Burlington, Massachusetts-based integrated document management and workflow systems vendor NovaSoft Systems Inc has opened new offices in Europe, in a bid expand its non-US business The company has just established its European headquarters in Munich, Germany, and opened a UK branch office in Chesham, UK. Novasoft says it will attack the European market exclusively through systems integrators and resellers. The nine-year-old company moved into document management software in 1992, its early development work part-funded by IBM Corp, which took a 7% stake in the company. The result was NovaManage – a product which IBM still has the rights to sell, despite some clash with its own Flowmark workflow and ImagePlus document management products. However, in June last year, NovaSoft won $13m in venture funding from Highland Capital and Morgan Stanley and spent a portion of this – thought to be around $1.5m – buying back its shares from IBM. Recently, interest has shifted towards document and management workflow capability from remote Web and Lotus Notes clients as well as from within the enterprise, prompting Novasoft to add optional modules to its product for access from Internet Explorer, Netscape and Lotus Notes as well as links to other workflow and document management products. Siemens AG has a OEM agreement with Novasoft, selling the software under the name SiManage in Europe and Asia. NovaSoft plans to go public on Nasdaq by 1998.
