Software companies have spent years developing programs to help people create and store documents.
They have succeeded . . . maybe too well.
Now computer users can easily create documents. But keeping track of them is a different story.
That's where NextPage comes in. Based at 13997 S. Minuteman Drive in Draper, the 30-employee firm claims its new NextPage 1.5 software will "eliminate ad hoc document chaos for millions of business professionals who use Microsoft Office every day."
Considering about 7.5 billion Office documents are created every year, and 20 million "power users" of the Microsoft product are churning out more every day, NextPage thinks it has a great target market, said Darren Lee, the company's president and chief executive officer.
Lee said NextPage 1.5 is "very simple to use, it's easy and it's lightweight. . . . (It) installs in minutes, and it works right in Microsoft Office. You're not having to learn a brand new application to make this thing work."
And NextPage is getting rave reviews.
For example, Lee said, one client using the NextPage product was negotiating an agreement that eventually went through 70 different versions. The hardest part of the process, he said, was making sure everyone was working with the latest version of the document and getting all of the edits in correctly.
NextPage 1.5 makes that happen, Lee said. The program lets users see who has been working on a document, what types of changes have been made, when new versions become available, where different versions are stored and how different versions fit together.
Since its February launch, NextPage 1.5 has had about 800 downloads, Lee said. It has a subscription price of $250 per year, per user.
"Inherent in this whole thing is a shift in the software industry," he said.
"With the ubiquity of the Internet and e-mail, now we can address ad hoc business processes."
In addition to helping companies negotiate agreements or create contract proposals, Lee said, the software should help businesses improve their relationships with clients.
"If you can bring some order to that chaos, we really streamline that relationship with the customer," he said.
Lee said the program's initial success positions the company for growth. And Lee knows something about growing companies.
A Brigham Young University graduate with a degree in electrical and computer engineering, Lee worked in New York and Washington, D.C., before coming to Utah to found Knowlix Corp. with a friend. They eventually sold that business to Peregrine Systems, and Lee started NextPage in July 1999 with another friend.
NextPage immediately started buying other companies, including Complete Data Solutions in January 2000, netLens Inc. in January 2001 and Folio Corp. in March 2001.
Lee took on the role of CEO in 2002, and the idea for NextPage 1.5 was born. So the company operated in two parts, one to run the existing profitable businesses and the other to develop the new application.
"It was just a seedling of an idea at that point," he said.
By the time NextPage 1.5 was ready for launch, "we had been working on the product for about 18 months in stealth mode."
Confident in the success of the new product, NextPage sold off its profitable parts in September 2004 to Fast Search & Transfer.
And now, Lee said, the company is ready for the next step.
"The bulk of our growth will be here (in Draper)," he said.
"The opportunity is so big, and we're so new into it, but we've got years to go and the financing to do it."
E-mail: gkratz@desnews.com