Announcing The Next Generation of CD Recorder Software:
IMR Unveils Alchemy 3.0

Englewood, Colorado -- IMR introduces Alchemy 3.0, the new version of the
award-winning Windows software application for CD recorders. Alchemy 3.0
combines powerful database management, full-text indexing, backup and
retrieval capabilities with a drag & drop interface and built-in CD
recorder support. Version 3.0 solves the problems that have been
associated with CD recorders: that they are hard to use, unreliable, and
require special "premastering" software. As a result, this product is
expected to establish the CD recorder as a reliable, indispensable mass
storage device for businesses.

With the release of 3.0, IMR once again sets the standard for CD-R
applications software. Here are some of the outstanding new features, 
unique to Alchemy 3.0.

Built-in CD recording - copy indexed data on-the-fly to the CD; no need for
premastering software.

Data underrun prevention - copy files from any drive (including file
servers) without disaster.

Retrieve data from unfinished sessions - no more need to waste 14 MB
closing each recording session.

Automated full text and image indexing - defaults are already set for
novice users.

The Alchemist - a "wizard" that automates indexing, recording and searching
a CD-ROM.

The first release of the 3.0 family will be Alchemy Personal, a
fully-functional desktop product that will be bundled with CD recorders
from Philips and Sony. Alchemy Personal will be available in August at a
suggested retail price of $495. Additional bundling arrangements with
major CD-R companies are pending and will be announced later in 1995.
Released later this year will be Alchemy Gold 3.0 for workgroups & MIS,
and Alchemy Professional 3.0 for service bureaus.

Information Management Research Inc
5660 Greenwood Plaza Blvd, Ste 210
Englewood, CO 80111
303-689-0022,  fax 303-689-0055

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                    Who is Using Alchemy?
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Over 500 businesses and government agencies use Alchemy to archive and
distribute data on recordable CD-ROMs. The applications are many, but the
common thread is Alchemy's ability to quickly and easily turn data into a
gold CD, using affordable, off-the-shelf CD-R hardware.

Here are four examples of what Alchemy users are doing with CD-R.

Pharmaceuticals: Replacing Costly Online Databases With CDs

Marketing a drug like Tacrine for Alzheimer's disease requires a database
of thousands of research documents that can quickly, easily and accurately
be searched by doctors. Keeping such a database on a mainframe with dialup
access, however, is a serious barrier to use. To improve the distribution
and accessibility of Tacrine information to its far-flung sales and
research offices, pharmaceutical giant Parke-Davis downloads the data to
CD-ROMs with an inhouse CD-R system. Alchemy and its COLD interface,
DataGrabber, are used to index research papers by full-text content and to
link scanned articles to related text. The resultant CD-ROM database and
runtime retrieval software for DOS and Windows are recorded on a $15 CD
blank. The CDs are mailed to ParkeDavis labs and sales offices around the
globe, and are also placed online at the Corporate Library in Ann Arbor,
MI.

Benefits to them:
* Faster, easier access to data for all employees and customers.
* Dramatic cost savings, compared to online database queries.
* Compliance with the FDA's CANDA initiative
  (drug applications on optical media).

An International Computer Company:
How to Distribute 200 MB of Sales Documents

AT&T Global Information Systems (GIS) has chosen Alchemy to distribute
sales and marketing literature to its worldwide sales force on CD. GIS
maintains over 200 megabytes of price lists, price changes, and product
specifications. Alchemy indexes the Word 6.0 documents by full-text
content, so salespeople can search for words and retrieve a hit list of
documents in a few seconds. The built-in Word 6.0 viewer displays the
document directly from CD; the document can then be printed or copied to a
hard drive, then opened under Word 6.0.

Benefits to AT&T:
* Cost savings through the elimination of paper and decreased
  mailing costs.
* A knowledgeable sales force with all the information needed
  to close the sale.
* The portability of a 200 MB database with a runtime Windows
  retrieval program.

