JetForm

'JetForm' was the name of a Canadian software manufacturer created by 4 Ottawa based consultants (Wayne Hall, Bob Allum, Tom Hicks [http://4point.com/images/executive-team/tom-hicks.jpg] [http://4point.com/executive-team.html] , and John Gleed) that was based out of Ottawa, Ontario, and an electronic form software product of the same name.

The company was originally named Indigo Software and was solely a software consulting firm. Indigo Software did work for the Canadian Federal Government and IBM (as the maintainer of an IBM CAD software product); among other clients. One significant government project resulted in an electronic forms product being created: iFiller, iPrint, el al.

With Microsoft's release of Windows 3.11, Indigo Software did a major enhancement to the forms software and re-branded it JetForm. The JetForm forms product was very successful, and Indigo Software's consulting work also began to focus on work associated with the JetForm software.

Given the popularity of the forms software, Indigo Software made a decision to also rename the company JetForm.

JetForm once had major offices in the United States, various countries in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. It was founded in 1982, and was listed under NASDAQ as FORMF, under the Pacific Stock Exchange as JTF, and the Toronto Stock Exchange as JFM.

Its eponymous series of products directly competed against other electronic forms software, such as Delrina's PerForm, and FormFlow products.

In September, 1996, Symantec, which had bought Delrina the previous year, sold their Electronic Forms Division to JetForm. JetForm continued to develop the FormFlow series of products under its own name.

Around this time, JetForm bought the naming rights to Ottawa's baseball stadium, naming it "JetForm Park" (now Rapidz Stadium).

On September 13, 2001, JetForm changed its name to Accelio, which was acquired by Adobe in April 2002. The electronic forms products were officially end-of-lifed in 2004. Adobe marketed JetForm more as Adobe Central Output Server, without any major changes. Adobe's successor for the JetForm technology was released June 7, 2007, as Adobe LiveCycle Output ES, part of the Adobe LiveCycle suite.

In 2003 a former executive of JetForm and some former employees founded Four Point Solutions Ltd. (4Point). Today 4Point is a premier solution partner to Adobe Systems Inc. with offices in Canada, USA and EMEA. Four former JetForm executives form the core of the executive team at 4Point. They are Cheryl Carrol, Tom Hicks, Gabriel McCaffrey and Barrie Ellis.

JetForm Software

JetForm Design allowed for routing and tracking in workflow systems, on-screen form creation, and access to SQL and ODBC-compliant databases. JetForm Filler was used for completing on-screen forms. JetForm also developed XFA, which was later adopted by Adobe into its PDF software.

One of the Indigo Forms software's innovations when it was introduced was its ability to have its forms installed into Laserjet font cartridges. This meant that the product only had to send forms data to the printer; since the form was already encoded in the font cartridge. Given the slow printer interfaces used at that time, this greatly reduced print times.

External links

* [http://www.adobe.com/products/server/readerextensions/pdfs/jetform_faq.pdf "Legacy JetForm/Accelio Form Products FAQ", PDF, accessed November 3, 2005]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/19961107230900/www.jetform.com/product/overview.html JetForm Products - Wayback Machine reference from 1996, accessed November 11, 2005]
* [http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/osp/pdf/FFlow2_15.pdf "JetForm FormFlow" Product Guide, PDF, accessed July 19, 2006]
* [http://www.DocPath.com "DocPath Corp"]
* [http://www.4Point.com " 4Point Extend your reach - Engage with 4Point and Adobe"]