FileConversion.NET Obscure File Conversion and Archival Service Debuts

CAMBRIDGE, MA—The FileConversion.NET [http://www.FileConversion.NET] Universal File Reader website debuted this week. The site is a "babel fish" of file converters, universally reading and writing data to file formats of yesterday and today. Launched to fill the gap in archival, operating-system neutral file conversion and content management services, FileConversion.NET is a web application that requires no software to be downloaded. Instead, files are uploaded to the FileConversion.NET website, where they are analyzed to determine their origin file format, then converted to one of hundreds of available modern or legacy file formats, including document formats: Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word DOC, Excel XLS, DocBook; image formats: GIF, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, XPM; and audio/sound formats: MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC to name a few.

Conceived by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate student Matt Mankins, the FileConversion.NET website was spawned from his dual research interests of application user interface design and the aging of the personal computer. Mankins found that there "was no clear, unified method for accessing the data contained in my legacy files. As soon as I retired an antiquated computer, I lost that data and that era of my life. The FileConversion.NET website has a goal to make sure no data is ever unable to be accessed because we cannot understand the file extension or format. As a side goal, I want to throw away my Commodore Amiga from 1987 that I keep in the closet incase I need data created on it."

To achieve this goal of always being able to access the data in your files, FileConversion.NET is building a library of applications that can read and transform data from one file format to another. Recognizing that today's common formats of PDF, DOC, MP3, and PNG may be obsolete tomorrow, the site is amassing a collection of conversion applications, and wrapping them in one unified, easy to use web interface.


Press and analyst contacts:

Yohan Alvarez
yohan@fileconversion.net
617-497-7669