A Railroad Giant: CDs Keep The Trains From Running On Empty

Burlington Northern Railroad ships corn, wheat, coal and every other
imaginable product of the U.S. heartland over its extensive rail system.
By law, Burlington must provide its customers with a comprehensive tariff
pricing report that consists of thousands of individual items, with a
multitude of price variations. The tariffs are updated constantly, and
Burlington must continually update its customers. To improve the
management and useability of all this data, Burlington uses Alchemy and
DataGrabber to index the computer output into individual records that can
be retrieved using query-by-example search. The database and runtime
retrieval software are recorded on a CD, which is sent to a CD mastering
facility for replication. 500 copies are then mailed to Burlington's
customers, who can quickly retrieve, view and print tariff pricing for
their particular commodity.

Benefits to Burlington:
* Cost savings versus printing and mailing reams of paper.
* Saves thousands of dollars by doing the premastering and data
  preparation inhouse.
* Easy to update the database and cut a new CD.
* Accurate and efficient distribution of data.
* Customers love to use the CDs; happy customers ship more!

A Very Large Trucking Company: How to Store and Retrieve Millions of
Trucking Invoices on Low-Cost CDs

This transportation giant annually generates millions of invoices for
trucking services, and has chosen Alchemy and DataGrabber to produce
recordable CD-ROMs for archival. CD-ROM was selected for its low cost,
online accessibility, and portability. The invoice data, which originates
on a mainframe, is linked with an invoice form, when it is retrieved,
operators can view and print the record in its original form. Gigabytes of
data are indexed, compressed and recorded to CD. Alchemy's CD-SPAN feature
enables the data to span multiple CDs, so the customer can easily maintain
a rolling "last 12 months" database.

Benefits to them:
* Cost savings of CD-ROM versus higher-priced optical discs.
* Cost savings with Alchemy's runtime retrieval software versus
  other COLD software that charges annual site license fees.
* Data can be viewed and printed in its original form, increasing
  accuracy and customer service.

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    Alchemy 3.0 Advancements in CD-R Software Technology
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With the objectives of making CD-R easier to use, more powerful for
retrieval, and more
reliable for information managers, IMR's programmers have developed
several
advancements in CD-R software technology that are included in the Alchemy
3.0 family.

1. EMBEDDED PREMASTERING

Problem: In the past, users needed a separate software program (referred to
as "premastering") to write files to a CD-R. This software was costly
($250-$2,000), considered difficult to use by novices, and had no indexing
or retrieval capabilities.

Solution: Alchemy 3.0 is the first data management software to fully embed
the CD writing process, so users are not required to purchase, learn or
run any other software to make CDs for archival, backup and distribution.

2. DATA UNDER-RUN PREVENTION

Problem: Data under-run is a common problem associated with CD Recorders.
When writing files to a CD, the PC must provide a constant, uninterrupted
stream of data to the recorder. Any pauses caused by normal file I/O
operations, or interruptions to recalibrate the drive, would result in a
ruined CD, and the entire recording process would have to be reconstructed
and repeated. The interim solution was to purchase a separate, expensive
SCSI hard drive and copy all files first to that drive before recording.
Users who tried to backup files on-the-fly, directly from drive C: or a
network drive, wasted time and money.

Solution: To prevent data under-runs and allow users to record directly
from any drive, IMR developed a temporary, dynamic pre-recording buffer
that requires only 6 megabytes of hard drive or RAM. Files are first
copied to the buffer from various drives, indexed by full-text and DOS
file information, compressed, then written to the CD-ROM as one 6 MB
"container" file. The recorder is thus fed a small number of large files,
rather than a large number of small files.

3. DATA COMPRESSION FOR CD-ROM

Problem: CD-ROM has a physical limitation of approximately 650 MB.

Solution: Alchemy 3.0 has on-the-fly data compression that produces results
similar to Stacker or DoubleSpace. Typical compression is 2:1, doubling
the capacity of a CD to 1.3 gigabytes. Decompression is handled by the
Alchemy retrieval program. In most cases, compression may actually improve
retrieval performance as well.

