JetForm was the name of a Canadian software manufacturer created by four consultants (Wayne Hall, Bob Allum, Tom Hicks, and John Gleed) that was based out of
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and an electronic form software product of the same name.
JetForm once had major offices in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, various countries in Europe,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, and
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. It was founded in 1982, and was listed under
NASDAQ
The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
as FORMF, under the
Pacific Stock Exchange
The Pacific Exchange was a regional stock exchange in California, from 1956 to 2006. Its main exchange floor and building were in San Francisco, California, with a branch building in Los Angeles, California.
In 1882, the San Francisco Stock and ...
as JTF, and the
Toronto Stock Exchange
The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; french: Bourse de Toronto) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in t ...
as JFM.
History
The company was originally named Indigo Software and was solely a software consulting firm. Indigo Software did work for the
Canadian Federal Government
The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-in-C ...
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, et al.
With
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's release of
Windows 3.11
Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0.
Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...
, 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 rename the company JetForm.
Its
eponym
An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''.
Usage of the word
The term ''epon ...
ous series of products directly competed against other electronic forms software, such as
Delrina
Delrina Corporation was an Form (document), electronic form company in Canada that was acquired by the American software firm NortonLifeLock, Symantec in 1995. The company was best known for WinFax, a software package which enabled computers equ ...
's
PerForm
PerForm and PerForm PRO were electronic form programs, initially designed to work under GEM in DOS. Later versions were designed to work in Windows 3.1, at which point it was succeeded by FormFlow.
The initial version of PerForm was created in 1 ...
, and
FormFlow
FormFlow was the name of a line of electronic forms products initially created and sold by Delrina in the early- to mid-1990s.
History
The first product in this line was PerForm, which was designed to work under GEM in DOS. The FormFlow and Fo ...
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
Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...
to the
Ottawa Baseball Stadium
Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park (French: Parc Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton), also known as RCGT Park (French: Parc RCGT) is a baseball stadium in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, with a seating capacity of 10,332. The stadium is located in the city' ...
, naming it "JetForm Park".
On September 13, 2001, JetForm changed its name to Accelio. Accelio was acquired by
Adobe Systems
Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware
and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...
in February 2002.
The electronic forms products were officially retired in 2004. Adobe marketed JetForm as Adobe Central Output Serve
without any major changes. Adobe's successor for the JetForm technology was released June 7, 2007, as Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (E
part of the
Adobe LiveCycle
Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES4) is a service-oriented architecture Java EE server software product from Adobe Systems used to build applications that automate a broad range of business processes for enterprises and government agencies. Li ...
suite. The product was renamed again on April 9, 2009 to Adobe Central / Central Pro Output Server and reached its end o
Extended Supporton June 30, 2016.
JetForm Rises Again, In 2007 two of the original founders Tom Hicks, Wayne Hall and four of the core software developers of JetForm Central came together to build a new enterprise class document designer, merge engine, presentation and delivery system. The software is called DocOrigin (a play off the Origin of Documents). DocOrigin was first released in 2009 and in 2013 version 3.0 was released.
JetForm Software
JetForm Design allowed for routing and tracking in workflow systems, on-screen form creation, and access to
SQL and
ODBC
In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...
-compliant databases. JetForm Filler was used for completing on-screen forms. JetForm also developed the XML form forma
"XFA" which was later adopted by Adobe into its
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
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.
References
{{Reflist
External links
"Adobe Central / Central Pro Output Server end of Extended Support, June 30, 2016""Legacy JetForm/Accelio Form Products FAQ", PDF, accessed November 3, 2005*
ttp://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/osp/pdf/FFlow2_15.pdf "JetForm FormFlow" Product Guide, PDF, accessed July 19, 2006
Defunct software companies of Canada
Business software