QuickRWall 1.5 Free Upgrade!

Here is the new math:

1.5($345) - 1.0($295) = $0.00

For those of you who invested in version 1.0 of QuickRWall, you can check the equation yourself at the online order form. But then, don't bother because this a Free Upgrade. You do not need to order anything, just use the built-in update command:

Help | iesweb.com | Update QuickRWall.

For those of you still using some lesser Retaining Wall Design product, or trying to design walls in bits and pieces with complex FEA meshes and compression-only springs, it is time you tried QuickRWall 1.5.

The improvements have all been customer-directed and customer-tested! The new QuickRWall 1.5 offers superior wall design capabilities with the following benefits:

We have updated the QuickRWall 1.5 web pages with an on-line animated demo, you may also download the free-trial version and use it for 30-days (unless you tried version 1.0). Invest in the quality of your retaining wall designs at just $345 for a single-user license. Order it today!

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1994: IES Virtual Headquarters

"Thanks for calling IES", Melinda spoke pleasantly to the first caller into IES US Headquarters.

Melinda was (and is) the office manager extraordinaire at Creekside Veterinary Hospital in Bozeman, MT. For an all-too-brief period between 1994 and 1997 she was also the complete and total "IES Headquarters" staff. She had two phones on her desk (one for the hospital) and a host of dogs and cats to deal with. We give Melinda lots of credit for making our first customers, loyal customers! Melinda probably knew you by name and your dog's name too!

DOS Rules!
It was June of 1994 when the first sale took place. Ironically, it was a copy of AnalysisGroup for DOS that we sold first. Ironic because we had really wanted to be a Windows outfit and we had added AnalysisGroup for DOS as just a quick way of having two products instead of just one. That product was discontinued a year later when we released the pseudo Windows version. AnalysisGroup for Windows was a thin veil over the old script-based program, but it really got us out of the DOS world for good.

In those early years, Dan and Terry were both working their regular jobs at the university and IES was just a hobby. We set up the virtual office telephone number and the ability to forward calls in case anyone had a technical question. No email. No web site. No office! Just a couple of magazine ads (see last month's VirtualWork) to get the word out and a cheery voice on the phone.

It worked
IES software started going out the door to happy customers. Every day Dan would go home and package up the demo requests and orders; sitting at his computer feeding it floppy disks every 1 minute and 32 seconds. He would deliver them to the post office on his way to work the next day.

Terry handled technical support calls in his spare time. As a graduate research assistant (with too many years of school under his belt and too few degrees to show for it) that spare time occupied most of his day! But with only a dozen customers, the technical support duties were fairly light. Most of the questions in those first years were regarding how to do things in a "Windows way". Everyone kept looking for the command line way of creating members in VisualAnalysis!

Discovering the Business Model
Most of our time was spent in the lab trying to make the software easier to use while adding features that customers started requesting right away. Many of our customers were impressed by the interface but disgruntled by the lack of power they were used to in the $4000 packages they had used in the past.

It really wasn't engineering power that was lacking back then, but practical power. We had not really put our software to the test with real-world sized problems. So it was little things like: 200 page reports, or 15 minutes to scroll through a list of members that upset practicing engineers. In talking to a few upset customers, though, we discovered the secret to our success.

Next Month
Read about the secret of IES success the next issue of VirtualWork.

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