Worldox/World Software Corporation’s 

World Software Corporation was founded in 1988 because our in-house staff at World Leasing Corporation had a need to use PC’s, but were unsatisfied with 8 character filenames that were the only offering in 1988 that we knew of.

Having written all of our software for World Leasing Corporation,(Our Financing Source), we knew how important this feature was. The more we learned about the PC software market the more we became interested in the need for file and document management software.                                                                                                     

So we formed World Software Corporation and developed our first product, “Extend-A-Name” in 1988, which provided 60 characters, or long filenames.

Today, 34 years later, our product, Worldox”, has near universal name recognition in the Legal Tech marketplace worldwide.   

We’d like to share with you how and why this happened so you will know that, if you select our products, our Company is committed to our products and your success in using them.


The Big Question is:
‘Why is Worldox successful?’


Because Worldox is “FOUNDATION SOFTWARE.


What is FOUNDATION SOFTWARE? Windows Explorer is a component of the Windows operating system. Therefore Windows Explorer is Foundation Software.

Our customers refer to Worldox as “Explorer on Steroids”. Once Worldox gets installed it virtually eliminates the need for Windows Explorer. Therefore Worldox functions as part of the (Windows) Operating System. Thus Worldox is de facto Foundation Software.

Our raison d'être, (or our basis for existence), is that it’s accepted in the industry that the volume and size of documents and emails have grown exponentially, and will continue to do so for many years to come.

We have known about this opportunity for many years and have produced many software products to manage documents and emails. We have succeeded in it, and now have over 6000 customers in 52 countries worldwide. (MAP)

Spend a few minutes to understand our history herein, and we believe it will verify Worldox’ long-term value for your organization. 

Then try it and confirm for yourselves how Worldox increases you, and your staff’s, productivity in finding and sharing documents and emails


Worldox is an infra-structure product. As such it must be, and is, highly reliable and useful. It can soon become the “glue” your organization needs, to establish a stable, productive and vital computer culture well into the 21st century.

The CSX railroad realized this potential by adopting our product to provide its users with “ a common file interface between many applications.”


Worldox solves a long term need for most organizations; who may not even know that they need it. If you want (and need) to have ONE, Reliable, Affordable, and Robust electronic filing system for all your documents and emails, Worldox is your best choice.

So why do so many of our customers rely on Worldox ?

Because Worldox lasts and has a history of overcoming obstacles, meeting challenges head-on, and receiving many awards.

 

The first challenge for a corporation is to make a profit . In 1996, after 8 years of operation, we made our first Net Profit, and we have been profitable ever since. At the outset in 1988 we invested 6 million dollars of our own money that was provided by our in-house funding source “World Leasing Corporation”.

The second challenge was direct competition from a much larger vendor

In October 1988 we received an unsolicited 11 page endorsement letter about Extend-A-Name from a customer , Bob Taylor, who was a lawyer in Maryland. 

Bob had previously responded to a WordPerfect request to provide suggestions for their next version 5.0 with this request -

“The most important one was the capability to (i) display, in a file listing, the name or a description of each file in greater length than its DOS filenames and (ii) load a file from the listing by the “point and shoot” method. WordPerfect Corporation responded with a letter thanking me for my thoughts and observing that the capability that I had suggested was not necessary.

Bob then found a review of Extend-A-Name, ordered a copy, and upon his evaluation was impressed as follows:

Now that I have tested Extend-A-Name (I find that it) is more than a good buy; it is a remarkable program with commands that are easy to learn, well-designed “pop up” screens, and a fast, smooth operation that integrates nicely with WordPerfect and other application programs. Overall, I rate the product (program and manual) at 9 on a scale of 10, considering its price and competition.

Just as WordPerfect Corporation once was, the vendor is a small firm that has developed software that performs almost flawlessly what has largely confounded its competitors. Whatever financial rewards it realizes from Extend-A-Name are well-deserved. This program does with distinction what WordPerfect Corporation either couldn’t or wouldn’t do and others have attempted to do without notable success.

However in late 1989, WordPerfect had changed their minds about long file names as described in Bob Taylor’s letter,and offered our primary MS:DOS feature of long filenames “ for free as part of their version 5.1. Our Monthly Revenue promptly dropped from $60,000 to $15,000 per month.

World Software responded with an Ad running monthly in WordPerfect Magazine extoling the great new features of our upgraded Extend-A-Name PLUS (released in September 1989) and pointing out that the long filename feature in WordPerfect 5.1 had important shortcomings.

In further response to this competition we installed Extend-A-Name PLUS in the Brooklyn’s District Attorney’s office.

In 1990 World Software’s revenue gradually increased to its former levels and beyond. Bob Taylor’s earlier review of Extend-A-Name was a great help in this challenging time and gave us tremendous encouragement to stay the course, which we have done.

