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Bagshot, March 10, 2003 - ZyLAB, a developer
of document imaging and full-text retrieval software, today announced
that it has enhanced its ZyIMAGE data storage and records management
& archival product suite by incorporating XML as the data format
to store scanned and electronic documents. A key driver to incorporating
XML data formats is to help ZyLAB customers better adhere to corporate
governance legislation such as Sarbanes Oxley, which is designed
to ensure organizations have clear policies, proper records management
systems, and adequate audit trails for its enterprise-wide information.
More and more libraries, government organizations, commercial organizations,
and software publishers follow the open XML standards to store and exchange
information. ZyLAB supports more than 7,000 installations with over 300,000
users worldwide including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services, and United Nations International
War Tribunal, as well as leading multi-national corporations such as Microsoft,
Exxon, British Aerospace, Amtrak, and Dow Chemicals.
XML enables users to handle documents as separate files while also treating
the information in the document as if it is stored in a database
record. This method of storing information is much more efficient
than storing unstructured data such as large text files, audio,
video, and other information in traditional relational database
systems. Also, relational database records are traditionally difficult
to transfer between different systems unless a conversion is performed,
however, records stored in XML do not need to be converted.
Some recent applications for XML are the storage of historical archives,
military data exchange, electronic data supply from law enforcement agencies
to courts, and corporate filing and record management. ZyLAB's ZyIMAGE
is now able to support these applications by storing all scanned files,
as well as currently available electronic files, in an open standard XML
database.
"Our involvement in several high-profile fraud and criminal investigations
worldwide, have made ZyLAB aware of the growing need for complete and
robust solutions in this area," said Johannes Scholtes, president
of ZyLAB. "New corporate legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
have forced companies and governments to take their information management
practices more seriously."
ZyIMAGE also addresses the increasing popularity of digital archiving,
which has brought with it a new area of concern, known as digital sustainability.
The focus specifically relates to the issue of whether or not digital
information that is archived today can still be accessed 10, 20, or even
100 years from now. This is critical as it related to corporate governance.
Recently, more and more organizations worldwide recognize that software
applications used today have the distinct possibility of not being supported
in the future, potentially posing a major setback on efficient records
management procedures. One of the most promising solutions to this problem
is the use of XML to represent document structure and meta-information
in combination with either a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) to store
images of scanned pages or a hyperlink to an electronic file such as MS
Word, PDF, JPEG, MPEG, and so on. Furthermore, XML and TIFFs have open
well-defined standards for which standard source code libraries are freely
available on the Internet.
About ZyLAB
ZyLAB is a fully owned subsidiary of the ZyLAB group of companies,
a fast growing and profitable group of companies. In 1983, ZyLAB
was the first company to deliver a full-featured PC-based full-text
retrieval software package called ZyINDEX. ZyINDEX was particularly
popular for searching large collections of electronic file collections
in PC environments. As of 1991, ZyLAB focused all of its development
and marketing efforts on ZyIMAGE, aimed at delivering the best search
engine available for large paper collections. As a result, ZyLAB
now has a full solution to archive, search, find, organize, share,
and reproduce all paper and electronic office documents. Worldwide,
ZyLAB has over 300,000 current end-users and has active operational
installations in more than 7,000 sites. ZyLAB has several offices
in the USA, Europe, and Asia. More information can be found on www.zylab.co.uk.
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