Company Profile: Version One

1989 was a memorable year. It was the year the Berlin Wall fell and protestors in Tiananmen Square stunned the world with their courage. Elsewhere, Microsoft and forgotten partner Ashton-Tate launched Microsoft SQL Server and Xerox sued Apple for allegedly pinching its ideas.

That period is also notable for Xerox’s predictions on the paperless office; the notion that one day, everything would be fully electronic and paper would be a useless impediment to the modern business. However, the theory and the reality were vastly different.

For firms like Version One, which was incorporated in 1989, the challenges of managing documents focused around real concerns such as reducing filling cabinet space, dealing with facsimile messages, managing paper-based invoices and quotes and helping customers improve the efficiency of business processes.

Although Xerox continued to preach a paperless world, the rapid reduction in cost of laser printers and the adoption of internet technology, including email, actually generated more printed material, not less. Through the 1990s, focused document management innovators like Version One, AnyDoc – and even Xerox – were in demand to help deal with new drivers like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), optical character recognition, barcodes and integration into ERP systems.

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