Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a document comparison and security software suite (see article below), a business-class VoIP service, speech recognition software for BlackBerrys, a court deadline calculator for iPhone, and a computerized pen that captures notes and accompanying audio and video. Don't miss the next issue.
A Rarity in the Software Industry
Email is a simple technology that creates complex problems for lawyers. For example, you may find that you need to compare multiple versions of a document, sometimes in different formats. You may need to collaborate on this document with multiple people. You will want to remove metadata before doing so and may even want to redact portions of the document. In short, you may find it necessary to use document comparison and collaboration software.
Workshare Professional 5.2 SR2 … in One Sentence
Workshare Professional 5.2 Service Release 2 (SR2) consists of a suite of tools that facilitates document comparison, multi-person document reviews and content security.
The Killer Feature
The software industry has a reputation for releasing products that don't perform properly. Many customers seem to have a high tolerance for these "bugs," but others shy away from upgrading or at least wait for reports from early adopters.
Recognizing that reliability is as important as any feature, Workshare underwent a reorganization about a year ago to improve product quality. For example, it beefed up its quality assurance testing protocols, expanded the number of beta testers, placed all software engineers on a single team, and hired a new VP of Engineering. Perhaps even more importantly, with quality being the priority it plans to issue fewer releases per year to lessen the burden on customers.
Workshare Professional 5.2 SR2 stems from this effort. "SR2 provides legal professionals with the customer experience they deserve," CEO Alan Fraser told us.
Other Notable Features
Workshare engineers may have focused on quality, but they managed to add many new functions as well. For example, in addition to comparing Word-to-Word, PDF-to-PDF, and Word-to-PDF, you can now compare embedded Excel tables, images, and image-based documents such as scanned and faxed documents.
Workshare Professional has long created PDF files. Now you can create PDF Portfolios. You can combine many different file types into a single Portfolio, remove metadata, apply security settings, organize pages, and export to a single PDF file while keeping the Portfolio intact should you need to make changes later.
New security features include redaction of Word documents, metadata discovery in password-protected documents and the ability to preview a document you've cleansed before emailing it. Workshare has also partnered with Safend to provide device control and USB port protection.
Finally, Workshare Professional now includes integration connectors for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007, Autonomy, and Open Text.
What Else Should You Know?
Pricing for Workshare Professional starts at $175 per seat. Learn more about Workshare Professional 5.2 SR2.
How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.
