About WhippleWare
In 1991, a guy named Ben Whipple used a then-new
computer language to write software for his doctoral research at MIT.
Ben was mostly delighted with the language (
aka VB) but was frustrated with certain aspects of it. He created an optimization
tool for his own use that went on to win numerous awards and sold tens
of thousands of copies. He expanded the product line with other programming
tools, and rode high on the hog while VB and
desktop programming grew explosively in the 1990s. In 1993, 3 companies'
products received Editor's Choice Awards from the premier industry magazine,
;
Microsoft, Borland... and WhippleWare! It was great fun while it lasted.
Then along came the world wide web, slowly deflating the VB balloon as
Microsoft's efforts to reposition VB for programming the web proved too
little too late. VB didn't die (there's still an awful lot of Windows
desktops out there) but the growth and excitement in the programming world
moved to web-oriented markup languages, scripting languages, and Java.
Many companies selling VB tools disappeared. Always conservatively managed,
WhippleWare did not, though Ben did stop spending big bucks on advertising.
When the Internet bubble burst, the programming business
imploded with it. Good programmers went from near-rock star status to
unemployment, with insult added to injury as many of the jobs that remained
were "outsourced" to India. Needless to say, it became difficult
to make much of a living selling programming tools.
So whither WhippleWare? Would Ben have to throw in the towel
and get a real job? Go back to making furniture? Finish his PhD? As Ben
contemplated these big questions, he considered several things and gradually
came to a conclusion:
1) He was born to write software. It's
to someone who's never done it, but programming computers can thoroughly
engage both halves of the brain in intense creative activity that poses
simultaneous technical and artistic challenges. Ben loves doing it and
he is pretty good at it (during the VB boom, for example, two other companies
attempted to market competitive tools but Ben's tools blew them away).
So if at all possible, he wanted to keep writing software.
2) Manipulating images with computers had been a hobby for
years. Ben was scanning photographs with a fax machine 10 years ago and
playing with whatever imaging software was available (anyone remember
DrawPerfect?). He bought his first digital camera in 1999 and immediately
began creating software tools for personal use to fiddle with the images
(and yes, he started posting family pictures on the web).
3) There aren't as many people writing VB software as there
used to be, but there are a whole lot
more people using digital cameras. The digital camera market exploded
in 2003, when the technology hit a sweet spot with reasonably priced cameras
and printers able to create images that looked every bit as good as film
but with all of the benefits of being digital. Film photography seems
well on its way to joining buggy whips in the technological dustbin.
4) People's satisfaction with digital photography is mediated
by the software they use to manage and manipulate the output of their
digital cameras. Discussions with camera owners and a review of available
software convinced Ben that therein lay an opportunity. Hence:
Whipple's
Imaging Toolkit (WhipIT)
The goal of WhipIT, broadly stated, is to provide software
tools that increase user satisfaction with digital photography. Put less
grandly, the goal is to simplify the process (hence tools like the Camera
Download Wizard), yet at the same time make more accessible some of the
very cool things that can be done with digitized images (hence tools like
Easel). WhipIT is aiming for a niche somewhere between the mostly lousy
free software that comes with cameras and overpriced professional tools
like .
While the product line at WhippleWare is changing, the basic
principles of doing business that brought previous success are not:
Our customers are not only always right,
they give us our best ideas. So when you contact WhippleWare, you'll talk
to the guy who writes the code. And he'll listen to you.
We maintain no inventory, continually
test and improve our products, and fix all problems when reported. We
don't ship software with known bugs. Our tech support line hardly ever
rings, and we want to keep it that way.
We trust our customers and unconditionally
guarantee their satisfaction. None of this
"unless
you open the package" or "if it doesn't do what we say it does"
nonsense. If you aren't 100% satisfied for any reason at all, simply uninstall
and return the product within 30 days and we'll refund everything except
shipping and handling. The only question we'll ask: Why weren't you satisfied?