It is the year 2001. Wikipedia is launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. The Russian MIR space station is shut down and shatters in the atmosphere before crashing into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji. But perhaps the most significant innovation this year? Apple launches the iPod. It’s still an unconfirmed myth, but even today, many of our employees firmly believe that the newfound freedom to listen to music anytime, anywhere provided the critical productivity boost that led to the creation of MySolutions. In the 20 years that have followed, we have achieved many “My”-lestones thanks to loyal customers, dedicated employees and the odd stroke of good fortune. Today, we take a look back and indulge in a little nostalgia.
From the Home Office to the Office Home
It all started as a small family business that survived only thanks to a bunch of maxed-out credit cards and the exceptional expertise of one team member with exquisite logo design skills. However, the company’s founders didn’t set out to build MySolutions into a creative agency, but rather to simplify industry processes. So, after resolving the important issue of logo design, we developed and launched our own MyXPert® framework in the same year. From then on, machining contracting and production companies of all sizes were supplied with our software modules and tailor-made service packages for the first time – in the Swiss, European and international markets. The office in the family residence, which was due to the limited resources of the company’s foundation, quickly gained the nickname internally “The room where the lights never go out”. But all the founders’ efforts and never-ending zeal for work were soon to be rewarded.
Academic honors and exclusive partnerships
When MySolutions began its mission to simplify industrial processes, we had high hopes for our ability to develop cutting-edge technologies for the machining industry and extend their reach into the national and international markets. A major step toward achieving this goal was the opportunity to showcase our products as an exhibitor at the first TopSoft trade show held in the hallways of the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland. While our products continued to be installed at small, medium and large companies in the machining industry, we also entered into our first exclusive partnership with a German ERP vendor for the Swiss market.
Networked machines in the watch manufacturing industry
To win our first major DNC customer in the watch industry and to convince them of the advantages of our DNC machine networking, everything was demanded of our team. It is true that the focus of our company has always been more in the software area. But at that time, the right components for our hardware solutions were simply not available. So, without further ado, we developed our own component, including a Windows-based operating system. After all, we didn’t want to be the ones to shake the nimbus of maximum precision in the Swiss watch industry with inaccurate machine production.
Did Steve Jobs imitate MySolutions?
In 2004, we expanded our in-house DNC solution with a 12-inch touch display as a modular SmartClient within production. And mind you, this happened a year before the Apple iPhone was introduced. However, our customers were perhaps even more excited about the availability of installations for personnel and store floor data collection. As a development partner of DMG, we were able to significantly enhance our database solution in 2005. The result was the market launch of OEM products such as DMG Commander and DMG ProductionManager as fully-fledged database systems. The therefore quite extensive product portfolio allowed us to focus more on customer projects and individual adaptations of our software solutions from then on. Why the alleged theft of ideas by Apple founder and innovation master Steve Jobs nevertheless could not keep us from traveling into space and what else happened in the years 2012 to 2021, you will soon find out.