Doculabs Calls Introduction Of Enhanced Lava Enabler "Turning Point For The Industry"

New White Paper Praises LAVA's Integration with Line-of-Business Systems; Features Prompt Doculabs to Add Criteria to Benchmark Testing Methodology for Document Management Systems

Toronto, ON - 1997-04-21 - LAVA Systems Inc. (TSE: LVA) today released the results of a strategic review of its recently introduced LAVA 5.0 and enhanced LAVA Enabler products and its strategy to information-enable enterprises. The review, conducted by Doculabs, a leading independent research, testing and advisory firm, praised LAVA Systems' integrated document management, imaging and workflow products for being far ahead of their peers in integrating with line-of-business applications. Doculabs also called LAVA Enabler's introduction and the company's strategy "a turning point for the industry" in line-of-business integration.

"...A real document management challenge for organizations is to compliment existing systems by tying document management functionality to existing host-based systems....By adding functionality and giving systems a second wind, the investments made in core processing technology can keep yielding results and adding value to the systems for years to come," states the report from Doculabs. "It is Doculabs' opinion, having assessed, tested and evaluated all of the major document management providers in its recent 1997 Benchmark study that few offer as rich an environment for line-of-business, transaction processing integration as LAVA....The introduction of LAVA 5.0 and LAVA Enabler , with their powerful integration capabilities, signifies a turning point for the industry. While other systems do have integration tools, they tend to be very simplistic and lacking real utility."

James Watson, senior research analyst with Doculabs and one of the primary authors of the report, said, "Doculabs believes the integration of document management with existing line-of-business systems is the necessary evolution of this market -- so much so that as a result of our evaluation of LAVA Systems' products and strategy we have created a separate benchmark category for integration. LAVA Systems' information-enabled enterprise clearly represents the next step for enterprise document management."

Peter Hamilton, LAVA Systems' president and CEO, said, "We were very happy to receive such a strong validation of our products and strategy from Doculabs. As the foremost independent research and testing firm in the industry, their approval is very meaningful.

"The fact that Doculabs has added integration to its standard criteria for evaluating enterprise document management systems shows the industry is beginning to realize the importance of such capabilities," said Hamilton. "LAVA Systems has not only recognized this in theory but is already delivering products that make this vision a reality."

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