Biscom Delivery Server

Biscom’s legal business continues to grow! We are pleased to announce the addition of 5 new legal clients. Our growth is the result of Biscom’s laser focus on the legal industry. During the last 2 years Biscom has collaborated with our legal clients to identify and deliver features and enhancements to better meet the secure document needs of law firms and corporate legal departments. Of particular focus for us has been the litigation and practice support groups that have a need for a high performance file and folder upload capability to support production discovery environments. We are also hearing from law firms that are increasingly concerned about the unsanctioned use of hosted file transfer services that increase the firm’s exposure to unauthorized access to confidential client data. Our strong encryption and authentication features as well as on-premise deployment are critical to helping our legal clients offer an easy to use, firm sanctioned self service secure file transfer facility to attorneys and administrative staff. And we are not resting on our laurels. Stay tuned for future announcements of product enhancements designed to improve attorney/client collaboration.

We have a lot of customers using BDS for HR – obviously HR departments have lots of personal information and they do have to work with insurance companies, health plans, payroll, etc. Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, a top law firm with offices in Washington, New York, Tampa, and Baltimore, started off using BDS in its HR department. News of the success led to the expansion of BDS to its litigation support team, and now is firm-wide.

CIO Shawn Mitowski just penned an article on FindLaw detailing how he chose Biscom’s secure file transfer solution to solve the security concerns of e-mail, and other unsecure methods to exchange documents. Big selling points were ease of use and security, as well as large file support. Thanks for the nice article Shawn!

We got a nice mention in Law Technology News announcing three law firms – Gilbert, von Briesen & Roper, and Jackson Lewis – who all selected BDS for their secure file transfer requirements. They are using BDS for large litigation files, confidential health and estate planning documents, and like most of our customers, will find many more areas they can leverage the security and reporting capabilities of BDS.

Mark Haas from Massachusetts General Hospital penned an article in the April 2011 edition of the Journal of AHIMA discussing how MGH solved their release of information (ROI) problem using Biscom Delivery Server.

This is a great story about BDS in a software as a service (SaaS) environment. BankLiberty was looking for a faster, more secure, and more efficient way to send their confidential information out. KDSA Consulting, our partner in North Andover, MA, hosts our secure file transfer solution in their datacenter, handling the back end so our customers don’t have to worry about hardware, software, and network connectivity.

My favorite quote in the article, by network administrator Dan Hagstrom, was when he said that “the results in 2010 have been transformative. It’s changed the way that we can communicate with the outside world.”

Next week, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is holding their annual conference and exhibit for Health Information Management in Orlando, Florida. It’s a pretty big show, and one reason to attend is to see Mark Haas from Mass General Hospital (MGH) discuss how they’ve solved their release of information (ROI) issue with BDS. With BDS, their medical records department can securely and quickly deliver confidential patient information to patients, insurance companies, attorneys, and medical billing service companies.

Mark’s session, DIY ROI – Do It Yourself Release of Information Is Finally Here,  is on Wednesday, September 29th, at 9:15am. Mark has a great story to tell so, if you’re attending, make sure you catch his presentation.

SpaceX is one of those uber-cool companies that is doing what many of us wish we could – launch rocketships. Big ones. I fondly recall my little Estes rocket with the D engine. Well, these days, Elon Musk, one of the founders of PayPal, Tesla motors, and other ventures, has stepped things up from cardboard tubes and solar ignitors with his company Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. He’s launching massive lift vehicles to help provide transportation services as it’s getting pretty hard to supply the international space station with the impending shuttle retirement. And with a bevy of private space companies vying for various forms of space travel for mere mortals, someone needs to be the picks and shovels of the new gold rush.

We had a great conversation with Branden Spikes, CIO of SpaceX and he told us how they use BDS to send their confidential and large files securely and quickly to scientists, researchers, contractors, vendors, and other collaborators. SpaceX employees were spending way too much time sending files instead of launching rockets, so we stepped in and let them focus on what they do best, and let us worry about secure file transfers.

According to Spikes, “One of the biggest benefits of BDS is that it can run on our own network in the way I want to run it. BDS was the only solution that offered this level of configuration and customization….In fact, we’ve reduced the time to encrypt and send files from two hours to less than two minutes.”

Read the full case study if you’re a space nut like me.

Our Legal Practice Manager Charlie Magliato is going to be hosting a webinar on managing large email attachments, with special guest Bruce Bial, IT Director at Riemer & Braunstein. You’ll see how Bruce and his team implemented BDS to handle their secure file transfer needs and eliminated large file attachments from going through their Exchange server.

The webinar is scheduled for Thursday, February 25, 2010 from 2-3pm EST.

Click here to register!

I’ll be speaking with Dave Brown from Rockland Trust (see previous blog entry) at the AIIM show in Philadelphia (March 30-April 2, 2009) and AIIM has been kind enough to provide a $200 discount for any new attendees. You can get the discount code here.

It’s going to be a fun session — Dave has a great story to tell, and I hope it helps others see the potential for a secure file transfer solution in their organization.

Biscom Delivery Server is being used in a lot of different ways — sending medical records and clinical data securely, sharing large multimedia files with design studios and PR agencies, distributing software to customers, and working with local, state and federal government agencies.

But one of our more interesting customers is Rockland Trust, a regional bank here in Massachusetts that is one of the few banks that is actually doing well and growing. Dave Brown, their AVP Information Risk/Security Architect, is what I’d call someone with vision. Or at least he saw the potential for BDS in his company. Dave and I are going to be co-presenting at the AIIM 2009 show in Philadelphia on April 1, 2009 on how Rockland Trust is using BDS to address multiple secure delivery projects internally as well as externally.

One of Dave’s many hats involves handling the data transfers when Rockland Trust acquires another bank. These bank conversions involve moving all customer information, deposits, historicals, and balances so that the customers of the acquired bank can, for example, go to an ATM for either of the banks, and get cash out. It’s also nice when the account balances are correct.

Dave’s been doing bank conversions for 20 years, has executed hundreds of acquisitions, and I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say he’s pretty much an expert on this. So, I take his word when he says that before BDS, there was a lot more to worry about, including whether the magnetic tape backups would be delayed because an airport’s snowed in (yes, this really happened!), or if the the tapes would arrive corrupted, or even if the reel to reel systems of the two banks would be compatible. There are a number of potential issues.

Dave used BDS in an acquisition recently and it apparently went so well, he’s “rewritten the book” on bank conversions, and BDS is now part of Rockland’s SOP. He now includes BDS in the project plans of all his acquisitions, and by doing so, the cut over is seamless for the bank’s customers. Instead of closing on Friday, and re-opening Monday, the acquired bank can be open for business on Saturday morning. The ROI for that is something we’re still trying to figure out, but think about this: no opportunity costs of a branch being closed for one or more days, customers don’t have to wait several days before being able to access their accounts via ATM or online, and the increased confidence and trust customers will have with a bank where everything is handled quickly, efficiently, and smoothly.

So, if you’re going to AIIM this April, you can hear Dave talk about how Rockland Trust is using BDS, not just for bank conversions, but also in all other parts of the organization.