Copernic
 | |
| Subsidiary of Constellation Software Inc. (TSX: CSU) | |
| Industry | Computer software |
| Founded |
July 31, 1996 Quebec City, Quebec, Canada |
| Founder | Martin Bouchard & Eric Bouchard |
| Headquarters | Quebec City, Quebec, Canada |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Copernic Desktop Search, Copernic Agent, Copernic Tracker, Copernic Summarizer |
| Services |
myCopernic Copernic Online Backup |
Number of employees | 10 |
| Website | Copernic.com |
Copernic Inc. is a company based in Quebec, Canada specializing in desktop metasearch engine technology for information on the World Wide Web. They also provide home and business software products for desktop, web and mobile users through their web sites.
History
Mamma.com was launched in July 1996 by Herman Tumurcuoglu in Montreal, Canada.[1] It was one of the web's first tier 2 metasearch engines.
Copernic Technologies Inc. was incorporated In July, 1996, under the name Agents Technology Inc.
On December 22, 2005, Mamma.com completed its acquisition of "Copernic Technologies Inc.", a search technology company founded in July 1996 in Quebec City and maker of the desktop search utility Copernic Desktop Search. In the preceding fiscal year Copernic had a revenue of about $5.9 million and an EBITDA of about $1.8 million; Mamma.com paid $15.9 million and issued 2,380,000 common shares.[2]
On June 8, 2007, Mamma.com Inc. changed its name to Copernic Inc., received a new stock symbol CNIC,[3] (effective June 14, 2007), and launched its new corporate website.
On November 17, 2008, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had charged Mark Cuban with insider trading. It was alleged that he directed his broker to sell his entire 600,000 shares of stock in the company to avoid losses in excess of $750,000 based on insider information.[4]
On June 30, 2009, Copernic completed the sale of Mamma.com and its third party Ad Net to Empresario, a privately owned digital media network based in Chicago Illinois. Transaction took place as planned by the two companies and will allow Copernic to reflect the details in their Q2 report. The company proceeded to this sale in order to focus the company on new product offers.[5]
On November 4, 2010, Copernic joins the family of N. Harris Computer Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Constellation Software Inc. [6]
Products
Copernic Desktop Search is a commercial utility for the Microsoft Windows family operating systems. It allows the user to instantly search files, e-mails, and e-mail attachments stored anywhere on a PC's hard drive. There are three versions of Copernic Desktop Search (CDS) available, each offering a variety of features. The Home version is a light and free version, with a few less features than the Professional and Corporate versions. The Professional version includes features such as the ability to search on network drives. The Corporate version offers the ability to search IBM Lotus Notes and there is a deployment tool for major organizations.
Copernic Agent is a metasearch utility for the Microsoft Windows family operating systems. As of January 31, 2014, Copernic announces that Copernic Agent Professional will no longer be available for sale on January 31. Therefore, new and existing installations will not be updated to include new features or fixes. There used to be three versions of Copernic Agent available, each offering a variety of features. The Basic version was a light version, with fewer features than the Personal and Professional versions, and was free for non-commercial use. The Personal version had no ads, and the Professional version included a summarizer, to summarize web pages. There is only a single version currently available, which is free, but is ad supported. It includes a number of ads in its search results, increasing the results you need to sift through to find what you are looking for. (At roughly the same time, WebFerret also began offering only an ad supported version). There is currently no application available from any vendor, whether free or commercial, without many ads in the results, like the Personal or Professional versions had been.
References
- ↑ "Copernic Inc.". Canada Business Directory. Archived from the original on 2012-03-31. Retrieved 2015-10-11.
- ↑ "Mamma.Com Inc. Acquires Copernic for $15.9 Million & 2.38 Million Common Shares". Copernic. 2005-12-22. Retrieved 2007-09-07.
- ↑ Yahoo! Finance
- ↑ "SEC charges Mark Cuban with Insider Trading".
- ↑ "Close of Sale of Copernic Search Assets to Empresario".
- ↑ csisoftware.com