4. RETRIEVING DATA WITHOUT CLOSING A RECORDING SESSION

Problem: The ISO 9660 standard enables a CD to be "readable" with the
installed base of CD-ROM drives. This compatibility has a undesirable side
effect: the operation required to "close a session", or make the CD
readable via MSCDEX, consumes from 14 to 26 megabytes on the CD. Suddenly,
a 650 MB CD has much less capacity in a backup and retrieval application.
This overhead was considered to be acceptable when the primary use of CD-R
was publishing, and recordings were typically done in a single session.
However, the new generation of recorders are multi-session, and are priced
to compete with tape backup, removeable disks and 4X CD-ROM readers. Users
will make several recordings to one CD until it fills up, and will want to
access any recorded files at any time. For example, if you recorded files
to the CD on ten separate occasions, and wanted to use the CD for file
retrieval after each occasion, the closing overhead alone would consume
140 to 260 MB!

Solution: Files recorded with Alchemy 3.0 are immediately available for
retrieval without closing the session and incurring the overhead penalty.
The index keeps track of the absolute location of every file on-the CD.
The user can choose to "close" the CD whenever convenient and most
efficient. At that point, Alchemy automatically copies a runtime retrieval
program and the CD's index to the CD before "closing" it. Alchemy writes
in multiple sessions, so the CD can be returned to the recorder and more
data added to it. Or, the CD can be "finalized" (write-protected).

By using Alchemy 3.0 and the same recorder/reader for internal backup and
retrieval applications, users may never need to close a CD. They will have
the full capacity of each CD for their data.

5. BACKUP AND RETRIEVAL

Problem: Until now, there were no software programs for CD-R with features
similar to tape backup software: backup scheduling, backup from several
drives at once, backup changed files only, indexing for fast retrieval,
LAN retrieval, file restoration. Additionally, the technical problems
cited beforehand prevented the reliable use of CD-R for backup.

Solution: Alchemy 3.0 has backup and retrieval features that far exceed
tape backup. For example,

* Indexes are created for the full-text contents of every file, and
  searches can be done by file content, not just filename and date.
* The contents of files can be "previewed" through built-in file
  viewers without restoring the file to a hard drive and opening
  the original application.
* Files can be printed or FAXed directly from the CD.
* Files on the CD are never over-written and cannot be deleted.

6. AUTOMATED FULL-TEXT INDEXING

Problem: Full-text indexing and retrieval is a highly desirable feature to
anyone searching for files on a CD-ROM. However, the vast majority of
Windows users could not operate the full-text indexers that are currently
available. There are so many choices presented to the user: stop words,
indexing characters, minimum word length, text markup, proximity,
relevancy, thesaurus, glossary, keywords, etc.

Solution: In Alchemy 3.0, full-text indexing is embedded into the drag and
drop operations. The user has no need for any special knowledge of
indexing, nor is any file markup or conversion required. Wizards (called
"Alchemists") are even available to coach a first-time user through the
process.

7. SUPPORT FOR LONG FILENAMES

Problem: Premastering software supports only ISO 9660 8.3 filenames. Files
that do not meet that standard (which is stricter than DOS) will be
renamed by the software. This presents obvious problems for file retrieval
using DOS "dir" or Windows File Manager.

Solution: Alchemy 3.0 stores every file using its original DOS filename.
Plus, the user can create long filenames with descriptive terms of up to
256 characters. The long filenames are indexed in a separate field for
retrieval.

8. ORGANIZING AND LINKING FILES

Problem: Organizing, linking and retrieving files that are related
typically requires OLE or a complex hyper-link program. OLE is slow and
can dramatically increase file size. Hyper-link programs may involve
programming or markup.

Solution: In Alchemy 3.0, files can be organized into folders and linked to
each other in a multitude of relationships. For example, all the documents
related to the Jones case can be moved from everyone's separate PC into
one folder on the CD. Scanned images (TIFFs) can be linked to WordPerfect
contracts by drag and drop. A single document can be linked to several
other files by creating a file alias; again, this is a simple drag and
drop operation. When a file is retrieved, all linked files can quickly be
opened and viewed at the same time.

Research into company or agency archives will be vastly improved by this
easy method of creating "contextual" retrieval.

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