dc nasdaq denaf industry computer software fate acquired successor symantec founded toronto ontario 1988 founder dennis bennie mark skapinker bert amato lou ryan defunct november 22 1995 november 22 1995 headquarters toronto ontario canada area served worldwide key people dennis bennie chairman and ceo mark skapinker president bert amato executive vice president & chief technical officer 1 lou ryan executive vice president of worldwide sales 2 products winfax perform formflow echo lake cyberjack wincomm talkworks commsuite 95 revenue 132.9 million cad sales 1995 number of employees 700 1995 website www.delrina.com at the wayback machine delrina was a canadian software company which was founded in 1988 and was subsequently acquired by the american software firm symantec in 1995 . the company sold electronic form products including perform and formflow but was best known for its winfax software package which enabled computers equipped with fax modems to transmit copies of documents to standalone fax machines or other similarly equipped computers . delrina also produced a set of screensavers including one that resulted in a well publicized lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringement berkeley systems inc. v. delrina . the case set a precedent in american law whereby satiric commercial software products are not subject to the same first amendment exemptions as parodic cartoons or literature . it also sold online communications software with its wincomm product and produced a web browser called cyberjack . the firm was sold to symantec in 1995 . after the company was acquired by symantec various divisions were sold off and several of delrina s former executives went on to found venture capital firms . contents 1 corporate history 1.1 origins of perform 1.2 struggle for profitability 1.3 development of winfax 1.4 acquisition of amaze inc. 1.4.1 berkeley systems inc. v. delrina 1.5 winfax 1.6 the impact of windows 95 1.7 acquisition by symantec and aftermath 1.8 post delrina 2 delrina software and services 2.1 forms products 2.2 winfax 2.3 multimedia products 2.3.1 echo lake 3 list of delrina products 4 references corporate history edit early corporate logo for delrina circa 1988 delrina was founded in toronto in 1988 by zimbabwean expatriate bert amato south african expatriates mark skapinker and dennis bennie 3 and american lou ryan . 4 delrina was bennie s second major entrepreneurial start up after co founding mission electronics a home theatre equipment company . delrina s business strategy was to establish technical and market leadership in niche markets 5 which it accomplished with its electronic form and pc based fax software . a year before the firm was incorporated amato and skapinker had quit their jobs to start work on an electronic forms product 3 which would eventually become perform . both would later meet with bennie who was then the chief executive officer of carolian systems international a firm that made business software for hewlett packard . bennie facilitated an initial seed investment of 1.5 million cad to finance a new start up company delrina 3 to develop this idea . in return carolian received 51 % of delrina s shares . 6 delrina s initial corporate headquarters was located in a small office on mount pleasant st in toronto . a sales office was set up in san jose california which became its worldwide sales center run by co founder lou ryan . 4 from its toronto headquarters the company expanded by establishing branch offices in kirkland washington ; washington dc ; and lexington massachusetts . other offices were later established in the united kingdom france and germany . 7 origins of perform edit delrina s initial product offering was an electronic forms application called perform . amato and skapinker came up with the idea for the product while working as consultants that what their clients wanted was a way to fill in forms electronically rather than an easier way to create paper based forms from a computer . 8 there was significant and long term uptake of electronic forms products within governmental agencies both in canada 9 and the united states 10 the latter spurred on in particular by the requirements of the paperwork reduction act to reduce the total amount of paperwork handled by the united states government . 11 one of the firm s early major software deals included a multi year agreement to sell perform to the u.s. navy in 1990 . 8 soon after the software was installed on compaq laptops that accompanied u.s. troops during the first gulf war where it was used to requisition everything from coca cola to privies . 8 other significant volume sales went to 3m and rockwell international . 8 what helped set apart delrina s electronic forms from its competitors in product reviews included its easy to use interface its extensive development tools and its comparatively low price . 12 it also scored highly when it came to workflow and routing functions as well as security features . 13 in early 1991 infoworld selected perform pro as its product of the year in the electronic forms category and pc world magazine gave the product it s best buy designation . 14 perform proved to be successful in its niche effectively capturing the retail market by 1993 . 15 in the early 1990s delrina made deals with value added resellers like ncr and ge information services who had the staff to customize the product to the needs of corporate customers looking to move away from paper based forms . 8 the forms products sold well and the annual revenues for the firm grew steadily ; 1989 annual revenues in canadian dollars were 5 630 393 in 1990 they were 8 759 623 and by 1991 they were 11 894 474 . 