Deal Proof, from West KM, looks like great technology to automate a portion of the tedious document proofreading process. The product has been around for a while, and has been owned by Thomson West for a couple of years.
It looks like it would be incredibly useful for any transactional practice, but the cost of entry is way too high to make it practical for smaller legal departments. Although the product is installed on individual PCs, what I was told yesterday is that West only licenses it on an enterprise basis, and the minimum initial license cost is around $25,000, with 20% annual maintenance. They are apparently targeting practices with at least 15 attorneys.
I think this is a very useful product, and I'd like to see West offer it with a more flexible licensing scheme. For example, why couldn't it be made available as a web service with a per-use cost? That would certainly get more people to use it, and some would probably decide a full license would be a good investment.
