Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ: SLP – News ), a leading provider of simulation and modeling software for pharmaceutical discovery and development, announces the launch of a new product for the popular iPhone based on its long-standing Abbreviate! software for personal computers.
Walt Woltosz, chairman and CEO of Simulations Plus, said, “This exciting new product is not in our usual pharmaceutical software business, but it takes advantage of the work we’ve done over the years in our Words+ subsidiary in developing language strategies that help users of our augmentative communication software to communicate faster and with less effort. Years ago we recognized that some of those technologies could benefit everyone, not just those who experience physical disabilities, and we created Abbreviate! for the PC. It has been used by people in all walks of life, but has seen especially strong usage by medical transcriptionists, legal secretaries, and others who make their living by typing. For medical transcriptionists, the faster they can type out text containing long medical terms, the more money they make. With Abbreviate! they can type considerably faster and they avoid spelling errors by using a few keystrokes to represent many more, such as ‘ostp’ for ‘osteoporosis’ or ‘rha’ for ‘rheumatoid arthritis’. Legal professionals use abbreviations such as ‘phg’ for ‘preliminary hearing’ or ‘stp’ for ‘stipulate’. Almost everyone can use common abbreviations for frequently used words and phrases such as ‘iwl’ for ‘I would like’ and ‘wyl’ for ‘would you like’.
“I’ve used Abbreviate! for years on my PC, so I miss it when I’m on anyone else’s computer. When I first had an iPhone, I missed having Abbreviate! on it. We believed it would be a fantastic application for those who do much text typing on these highly popular devices. I’ve had a beta version on my iPhone for some time now, and it’s such a convenience to be able to use all the abbreviations I use on the PC, which have become second-nature to me after years of use. We’re very pleased to announce that it has now been launched and is available in the Apple Store.”
Woltosz continued, “Earlier this year it was reported that, at that time, Apple had over 50 million iPhone and iPod Touch customers. We believe that millions of those users frequently type e-mails on their devices. With Abbreviate! for the iPhone, these people can significantly reduce the time required to type an e-mail or other lengthy text. It’s easy to compose an e-mail in the Abbreviate! window and then transfer the text to the Email application with a single button. The Abbreviate! web site www.abbrv.com shows a video of an example of the time difference in typing a typical e-mail with and without Abbreviate!. We believe that Abbreviate! could become one of the most-used applications on the iPhone.”