WAX Info breaks into Japan with prestigious Tokyo installation

WAX Info breaks into Japan with prestigious Tokyo installation

Wax info Limited of Cambridge www.waxinfo.com – one of the country’s leading developers of secure distributed content management software – has completed the first commercial installation of its new client / server application, ActiveLibrary, in a Tokyo, Japan.

Wax info, backed by “blue chip” institutional investors including Cambridge University and the HSBC Enterprise Fund, made this announcement as part of the launch of its new software solutions into international markets.

This success follows the establishment of an office in Japan. The company’s successful debut of ActiveLibrary in Japan is a key milestone in the launch of its product into the Asian markets.

Mr. Nigel Spence, CEO of Wax info, said: “This is a great achievement with our customers, Japan Food Information Center, which is a food-science and safety ‘think tank’ whose own clients include international leading companies such as Coca Cola, Roche, Novartis and Dupont. This is an excellent way of introducing the power and benefits of ActiveLibrary to a diverse range of potential users.”

Wax info Limited was formed in 1997 and is a “spin-off” from The University of Cambridge, Cambridge UK. In early 2000, Wax info received venture capital funding from the Hong Kong-Shanghai Banking Corporation’s (HSBC) Enterprise Fund for East Anglia and the Home Counties, which is managed by Cambridge-based Egan & Talbot Capital Limited. It was in 2000 that Wax won a contract to supply its ActiveLibrary product to the NHS. This delivered up-to-date, mission-critical documents, such as Best Clinical Guidelines, to desk-top PCs in a number of NHS surgeries, hospitals, prisons and military bases.

ENDS
For further information see www.waxinfojapan.com, www.waxinfo.com or contact Nigel Spence on 01223 421 000.

Note to editors:

Brief history of Wax info
Wax info Limited was formed in 1997, when “spun-off” from The University of Cambridge, UK. In early 2000, Wax info received venture capital funding from the Hong Kong-Shanghai Banking Corporation’s (HSBC) Enterprise Fund, which is managed by Cambridge-based Egan & Talbot Capital Limited.

Originally innovated by Wax info’s co-founder Dr. Iain Buchan in 1992, his vision was to create the means to distribute electronic guidelines to general practitioners (GPs) in the UK. Documents were presented electronically, with contents pages and indices.

Studies later conducted in the University of Cambridge proved that this system delivered timely, accurate information to doctors in a way they understood and used.

With the increasing use of the Internet, it became clear that it would be more efficient to distribute the electronic documents via a network. The second version of Wax ActiveLibrary (Wax 2.3) was developed in the Medical Informatics Unit of Cambridge University, under the leadership of Wax info’s co-founder and Deputy Chairman Professor Rudolf Hanka. This version allowed users to access networked electronic libraries, and to “borrow” documents for their own personal use.

In 2000, the UK National Health Service’s Electronic Library of Health designated Wax activelibrary an Approved Delivery Medium.

Networked versions 3.0 and 3.5
In 2002 and 2003 Wax supplied networked versions of ActiveLibrary 3.0 and 3.5 to the National Health Service in Norfolk, UK. Doctors’ surgeries, hospitals, prisons, and military bases used Wax ActiveLibrary to share critical documents and medical guidelines amongst themselves.

Wax activelibrary 4.0 .NET development
In 2004, Wax embarked on a new programme to deliver ActiveLibrary 4.0 on a mass-market scale to the Asian business markets. This introduced a new set of requirements, including the distribution of multiple format documents across many organisations. The design was for a central service provider platform to serve a large user base of over one million desktop PCs.

Systems design and development began in June 2004, with teams in Cambridge, UK and Wellington, New Zealand. The Cambridge Team operated as the product management, protocol design, and systems design authority for the project. They majored in search engine integration, .COM integration and the .NET C# client development. The system was targeted at PCs using Windows 2000/XP and Microsoft Office 2000/XP. The New Zealand team developed server side architecture, and implemented server side protocol, processing, and server administration functionality. The application uses Java in a range of server environments, including Microsoft Server 2003 and Linux Server environments.

The first prototype of ActiveLibrary 4.0 was delivered in January 2005. At the beginning of May 2005 Beta trials were initiated in the UK. A Japanese Language Beta trial system is due for delivery on September 1, 2005.

In June 2005, Wax info initiated a programme to deliver new functionality. These enhancements accommodate future needs within the document management, distribution, and access communities. They will include a thin client interface into the system for web-based document contributions and access.

Current Wax Technology: ActiveLibrary 4.0
Wax ActiveLibrary is a network application used by PC users for the secure publication, storage, search, and retrieval of information. It incorporates the controlled transfer of encrypted electronic documents between users.

ActiveLibrary is a solution platform that allows organisations, and groups of organisations, to establish an environment in which mission-critical documents can be exchanged securely. Originators maintain full editorial, distribution, and document access rights control.

The ActiveLibrary authoring features streamline the process of authoring documents. A user can invoke Microsoft Office applications for the purposes of creating and editing documents, without leaving the ActiveLibrary application.
When the user has finished editing, the document is automatically saved in a secure form. This is in order to ensure that it is not accessible to other users of the PC, except through Wax ActiveLibrary, which is password controlled.

The system allows supported document types (Word, Excel, PDF, PowerPoint, HTML, Web Archives, Basic Text, GIF, and JPG) to be distributed to users in a secure form, so that users may view them only with the activelibrary software. Document types (e.g. Access, Outlook, and Publisher) not supported for viewing or editing in Activelibrary may still be handled. Users may import them into ActiveLibrary, publish them into the network library, and make them available for download and export into the users’ PC file system. This process allows direct viewing in the unsupported application.

Wax ActiveLibrary supports an effective information delivery and compliance strategy. It does this by updating locally cached documents automatically whenever they are viewed, and by maintaining an audit trail of critical document publication and access events.

Automatic version management ensures that the latest available document revision is delivered to the user whenever and wherever the document is accessed. If a user attempts to view a previously cached document on his local PC, the system automatically checks the central library to determine if there is a later version. New versions of a document are downloaded automatically before being displayed to the user.

The central network library automatically maintains an audit trail of key events which are involved in the contribution, authorisation, and storage of documents delivered to the library. This audit trail covers key events involved in borrowing and using documents.

ActiveLibrary keeps track of the actions of key administration and privileged users. The identities of the users, and their actions in creating, managing, and maintaining the folders and workspaces in the library, are maintained in the system’s audit trail.

In addition to protecting access rights to documents, ActiveLibrary manages the publishing privileges of users and the privacy of individuals, groups and organisations. This access control rights management process ensures that a service provider can operate a service for thousands of organisations. Each organisation perceives that it is the only user of the system. Alternatively the access control rights management process may be used to open up user, group, and organisation access. This will allow controlled visibility and exchange of documents between co-operating organisations. Each user of the system has a unique view of available documents. This view is based on the privileges granted by the document publishers.