San Diego, California-based Altris Software Inc says its latest product, Altris EB, is the first document management software suite to move away from the usual over-emphasis on imaging towards an object-oriented, proactive system supporting intelligent documents. Alteris EB combines object and push technologies in an attempt to enable a model where any document can proactively determine who should be involved with its life cycle and content. The push technology, named SmartPush, provides the connection between users and documents, or other information objects, automatically notifying interested users of new information in the system. An object or component approach also enables smaller run-time systems, which use only the relevant objects. EB runs on Windows 95 on the desktop, and NT 4.0 or Sun Solaris on the server, and supports Oracle, Informix, Sybase Inc and SQL Server databases. Desktop access can also be via Microsoft Corp’s Internet Explorer browser supporting ActiveX, with Netscape/Java support due in 1998. The second release, due in February of next year, will also support Staffware Plc’s workflow product as a tightly integrated feature. Alteris is the result of last year’s merger between Alparel Inc and Trimco Group Plc and employs some 200 staff. The new product was developed in the UK at a cost of 1.6m pounds, and gets its first introduction in the UK on October 20, with the US to follow. Pricing is expected to be around 670 pounds per seat for systems with more than 100 concurrent users.
