Hilgraeve is a software firm based in Monroe, Michigan, and is best known for its HyperTerminal Private Edition and

HyperACCESS HyperACCESS (sometimes known as HyperTerminal) is a family of terminal emulation software by Hilgraeve. A version of HyperACCESS called HyperTerminal is included in some versions of Windows. History It was the first software product from Hilgr ...

programs. In earlier years, HyperTerminal had been licensed for use by Microsoft in versions of Windows ranging from Windows 95 to Windows XP. The company was founded in 1980 by John Hile, Matt Gray, and Bob Everett. The company's name was derived from the first three letters of each of the founder's last names. The firm's first software product was

, which was initially designed to enable Heath 8-bit computers to communicate over a modem. In 1985, this same product was ported to IBM PCs and compatible systems. Over the years the same version of this technology would be ported to other operating systems including OS/2, Windows 95, Windows XP, and Windows NT. Competition heated up in the early 1990s and Hilgraeve would compete in the online communications software market against the likes of

Datastorm ''Datastorm'' is a video game for the Amiga published by Visionary Design in 1989. Written by Søren Grønbech, it was inspired by the horizontally scrolling ''Defender (arcade game), Defender'' arcade game and the ''Defender''-like ''Dropzone' ...

ProComm Datastorm Technologies, Inc., was a computer software company that existed from 1986 until 1996. Bruce Barkelew and Thomas Smith founded the company to develop and publish ProComm, a general purpose communications program for personal computers. ...

line of software, and Delrina's

WinComm WinComm was a terminal emulator program for Windows that was offered by Delrina in the mid-1990s. Seeing a growing business in online communications utilities, Delrina launched WinComm PRO. It was used primarily to connect to Bulletin Board Syste ...

. In 1994 IBM was the first major OS vendor to bundle one of Hilgraeve products with a 32-bit OS by including a copy of the firm's terminal program with OS/2 Warp 3.0, it was named "HyperAccess Lite". One year later Microsoft followed suit and licensed a low-end version known as HyperTerminal (essentially a "Lite" version) for use in their set of communications utilities. It was initially bundled with Windows 95, and subsequently all versions of Windows up to and including Windows XP. Hilgraeve was an early entrant into devising anti-virus software, and received patents for its HyperGuard product, designed to prevent viruses from being downloaded while connected to an online service. In February 2008, Hilgraeve's Healthcare business (HyperSend and HyperBridge) was acquired by Compuware.

Patent Lawsuit

In 1997, Hilgraeve sued McAfee Associates and Symantec Corp. for alleged infringement of a software patent they were issued in 1994. {{Cite news , last=Newswires , first=Dow Jones , date=1997-09-17 , title=Antivirus Wars Take a Turn As Hilgraeve Sues Its Rivals , language=en-US , work=Wall Street Journal , url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB874526328981186500 , access-date=2022-03-31 , issn=0099-9660 The case was settled in 2003 and Symantec agreed to a $6.2 million settlement and, as part of the settlement, "Symantec said it would buy a Hilgraeve patent that covers scanning for viruses and other malicious code, as well as rights to other Hilgraeve patents."

References

External links

Hilgraeve: "About" page, accessed November 11, 2005
Software companies based in Michigan Communication software Terminal emulators Companies based in Michigan Companies established in 1980 Software companies of the United States