Cross-Platform Tools Vendor Now Poised for Launch of Second-Generation Product
Saratoga, CA – September 3, 1996 – Willows Software, Inc., the developer of cross-platform tools for porting Windows applications to UNIX, Macintosh, JAVA and other platforms, today announced the appointment of Laurent Gharda to Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Gharda, former president and founder of QualSoft Corporation, brings 17 years of sales and marketing experience in the industry to this position and to the Willows’ board of directors as a newly appointed member. He also brings QualSoft’s entire sales, marketing and technical support staff and an East Coast regional sales office to Willows Software. This move positions Willows to aggressively launch its second-generation 32-bit Windows API-based cross-platform toolkit.
“We knew we needed to strengthen our sales, marketing and technical support efforts to support the increased demand for our second-generation product, the Willows Toolkit 2.0,” said Rob Farnum, president and founder of Willows Software. “QualSoft had been successfully selling and supporting complementary products to the same customer base which allows us save the nine to twelve months it would have taken to staff up in these areas,” Farnum stressed. “We have thousands of registered users who are going to need help moving to the new Toolkit. The acquisition of QualSoft including its East Coast regional sales office enables us to address this demand.”
“While QualSoft was very successful in assisting software teams across North America meet their development and migration objectives, our role as a distributor limited our ability to influence product direction sufficiently to benefit our customer base,” said Laurent Gharda. “Our lack of intellectual property ownership and our reliance on external development organizations prevented us from moving quickly enough to meet our customers’ changing requirements.” Gharda concluded “the combination of QualSoft’s customer orientation with the Willows technology will enable us to both define the content and control the availability of cross-platform solutions required by developers worldwide.”
Willows Software is a leading supplier of cross-platform software development tools and services based on the industry standard Windows API. Willows’ technology allows developers to focus on building the best possible applications, independent of platform, and deploy them royalty-free on Windows, UNIX, Macintosh, JAVA, Netware, real-time systems and other platforms with little or no incremental development effort. Willows Software Corporate Headquarters are located in Saratoga, CA. Telephone: (408) 777-1820 or (800) 814-6476. Fax: (408) 777-1827. World Wide Web: http://www.willows.com. Internet: info@willows.com.
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Darcy Fowkes
Marketing Communications
Willows Software, Inc.
(408) 777-1820 x234
darcy@willows.com