Accusoft's Blog

It’s hard to imagine any single item that could please a web developer, an IT infrastructure manager, and an end user all at once. Ice cream or a good joke excepted, anything that makes one of these people happy usually makes at least one of the others miserable.

Tighten security to please the infrastructure maven, and you’ve made extra work for the developer and possibly compromised the user’s experience. Amp up the user experience and you’ve created bandwidth problems for the infrastructure maven and, again, more work for the web developer. (Everything makes more work for the web developer.)

Read more to see how a cloud document viewer makes everybody happy.

Accusoft is on a whirlwind global tour this week with stops in Hanover, Germany (CeBIT); New Orleans (HIMSS) and San Francisco (SPTechCon).  At the beginning of the week we sent teams all over the globe to meet face-to-face with you. Here’s a brief overview of the trade shows we’re exhibiting at:

HIMSS – New Orleans, USA

HIMSS is back in New Orleans at the Ernest N. Memorial Convention Center in New Orleans for the first time since 2007.  HIMSS is a cause-based, not-for-profit organization exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare.

“I am making great contacts and capturing a good amount of promising leads.” Patrick McElerney, Business Development Manager. “I enjoy seeing what is new, and meeting with customers and prospects,” added Will Clonts, Senior Business Development Manager. One of the more popular solutions at HIMSS has been the Prizm Content Connect HTML5 document viewer.

Read more on our global adventures.

Are there security advantages to an alternate viewer, for example Prizm Content Connect or Prizm Cloud Connect?

Security is on everyone’s mind these days, and if it isn’t it should be.  It is certainly on Oracle’s mind as they have had a lot of Java vulnerabilities reported in the last few months. Microsoft also released their largest ever Patch Tuesday to address 57 different vulnerabilities in some of their top products.  Both of these companies are top tier vendors and have millions of installed applications.  Having that kind of install base makes them prime targets.  A reasonable question then might be “Are there security advantages if I went with someone else?”  I’ll explore this question in relation to PDF and document viewers.

The first thing to realize about a “PDF vulnerability” or a “Word vulnerability” is that this is actually shorthand for “A vulnerability in application X when acting on files of type Y” where Y happens to be a PDF or Word document.  An in-the-wild exploit that uses a PDF vulnerability must target a specific application, usually Adobe Acrobat Reader, and usually it targets a specific version.  This means that if you are viewing a malicious PDF targeted at Adobe Acrobat Reader with Prizm Content Connect, or Prizm Cloud Connect then this file will most likely fail to render instead of running malicious code.  This is not a new idea, this is Security through Minority.  This is the idea that an attacker has limited time and is trying to extract maximum value out of that time and so they will target the most widespread applications.  While this might be true in the general case, it might not be true in the targeted case.  The number one prediction from Kaspersky Lab’s Security Bulletin 2012 is that targeted attacks and cyber-espionage are on the rise, so it’s something to consider.

Read more on limiting security risks with a document viewer.

In less than a week we will be exhibiting at the European SharePoint Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark for the first time. The show runs from February 4-7 and we will be exhibiting at Stand #77. The conference should offer a good balance of presentations by Microsoft and the independent industry experts that create such a vibrant SharePoint community.

The big draw for Accusoft to the European SharePoint Conference is the chance to increase awareness of the Prizm Content Connect document viewer that integrates with SharePoint.  “This is the largest SharePoint show in Europe and I’m looking forward to finding LOTS of new partners for our channel program,” said Amanda Gold, Channel Partner Manager at Accusoft.

“I think the show will give us key insights into adoption of SharePoint 2013, so we can gear up for our product updates accordingly and also so we can showcase our SharePoint DRM product,” said Prateek Kathpal, Vice President of Viewing Product Strategy at Accusoft. “I am very interested to know how many of our prospective customers are already moving to SharePoint 2013 and how we can fit into the space,” said Amanda.

Read more to learn how to get more out of your SharePoint investment. 

The annual LegalTech® show kicks off next week with the latest trends in legal and e-Discovery technologies at the Hilton New York, January 29-31, 2013. This year’s LegalTech promises to provide an in-depth look at what the technological world has in store for legal practices and offers an expansive exhibit floor with the most extensive gathering of innovative products designed to meet current and future technology needs. 

One of the most popular topics at LegalTech is e-Discovery. LegalTech states that from emerging technology and processes, to new document formats and ever-increasing data volumes, legal teams will need to implement new strategies and tactics in the future to handle e-discovery in a defensible and cost-effective manner. Discovery now typically starts by looking at the electronically stored information.

“I'm looking forward to seeing the latest e-Discovery trends and technologies,” said Prateek Kathpal, Vice President of Viewing Product Strategy at Accusoft.

Read more to download a Whitepaper: Collaboration in e-Discovery.