Richard Simon started the firm as a developer of client server applications, then transformed it into a back-office Internet firm. The perfume-selling website would be, apparently, retail window dressing. Simon went from CEO to consultant. Since swallowing the Marlborough firm and its 65 employees, Envision has gone on a shopping spree, snapping up companies with a range of technologies that make online communication secure. Let's take this in chronological order.
Senders can ship data and block others from forwarding, cutting, pasting or printing it.
Then on May 8 Envision bought LiQ Inc., a New York firm with a technology that allows users to communicate securely by voice, video or written word over the Net or on corporate intranets. Today the company announced it has singed a letter of intent to buy PureEdge Solutions of British Columbia. That company's technology allows for the secure digital exchange of legally binding documents or other commercial transactions. Just this week PureEdge unveiled a service allowing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to accept legal filings from companies over the Internet. But that's not where Envision wants to stop.