It comes down to three words: Ethos, Ethics, and Excitement. Please allow me to explain.
Ethos
When I speak to users from around the world, I find that Inmagic’s user are most often attracted to our products because you agree with Inmagic’s ethos. Our ethos infuses the way we build software and how we serve our customers. At the core of this ethos is a belief that says - we should build flexible, powerful software that non-techies can use in order to build, manage, and share critical information. Unlike many firms, Inmagic has always focused on building software that serves many industries rather than just one industry. We've served special libraries, archives, museums, associations, law firms, etc. since day one. We did not originate with a hardwired application, but rather a set of powerful tools that customers could easily adapt and bend to meet their unique needs.
While searching for a new partner, Inmagic focused on finding an organization that would enable us to build on this ethos and capitalize on synergies. Happily, we found a like-minded partner / parent in SydneyPLUS. While best known for its long standing ILS, SydneyPLUS now builds highly flexible software that adapts to meet the needs of each unique client. In fact, SydneyPLUS's "Information Manager" product, delivers a flexible and adaptable solution similar to Inmagic products and one that is not available from other ILS vendors or other possible parents. In addition, a sister SydneyPLUS company, Cuadra Associates, develops and implements an information management product called "STAR," that over the years I have frequently referred to as "DB/Text for Unix."
When looking for our next partner and reviewing the market leaders, we found that the fit in terms of ethos with SydneyPLUS was second to none.
Ethics
Inmagic has always felt that strong ethical treatment of customers, staff and partners was not a goal, but a requirement. When we went looking for a partner, we wanted a company that would also meet this high ethical bar. We wanted to know that Inmagic's strong beliefs would not be changed or compromised as a result of a new relationship. From previous experience and as a result of our research, we learned that some organizations make customers pay to export the customer's own data from their products. Others often sell a bare-bones system and then nickel and dime for additional components and capabilities necessary to operate as a complete integrated library solution. At Inmagic, we sell our Genie ILS with all the modules included and then allow you to choose the modules you deploy so that you never have any additional fees. We wanted a partner who was supportive of this approach and where you can export the data any time you want, to either XML or to MARC (if you catalog in MARC).
We wanted a partner / parent that would not compromise these ethical business practices and we found that partner in SydneyPLUS.
Excitement
When Inmagic first took outside investment money from Edison Investment in 2007, we were full of excitement. Fresh capital to pursue our dreams and grow the company. Unfortunately, the excitement and shared vision did not last long. The traditional markets we served were not looked at as being strategic and we were told to find faster growing markets. After finding a few markets attractive to venture capital type investors, we decided that Inmagic's long standing customers would be best served by spinning out the "traditional" business. Thus begin the search for a good, stable, long term partner / parent, for Inmagic. When the pieces began to fall in place with SydneyPLUS, we were thrilled. With SydneyPLUS, we found a partner / parent that understood our market, our customers, and all of the challenges that come from serving non-profits, small archives, and the plethora of organizations that employ special librarians. And they shared our ethos for flexible solutions and our ethics to boot. You bet we were excited. We can now move forward and focus on our customers, accelerate development and be true to our heritage and culture. YAHOOO!
Closing
So why did Inmagic choose SydneyPLUS? Three words: ethos, ethics and excitement.
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