20 years of omnigroup.com

The Blog

by Ken Case on September 9, 2012

20 years ago today, omnigroup.com was born.

At that time, the five of us—Wil Shipley, Tim Wood, Len Case, Mose Wingert, and myself—were still working out of our homes (or sometimes in NeXT’s local sales office, before they exited the hardware business and closed its doors). We were collaborating together on several projects, but we were paid independently—and when those projects ended it seemed somewhat likely that we might scatter to the four winds, possibly joining NeXT’s DBKit team or Lighthouse Design when our current contracts were up.

Fortunately, Tim kept reminding us that we should really form a company. (He said later that he partly did this because he thought it was an excellent idea, and partly because he didn’t know the Lighthouse/NeXT people and didn’t want to get left behind while we worked for them.)

So on Wednesday, September 9, 1992—the day after NeXTSTEP 3.0 shipped—our omnigroup.com registration came back and I set up uucp and SLIP over 14.4Kbps modems to link our home workstations together. (They were all NeXTs, of course.) We started giving everyone our omnigroup.com email addresses, gave the “NeXT Programmers” mailing list (“next-prog”) a permanent home, and started establishing a common reputation and identity.

We’ve seen a lot of changes over the last 20 years, as we transitioned from working on consulting projects to shipping commercial products, from a team of 5 to one of 52—and trying our best to contribute to the platform as it evolved from its humble (but ambitious!) NeXT roots to the wildly successful platform that is now Mac OS X and iOS.

But in some ways, that first change was the biggest: the day we decided to stop investing in our individual identities and start building our collective identity. And after 20 years, I’m still privileged to be able to work each day with smart and talented people who are passionate about creating great software—while treating customers with respect, making a living, and having fun!

Comments

Team Member

P.S. — Our current home page has some great pictures and graphics from the last 20 years!

Ken Case

09.09.12 10:01 AM

Congrats guys!

And thank you for all the great softwares you guys shipped.

Valentino Urbano

09.09.12 10:33 AM

Congrats and wishes for 20 years more!

Stan Bright

09.09.12 11:36 AM

Hey guys,

you have to be proud of your longevity and your software are real jewels!

Keep it up and happy birthday.

Mario Cudde

09.09.12 12:47 PM

Congrats 20 Years !!

I had been left Mac for a few years since Mac OS 9 in 2000.
But it was a chance to back to Mac when I met your softwares such as Omni Graffle on Mac OS X.

And I also got iPad version, too.

Thank you for support and raised creativity.

: )

P.S.
I got a Omni Graph Sketcher last night.
Awesome !!

masaru

09.09.12 1:27 PM

Great work leaving Wil Shipley out of your momentous occasion.

Macy Jones

09.09.12 2:34 PM

Congratulations! Keep it rolling for the NeXT 20 years!

Thomas

09.09.12 2:34 PM

I’m a regular OmniGraffle user and I find it to be an excellent product.

Having said that, I came here through a Wil Shipley tweet, which is kind of ironic, since he’s not mentioned in this site much. Is he overstating his importance in the rise of this company or is there something else?

Cheers

Tomas Sancio

09.09.12 2:55 PM

Team Member

We started omnigroup.com with a team of 5: Tim Wood, Len Case, Mose Wingert, myself—and Wil Shipley, who’s also posted some backstory today on the founding of the Omni Group.

Ken Case

09.09.12 4:39 PM

Glad for my mention, but lest anyone from outside think that my role was more important than it was, I’ll just spill the beans: I was a nobody who was really just tagging along for the ride. So if you’ve never heard of me (and there is no reason you would have) you can just take the five people at the beginning and really think of it as four. (With lots of great help from lots of smart hires after the start.)

Looking forward to hearing about the next 20 years.

Mose Wingert

09.09.12 5:32 PM

Ken,

Your post is really well taken. I especially like this: “that first change was the biggest: the day we decided to stop investing in our individual identities and start building our collective identity”.

I look forward to continued and improving excellent productivity using Omni software.

Thanks,

Bob

Bob

09.09.12 7:55 PM

Congratulations on reaching this amazing milestone — 20 years is an almost an eternity in the tech world and it’s great to see that the Omni Group continues to grow and prosper after all this time. I’ve been using your products since the beginning and they continue to contribute greatly to my productivity and successes, both personally and professionally. Many thanks…and here’s to the next 20 years!

Tim Stringer

09.10.12 8:48 AM

Congratulations on 20 great years! I’ve been using OmniWeb (and still do as my primary web browser) since the NeXT days. Love OmniGraffle as well. It’s been a great ride. Who knows what wonders we’ll encounter in the next 20 years.

Beth Katz

09.10.12 9:24 AM

Congratulations, Ken…quite an accomplishment!

Jim Martin

09.10.12 12:41 PM

Congratulations to the OmniGroup team.
I`ve got all your 5 softwares and they function absolutely great.
More twenty years with success.
Antonio Peregrino - from Brazil.

Antonio Peregrino

09.10.12 1:36 PM

Congratulations to all on such a wonderful achievement and fabulous product… now, back to work on that Android app :) Some of us have left the iphone behind and need Omnifocus back in our lives!

Rebecca Milewicz

09.10.12 9:56 PM

Just wanted to say that Omnifocus combo for mac and iphone has got to be one of—no, THE—most useful app I’ve ever used. I love the quick entry… coupled with the GTD methodology, this is a serious tool.

Also, just wanted to thank you guys for keeping it simple! And for making the syncing between the mac and iphone app so seamless! And thanks for NOT throwing in the kitchen sink!

Love Omnifocus!

Peter

09.11.12 9:42 AM

Congrats on 20 years making some of the best software out there. Love OmniFocus, OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle.

OmniFocus is what I use all the time. What a life saver!

Keep up the great work!

Eric

09.11.12 9:47 PM

Contratulations and thank you for your job!
Luigi - from Trento, Italy
http://bit.ly/OfQVe0

Luigi Giuliani

09.12.12 5:11 AM

Nice surprise, 20 years, congrats. Good to see the personal pictures behind the solid company you are, in my opinion. Congrats. Just go on, your software has this nice dedication and focus you can feel in apple products. Go on. John.

John

09.16.12 1:58 PM

gracias muy buen arreglo

xnxx

09.18.12 10:22 AM

Congratulations!

I just checked in a dusty old folder that has been with me since the NeXT days, and sure enough, I still have the NeXT kernel driver for the Rendition Verite 3D card that we contracted with Omni for back in ‘95 or so.

John Carmack

09.18.12 6:15 PM

Congratulations Omni Group!

Thank you for giving me the best tools available for organising my life’s projects.

Peace sf d-)=

Stephen Franklin

09.19.12 4:21 AM

Congratulations guys, and happy belated birthday!

It’s been a rare pleasure to watch your company from inception to the present, and enjoying your software along the way.

Keep up the excellent work.

Roy

Royston Yeo

09.28.12 10:39 AM

Congratulations! and Happy 20th Birthday!!

My first encounter with Omniweb was October 20, 2001, when I first got Omnigraffle and two days later I added Omnioutliner.

Now in September 2012, no days pass without using OmniGraffle Pro, Omnioutliner Pro, OmniFocus.

I felt happy when I knew you provided some technological assistance to NovaMind5 which I use everyday.

I wish you all a good health and continue to produce wonderful software!

Seishin

Marusan

09.28.12 6:27 PM

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