The board of Envision Development Corp. (OTCBB:EDVC) voted today to "temporarily cease" operations in the wake of the withdrawl of support from its sole financial backer, Dominion Capital Resources, a holding company directed by a convicted bank felon and one-time financial advisor of Bill Gates.

Envision said it would continue to look for funding sources. But in a brief statement, it acknowledged "there cannot be any assurance that the company will be successful in such efforts."

All Envision employees have been put on temporary furlough. A company spokesman failed to pinpoint the number of staff, saying only that it was fewer than 50. Envision has offices in Colorado and New York, as well as Marlborough. Company executives will also defer all cash compensation, effective immediately.

Spokesman Leonard Bogner, head of a consulting agency hired by Envision, said he had no idea how long the hunt for cash could continue before Envision permanently pulls the plug.

"I'm not aware of any drop-dead date," Bogner said. "I have no flavor about whether this will take weeks or months. The board decided that this action gave the company the best opportunity to look at funding alternatives."

The announcement brings to a likely close Envision's curious tale. Filled with lawsuits and financial losses, the plot's key element is the company's now-severed connection with Dominion Capital, an investment vehicle controlled by Andrew Evans, a one-time financial advisor to Microsoft's Bill Gates who was convicted of bank fraud.

Evans was a Gates friend and advisor when, in the mid-1980s, he served six months in jail for securing a $500,000 loan from a Seattle bank on false pretenses. Evans borrowed the cash by saying he would invest it in real estate, then used it to meet regulatory requirements for an investment firm he was starting.

By the late-1990s Evans was pulling the strings at Dominion Capital, where he bought a series of Internet penny stocks, then, once their value soared in the Nasdaq run-up, used the paper proceeds to acquire other companies.

One of the businesses thus acquired was Perfumania.com, a Florida-based online seller of perfumes.When that stock soared late last year, Perfumania bought a small Marlborough Web consultancy, Envision Development Corp.

The company then changed its name to Envision, sold the retail perfume business and went on a shopping spree for startups focused on making security software for e-mail, videoconferencing and other online communications.

While Evans didn't sit on the Envision board, his investment company, Dominion, was its sole funder. The company's goal, as defined last spring by CEO Michael Amideo, was to create a CMGI-like holding company for Internet businesses after merging with Zero.net, a San Francisco-based Internet holding company majority-owned by Dominion and Evans.

Shareholders of one of the security software firms bought by Envision this spring, LiQ of New York, have sued, alleging that Envision was a public company in name only, controlled by Evans though his name never appears in its SEC reports.

Another Massachusetts company, Biz2Net Corp. of Millbury, which engaged in merger talks with Perfumania.com last year, sued earlier this year, alleging that Evans and other Envision officials stole its business plan and technology under the guise of phony merger talks.

Meanwhile Envision has been burning through cash at a rate of $1.8 million a month. Between February and July the company reported total losses of $157.6 million on just $493,000 in revenues. Those revenues were all generated by the Envision consulting business bought by Perfumania last year.

Earlier this month Envision sold the consulting business for a $10.25 million loss in an effort to cut operating losses and focus on the security divisions.

The company was also recently delisted from the American Stock Exchange. Presumably trades in the over-the-counter bulletin board market will now be suspended.

Spokesman Bogner said the board remains hopeful of securing cash for its Interosa unit in Colorado, which makes software to secure e-mail and other Internet-delivered data.

Interosa won't generate revenue until next spring at the earliest. But Bogner said the division "is the closest to commercialization." In a statement that sums up the plight of Envision as a whole, he added, "Interosa will need capital sooner rather than later."