Question:
TechnoLawyer member wrote: "A third group of TechnoLawyer subscribers don't want any restrictions imposed on their creativity. They write about whatever they damn well please -- old discussion topics, seminars, war stories, product reviews, etc. Their Posts appear in our popular "Fat Friday" newsletter."

Answer:
This is purely FYI, and is a result of my attending San Francisco LegalTech, in addition to some recent product research (and purchases). When I was in-house litigation support, I would typically shift into "research mode" when we had a few days of calm, especially when we could squeeze in a tech show. The same plan still works well for me, particularly in the middle of a techno-rush as I believe we are now experiencing. I am not going to try to cover any ASPs or service providers, however, there are some fantastic improvements in that area as well. Rather, I will mention a few software upgrades and one new product that warrant a look- not to say there aren't plenty of others, but these are what I have been spending my money on lately.

IPRO Tech http://www.iprocorp.com: Scan-IT and iConvert
iConvert is my favorite type of software (free!). I'm not sure how long it will remain that way, but for now, it may be downloaded directly from their site. It is a load file converter, and it works very well. You have the option to convert several popular load file formats into others (e.g., dii to oll, lfp, etc.). Even though it may sound too good to be true, it's legit.

Scan-IT now brings an affordable version of IPRO's powerful service-bureau level software to your desktop. This should be a great asset to many in-house litigation support groups, consultants, and even smaller production shops.

Image Capture Engineering http://www.imagecap.com: Z-Print
I've looked at Z-Print for quite a while. Now I'm buying it. When I ran the latest demo on a .pst file and converted to tiffs, that was all it took. It's so easy, and I couldn't find anything comparable. Of course the TIFF driver is great too, and additional files and features are the frosting. These guys are really busy coming out with some great stuff.

Summation http://www.summation.com: iBlaze version 2
I have been around Summation for a while, but this latest is very worth the upgrade (especially since most can get it free with the maintenance agreement). Too much to cover, but it now imports e-mails and native file formats. It has a great new user interface.

inData http://www.indatacorp.com: TrialDirector Suite 3.1, Case OCR, DVT Clip Distiller
This one pays most of my bills anyway, but the inData developers are hard at it, with tons of great new features. Again, there is a lot to cover, but I will say that if the learning curve (or cost) was the issue in the past, it's pretty much gone.

Please understand that these are my own opinions, that I am writing of my own free will, and that I am not being compensated for or by any of the above. My motivation is that when I was busy trying to research new products, I would always appreciate the "inside scoop" from actual users, which I feel is one of the greatest parts of this forum. I hope some would find this information valuable, and although I would not claim to be an expert in all of them, I would be happy to discuss any of it further offline, preferably via e-mail. (I'm sure I've opened my door for a barrage of vendor info now ...)