16 struggle for profitability edit despite the growing revenues the company struggled to make a profit . heavy expenditures primarily marketing along with research and development costs drove the firm s losses from 500 000 from 1989 to 1.5 million by the end of the following fiscal year . 17 for fiscal 1991 it posted a net loss of 1.7 million . 18 needing an infusion of funds in april 1991 bennie managed to raise 7.7 million in a private placement . 17 the firm subsequently sought to find ways to more widely distribute its electronic form software with bennie saying in may 1992 that we ve barely scratched the surface of our market . 19 in early 1992 word leaked to the press on a possible merger between wordstar international inc. and soon after both firms made public the fact that they had signed a letter of intent on a merger deal . 20 however just over a month later word came out that the merger talks had fallen through at the time cited to differences over complex legal accounting and management issues . 21 wordstar whose share of the word processing market had by that time fallen to 5 % from a high of 80 % was seeking delrina s advanced technologies while delrina was hoping to utilize the other firm s established global sales network . 22 despite the failure of the merger talks bennie said soon after that we re still convinced that a larger sales force would give us the kind of marketing clout we need . i still believe that it s possible for us to become a global operation . 19 not long after wordstar merged with spinnaker software corporation and softkey software products inc. to form softkey international . 23 delrina subsequently signed deals with wallace computer services 24 uarco and ncr corporation in an effort to gain greater sales distribution of its products . 25 development of winfax edit in a deliberate attempt to diversify the business the company chose to move into the fax software market with its winfax product . 26 software developer tony davis another south african expatriate who had moved to canada was initially hired as a consultant to work on the forms line of products in the late 1980s soon afterwards becoming part of that team . in his spare time he developed a prototype of what would become the first winfax product with the agreement that delrina would be its publisher . in 1990 delrina devoted a relatively small space to this new product at that year s comdex a computer trade show 27 under a sign that said simply send a fax from your pc . 28 it garnered the most attention of any delrina product being demonstrated at that show . 3 this interest convinced the founding partners of the commercial viability of the product . tony davis went on to sell his product idea to delrina and stayed on as its lead software architect and designer . the initial version of winfax only worked on fax modems containing a specific chipset and was only capable of sending faxes ; 27 it could not receive them . this was remedied with the launch of the winfax pro 2.0 product during the summer of 1991 . 29 one of the key factors that differentiated this version of winfax from other fax software packages of the time was the deliberate attempt to make the program compatible with all fax modems . 26 prior to the introduction of winfax pro 2.0 competitors concentrated primarily on building software that would only work with a single brand of fax modem hardware . 26 at the same time that it launched its winfax pro 2.0 product delrina also announced an oem version of the same product designed to be bundled with new fax modems . 29 within a few months eight modem manufacturers had agreed to bundle this oem version called winfax lite of the program along with their own product . 30 31 by the summer of the following year this number had grown to 50 oem partnerships with various fax modem and computer system manufacturers to bundle the lite version of delrina s winfax software with their own products . 25 by february 1993 this number had grown to over 100 oem partnerships . 32 bundling the lite version of winfax proved to be lucrative for delrina . whenever a person used the program for the first time and submitted their registration information by fax to the company delrina would subsequently mail the user an upgrade offer for the pro version . this sales technique proved to be very effective and the firm ended up making most of its sales from these upgrades . 17 in order to reach apple computer users in this marketplace delrina acquired solutions inc. and their backfax software for the macintosh platform in december 1991 33 which would become delrina fax pro . a version of the program was also designed for use in dos dosfax pro which was launched in june 1992 . 34 35 initially looking for ways to further improve its electronic forms software in november 1991 delrina had attempted to buy two associated firms that produced optical character recognition ocr software with the intention of incorporating ocr functionality into its forms products . 36 the acquisition deal fell through 37 though by fall 1992 delrina had made a deal with caere corporation to include its anyfax ocr software within its products . 38 this functionality was incorporated into winfax pro 3.0 in late 1992 39 40 41 and subsequently in formflow 42 despite the agreement with caere the subsequent version of winfax used xerox s textbridge ocr engine instead . 43 based on strong sales of winfax by october 1992 delrina posted its first profitable quarter in three years . 37 at the same time the firm also announced its intention to acquire other software firms that sold into the consumer software market . 37 acquisition of amaze inc. edit in october 1992 delrina acquired amaze inc. based out of kirkland washington . 44 45 the firm created daily planner software providing time management features while providing some humour by featuring licensed cartoon strips like cathy