much more than I ever gave him credit for.

Now, after founding a successful and growing software company I often find myself pondering the question of how I got here. There were a number of factors that led me here, and I won’t bore you with the details, at least in this post. The single most important aspect of my life that influenced me to start a software business was my upbringing, and my Dad. I think about how hard he worked to support his family. How dedicated he was in helping others before himself. How even when he lost his job, he found satisfaction in whatever work he could find. More than anything, it was my Dad's work ethics. Not only did he work a full time job, he was also the town repairman fixing anything that had an engine including cars, tractors, lawnmowers, and more. This is how he spent his nights and weekends. Mostly as a favor, that only some would repay.

Two years ago today, my Dad lost his short battle with brain cancer. Brain cancer can affect a person in many different ways. It can lead to seizures, loss of memory, anger, and wild personality swings. Often the patient has no idea what's happening, or soon forgets. It can be absolute hell for anyone going through it, and their caregivers. The worst form of this cancer, Grade IV Glioblastoma presents a very slim chance for survival past a couple years (other than mis diagnosis), and a non-surgical tumor typically carries a life expectancy of 6 months, exactly the time my Dad lived since being diagnosed. The organization BrainTrust.org helped my family considerably during this time, with support services my mom and thousands of others latch onto during and after the ordeal. Here is an organization led by a survivor herself, Samantha Scolamiero, who has dedicated her life providing support services to those affected by this condition and their caregivers. Because this organization isn't research focused, an effort that is already funded with millions of dollars, potential supporters can be harder to find.

Today, in memory of my father, William M Bither II, I am announcing that 100% of proceeds from the sales of EyeBatch from January 1, 2007 onward will be donated to BrainTrust.org. My father was charitable to every one of his friends. Let this be my small part in being charitable to my friends dealing with this awful disease.

EyeBatch is an award winning batch image processor that can be used to process images using a simple drag and drop script language that can be used to create thumbnails, watermark images with EXIF text, and create complicated and interesting effects. After Atalasoft moved on into other markets, I had thought sales of this product would eventually die out, and admittedly, our company and myself had not given this product much attention. Despite its lack of updates, we sell licenses of EyeBatch every day, with customers continuously singing its praises. This partnership has given EyeBatch some new life, and this weekend a new version was released to support Windows Vista.