The case set a precedent in American law whereby satiric commercial software products are not subject to the same First Amendment exemptions as parodic cartoons or literature.

[4] Delrina was Bennie's third major entrepreneurial start up after co-founding Mission Electronics, a high-end home entertainment equipment producer, and Aviva Software, which became Ingram Micro Canada.

[8] What helped set apart Delrina's electronic forms from its competitors in product reviews included its easy-to-use interface, its extensive development tools, and its comparatively low price.

[17] The firm subsequently sought to find ways to more widely distribute its electronic form software, with Bennie saying in May 1992 that "we've barely scratched the surface of our market".

[23] Delrina subsequently signed deals with Wallace Computer Services,[24] UARCO and NCR Corporation in an effort to gain greater sales distribution of its products.

[26] Software developer Tony Davis (another South African expatriate who had moved to Canada) was initially hired as a consultant to work on the forms line of products in the late 1980s, soon afterwards becoming part of that team.

In 1990 Delrina devoted a relatively small space to this new product at that year's COMDEX (a computer trade show),[27] under a sign that said simply: "Send a Fax from Your PC".

[30][31] By the summer of the following year this number had grown to 50 OEM partnerships with various fax-modem and computer system manufacturers to bundle the "LITE" version of Delrina's WinFax software with their own products.

Whenever a person used the program for the first time and submitted their registration information by fax to the company, Delrina would subsequently mail the user an upgrade offer for the PRO version.

[49] The case drew political satirist Mark Russell to speak in defense of Delrina, who argued in favour of the screensaver as a valid parody, while the estate of composer Irving Berlin sided with Berkeley.

[50] Commenting on the case involving his characters, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed said: "If David Letterman can depict the NBC peacock wearing men's boxer shorts, then Delrina should be able to plug a flying toaster with hot lead".

[51] Judge Eugene Lynch found in favour of Berkeley, citing that a commercial software product was not subject to the same exemptions as parodist literature,[52] and that the toasters were too similar in design.

[56] While Delrina lost the court case, the publicity it generated was substantial, with coverage in over a thousand newspapers across North America, resulting in consumers turning out in droves to buy the offending program before it could be recalled.

[60] By the end of 1994 the situation had improved to the point where noted industry commentator Robert X. Cringely put Delrina in his shortlist of firms providing "exceptional" product support.

[5] The firm's financial situation improved greatly, and by February 1995 Delrina was reported to have captured almost three-quarters of the fax software market, was debt-free and had $40 million in the bank.

In November 1992 Skapinker met Bill Gates at a Microsoft-sponsored dinner where he asked whether there were any plans to include any fax functionality in their forthcoming operating system (which could become Windows 95).

Gates replied that there were plans to include "base-level fax capability" in the next version of Windows, and suggested that Skapinker get in touch with his development staff in order to produce a value-added product for it.

Created by a development team based in South Africa, it included a Web browser, Usenet news reader, ftp client, IRC and integration with the Microsoft Exchange email program.

[78] In late Spring of 1995, Delrina Chairman Dennis Bennie met with Symantec CEO Gordon Eubanks to discuss the possibility of merging the two firms.

With investments from Skapinker and Amato, and Bennie as lead Director, Davis went on to form Lanacom, which developed an early Internet "push content" product.

This firm and its technology were sold just over a year after its inception to Backweb, a NASDAQ listed software company; Davis remained president and Bennie was brought on as Director.

XDL has assembled an established board and advisory team, which includes Canadian billionaire Robert Young, a native of Hamilton, Ontario, who co-founded Red Hat Inc (RHAT) and remains its chairman.

Several of XDL's venture investments were in companies started or run by ex-Delrina employees who founded successful businesses, fostered by the innovative and entrepreneurial environment of Delrina.

Daily planning software remains a niche market, and the immersive 3D environment used for creating multimedia presentations has (so far) fallen by the wayside in favour of more traditional user interfaces.

[90] Delrina is best remembered by its former employees as an incubator for ideas and for providing industry experience to the many people who would go on to work at subsequent software and hardware companies, many in the Toronto region.

The program could ease repetitive fill tasks, include mandatory fields, and use an input mask to accept only data entered in a valid format.

The company made further in-roads by establishing tie-ins with modem manufacturers such as U.S. Robotics and Supra that bundled simple versions of the product (called "WinFax LITE") that offered basic functionality.

By 1994 almost one hundred companies were bundling versions of WinFax in with their own product, including IBM, Compaq, AST Research, Gateway 2000, Intel and Hewlett-Packard.

Subsequent screensavers include a licensed version based on the first Flintstone live-action movie, and "The Scott Adams Dilbert Screen Saver Collection" which came out in September 1994.

[105] It was an innovative product for its time,[106][107] and ultimately was hampered by the inability of many users to easily input or playback their own multimedia content into a computer from that period.