After a SIG Spotlight and a Chapter Spotlight, we turn to STC’s Corporate Value Program for a spotlight. Kicking off this side of things for us is MadCap Software, Inc., with answers by CEO Anthony Olivier. A new weekly feature on STC’s Notebook, the Spotlight will consist of a series of questions—some informative, some entertaining, and others pure nonsense—that help readers get to know the STC community better.
What is the name of your company and where is it located?
MadCap Software, Inc., located in La Jolla, California
What’s your name and title?
Anthony Olivier, CEO
When and how did the company start?
The company was founded in early 2005 by the core staff, developers, and brain-trust that built and managed RoboHelp. Subsequent to the acquisition of eHelp by Macromedia (now Adobe) and a decision to discontinue RoboHelp development, the core RoboHelp brain trust and management got together and decided to form MadCap Software to build a next generation, XML-based authoring application as a future-proof, next generation replacement for the aging RoboHelp.
What are the origins of the name?
We wanted to create not only a fun and easy-to-remember company name but a great looking logo for the company—both of which had to work well with each other and fit the cutting-edge personality and culture we wanted to create. After many hours of brainstorming, the name for the company MadCap Software emerged. The name MadCap played really well with the term sometimes used to describe software developers (propeller heads) and was also the perfect name for which to create a great looking logo and corporate image.
How many employees do you have?
More than enough to get the job done. 🙂
What products do you sell that are relevant to STC members?
MadCap as a company is entirely focused on the needs of technical communicators, so all our products and services are relevant to STC members. The family of MadCap products are all tightly integrated, XML-based, and fill all of the content development, delivery, and management needs of the technical communicator, including print, online and web publishing, tools for multi-media and tutorial creation, analysis and collaboration, as well as content translation and localization.
So how often do you hear the line about “pieces of flair” from Office Space re: MadCap Flare?
We hear it occasionally, but how we came up with the name of the product is a lot more common of a question and has been fully explained in Mike Hamilton’s blog (VP of Product Management).
What other products do you sell?
- MadCap Blaze—A new paradigm for enterprise print publishing and long document solution
- X-Edit—A short document contribution and review solution for SMEs and managers
- MadCap Analyzer—Scan, analyze, report and fix projects
- MadCap Feedback—Get live user feedback and topic ratings; allows you to monitor, analyze, and improve content
- MadCap Mimic—Easily create software simulations and tutorials
- MadCap Capture—Easily capture anything that is displayed on your computer screen
- MadCap Echo—Dynamic audio integration for your documentation
- MadCap Lingo—Integrated authoring, translation, and publishing solution.
How is being a member of the STC Corporate Value Program valuable to your company?
It gives us the opportunity to work hand-in-hand with the experts in our field and a good avenue to communicate and share customer experiences and trends in the industry.
In a perfect world, who would be your ideal celebrity endorser and why?
Bill Gates, as we are a MSFT-centric software provider which embraces many MSFT technologies and innovation. In addition, our software is used extensively throughout various MSFT teams for both internal and external facing MSFT apps.
Can you share an Easter egg in one of your products with us?
If we showed you where they were, they wouldn’t be Easter eggs!:-) However, a small tidbit we can tell you is that our corporate logo has been given a name internally at MadCap, and he goes by the name of Simon.
When you bring a prospective client out there for lunch, where do you normally take them?
As our offices are a block from the beach in sunny La Jolla, CA, there are a number of beach-front restaurants to choose from depending on the prospective clients’ choice.
So what else is there to do out there in La Jolla?
There’s swimming and surfing, watching sea lions, great shopping, and a tourist area.