 

The third challenge was where to go with our product development.

In 1988 and 1989 we had taken a sales booth at the PC Expo Show in the Javits Center in New York. We had a great reaction from attendees but while the market potential was very large it was unstructured and the real needs were too widespread.

At that time (1990) many of our customers were lawyers/law firms including Bob Taylor. So we looked into the legal software market for products with similar characteristics as ours. We found SoftSolutions and PC Docs’ products. Upon further investigation we determined that we needed to add 4 major functions to our products viz. Indexed text search, a Profiling system, Cost Recovery (for lawyers time in working on clients documents) and Version Control.

We then decided that Document Management in the Legal industry was our goal and in 1991 we demonstrated our MS:DOS Document Management upgraded product “Extend-A-File”  at Legal Tech in New York City with these 4 new major functions.

The Editor of WordPerfect Magazine recognized these accomplishments in a large review of document management products as follows:

This program (Extend-A-File) was a pleasant surprise as it grew out of an earlier product called Extend-A-Name .When this (long filename) feature was added to WordPerfect 5.1 some thought World Software might be out of business. Instead they built a complete document management system around their old program. I’m certainly glad they did. Extend-A-File was by far the easiest to install. It was all very simple, yet had most of the features of the more complex programs

 

The fourth and largest challenge came immediately

Having just recovered from these two challenges (WordPerfect long filenames and which specific vertical market direction we should take for our development of new products) when market sources told us we’d be dead in no time if we didn’t support Microsoft’s Windows platform, which was graphic based software vs. our existing software character-based software of MS:DOS.                                                                

So we hired a software company to “jump- start” us in graphic based Windows software, and then produced Worldox 1 in 1993.

The further challenges we faced  were - name recognition, entrenched competition, on-going financial success, hiring and growing a staff, etc.

These challenges were immediate for our competitors were the entrenched SoftSolutions (nee Perfect Solutions), and PC Docs.

So name recognition you say? How about a large picture and article about Worldox 1 on the front cover of the very first edition of “Law Technology News” in December 1993. No other vendor did that, we did.

LTN magazine 1st Edition Cover  

The next Challenges were competitive marketing reviews and ratings which included side-by-side reviews (or “shootouts”) in Word Perfect Magazine, and other legal oriented magazines, trade shows, competitive forums, live shootouts with installations in law firms, and day-to-day, head-to-head, competitive salesmanship.

In 1994 Worldox replaced “SoftSolutions” at “John Hancock Insurance” in Boston.

In 1996 Worldox replaced “PC Docs” at “Mirick O’Connell” in Worcester, Mass.

These competitive wins were some of the origins of Worldox’ emergence as a true competitor and superior product to the “established” leaders in the Legal Document Management System (“DMS”) marketplace in the early 1990’s.

SoftSolutions was purchased by “WordPerfect” in 1994; and WordPerfect was purchased by “Novell Systems” (a leading Network Company) in 1995.

SoftSolutions was a very early document management system (or DMS), which was used primarily by law firms. SoftSolutions was subsequently terminated as a product, but its features were incorporated into Novell's Group Wise product.. (Source of the above information is SoftSolutions Wikipedia.)

PC Docs was purchased by “Hummingbird” in 1999, who were then purchased by “Open Text” in 2006. All three of these Companies were Canadian based Companies.

Both GroupWise and PC Docs became less of a threat to Worldox, as was demonstrated by the fact that Worldox was “CHOSEN” over all competitors in the competition created by the “ALA” (Association of Legal Administrators) for the ‘’Best Legal Document Management System in the year 2000.

According to the ALA, Worldox won because it was Affordable, Reliable and Easy to Administer.  (The ALA was/is the largest Association of Legal Administrators in the world, numbering 11,000 members. ALA members continue to provide outstanding support for their choice of Worldox 22 years later.)

This early success of Worldox and World Software Corporation presaged the significant growth in the number of Worldox customers who now represent over 5000 law firms and legal departments in 52 countries worldwide.            

So how did all this turn out? Here are our Awards.

LTN Most favorite Document Management System. 2003 2004 & 5/ 2006 2009 & 2010

LTN Mobile Tool/Device 2008 & 2009 LTN Lifetime Achievement Award 2009 <

From 1993 on we developed 13 versions of Worldox Pro,           Worldox Web - 3 versions, Worldox Cloud, Worldox Enterprise and many other Worldox extensions and integrations with other complimentary products as follows:

World Software on Wikipedia

This concludes our Introduction as to who we are and how did Worldox and World Software Corporation get BUILT.

For a further understanding of our products please visit our web site at www.worldox.com.

If you would like to get started right away then Contact Us

Thank you for your interest in Worldox and World Software Corporation.

Tom Burke

CEO

World Software Corporation