February 5th, 2001 was my first day as Sales Manager at Stardock! It has been a great adventure and I am grateful for the experience.
In early 2001, Microsoft was about to release a new operating system called Windows XP. We were unsure how that would effect us and tension was high. We worked with Microsoft, the release of WindowBlinds 3 was announced at Microsoft Great Lakes, we became first a Microsoft Partner and then a Gold Partner. Today, Stardock is considered a high level ISV by Microsoft and we are in several programs for Vista development.
There have been so many, many good times since. Even the "bad times" were made better by being at Stardock. I remember gathering around the television set at the old Stardock office and watching the World Trade Center destruction with Brad, Angie, Kris and all the other Stardockians. We were all together on that day. In the days that followed, I found a lot of solace in Internet conversations. Many of the friendships that came out of that dark time have endured to this day.
In March of 2001, eFront collapsed. It looked for a time like that would be the end of skinning, as the major skin library sites derived their revenue from eFront banner ads. Instead, Stardock established the WinCustomize site and skinning became bigger than ever.
Sales of Stardock software products have grown tremendously, not only in the consumer sphere, but in the corporate sector, where some of the top Fortune 500 and even Fortune 10 companies license Stardock technologies. We work with Reuters, ATI, General Electric, SONY, BellSouth, T-Mobile, Motorola, Kodak, Autodesk and many more to provide skinning technology for their products.
Theme Manager has been used as a desktop marketing tool for the launch of new products, movies, games or simply to increase awareness of a brand. We helped launch the Nintendo Game Cube in 2002, the original X-Box console, Goodyear's Assurance Tires and many more. We provide the skinning for everything from Alienware computers to Zippo lighters.
Our games division has produced best selling titles including The Corporate Machine, The Political Machine and the Galactic Civilizations series. We have worked with tier one publishers like Ubisoft and Take Two Games. Our gaming network grew from Drengin.net (which carried Stardock titles exclusively) to Totalgaming.net, an on-line publisher.
In 2001, Stardock used 5 MB of bandwidth, based out of a nearby co-location site. Today we are at close to 200MB out of two different locations. WinCustomize, JoeUser and Totalgaming.net receive millions of visitors each month.
I have been fortunate to work with some of the best and brightest developers, skinners, gaming artists and business people in the world. I count myself as blessed every day. I want to thank Brad and Angie for giving me this opportunity. Special thanks to Neil (Wblinds), Adam (SkinStudio), Brian (Theme Manager and Icon Packager), JeffB (ObjectDock and Object Bar) and Alberto (DesktopX) for being patient and teaching me. Always thanks to Kris (Nakor) Kwilas and Pat (T-Man) Ford for not letting me break (too many) things. And for often fixing what I did break before too many people found out.
Thanks always to the skinners, long may you skin. Thanks to Alexandrie and Treetog for helping me get started. Thanks to GreenReaper and PJPowell for answering my questions, over and over again. Thanks to Mercury for WhatIstheMatrix, the first skin that opened my eyes. Here's a toast to BoXXi, Essorant, MikeB, Hippy, always to Voo, Mormegil, Pas/Snidely Whiplash, Adni, Danilloc, PixelPirate and all the others that fill the world with brightness and beauty.
To all the game developers for the fun. To Cari and Scott, for all the good works. LightWeight Ninja was a part of my kids' childhood days. My daughter Lauren had a signed LWN screenshot in her room for years. To AlexG, for showing Jon what a bright mind can do with PhotoShop.
To all the bloggers for making JoeUser the community that it is. We argue, we fight, we share...just like family.
Special thanks to Brad (Frogboy) Wardell, who has been a boss, a comrade and, most of all, a friend. Brad is brilliant and enegetic and fun to work with. He is also remarkably moral and visionary...and charitable. Most of his good works are anonymous. He helps people, behind the scenes. He is also modest, so I won't embarass him much further, except to say that he has enriched my life and the lives of my family. I don't mean (just) monetarily. I was talking to my son a couple of weeks ago. I asked Jon about the accomplishments that he was most proud of. Brad let him work part-time at Stardock when he a young teenager. (Now Jon is an old teenager, you see...) Jon worked on the Tech tree for the original Gal Civ and that was one of his proudest moments. Thank you, Brad.
Here's to Stardock, where the question is "Did you make your Widget today?"