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[[Image:Stirlingroup.png|right|250px]]
[[Image:Stirlingroup.png|right|250px]]
A company founded by  Viresh Bhatia and Rick Harold in  Schaumburg, Illinois, USA in 1987 to market an [[Microsoft Windows]] based geographic mapping software that actually never saw the light of day. But in an attempt to generate cash the company started to sell some of the programming utilities they had developed for their in-house needs. Their first product was shipped in 1990 and by 1991 they had in the form of the cross-platform [[TbxShield]], a collection of toolbox controls that were available for both Windows 3 and OS/2 1.x and by using the exact same API, simplified the creation of cross-platform Windows and OS/2 applications.
A company founded by  Viresh Bhatia and Rick Harold in  Schaumburg, Illinois, USA in 1987 to market an [[Microsoft Windows]] based geographic mapping software that actually never saw the light of day. But in an attempt to generate cash the company started to productify and sell some of the programming utilities they had developed for their in-house needs.


====InstallShield====
==History==
[[Image:Installshield_logo.gif|right]]
Their first products were shipped in 1990 and by 1991 they five cross-platform programmers utilities and libraries that they called "The Shield Series" and were available in version for both Windows 3 and OS/2 [[PM]] 1.x, with each product using the exact same API for both operating systems, thus simplifying the creation of cross-platform Windows and OS/2 applications. The company had a slightly unusual naming scheme with all their products having names ending in all caps "SHIELD", apparently more in the vein of "shielded you from the native API" rather than as reference to defence in any way.
In the latter half of 1990 when The Stirling Group was attending a Windows systems event they decided to take out an advert advertising their upcoming products, but they had decided on a slightly unusual naming scheme with their products being a part of a group they called "The Shield Series", all of them having names ending in "shield" in the meaning that their products "shielded you from further work" rather than as reference to defence in any way. While some of the products advertised were under development and nearing release such as TbxShield, some of the advertised products however were non-existing and just something that Viresh Bhatia had decided to place in their advert on the advise of his local printer who said that it would look better. To everyone's surprise the only product anyone showed any interest in was the fictional '''InstallShield''', something that Bhatia and Harold had not even defined what would do exactly.


[[Image:Stirlingroupad.png|right|thumb|250px|The advert placed by Viresh Bhatia in late 1990 that featured a non-existing '''InstallSHIELD''' product]]
==Products==
After querying developers at the show what exactly they were looking for in such a product the partners started the development of an application that simplified the installation and de-installation process of software for developers and end users, and in 1992 the company introduced the [[InstallShield]] product, initially for OS/2 and a little later for [[MS Windows]]. InstallShield became such a hit that they ceased the development of TbxShield and the other "Shield" products shortly thereafter and the company ended up renaming itself '''InstallShield Corporation''' in 1993. The company actually kept supplying an OS/2 compatible version of InstallShield until late 2006, but due to the ubiquity of [[IBM]]'s [[Feature Installer]] and later other solutions such as [[WarpIn]] it remained off the radar for most OS/2 users and was mainly used by big OS/2 accounts as an internal tool.
*DbxSHIELD
 
*DemoSHIELD
During the late 90's the company was doing 400 million USD in sales a year, but things started to slow down when Microsoft introduced a better default installer with the introduction of [[MS Windows XP]], which lead many developers to conclude that the basic installer was good enough and competitiors to release simpler and cheaper products that simply leached onto the Microsoft installer for most functions. The company was sold to [[Macromedia]] in 2004, they sold their business division to venture capitalists in 2008, who formed a company called "Acresso Software Corporation" around the operation and in 2009, Acresso changed its name to "Flexera Software" which continues to sell modern versions of InstallShield.
*[[InstallSHIELD]]
==Known products==
*LogSHIELD - session recording and playback
* [[DbxShield]]
*MemSHIELD - memory manager library
* [[DemoShield]]
*[[TbxShield]]
* [[InstallShield]]
* [[LogShield]]
* [[MemShield]]
* [[TbxShield]]
 
==Links==
* [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-03-01/features/9803010431_1_software-animal-shelters-computer InstallShild corp feature] - Chicago Tribune - 1998


==Personnel==
==Personnel==
* [[Viresh Bhatia]]
*Viresh Bhatia
* [[Rick Harold]]
*Rick Harold


[[Category:Companies]]
[[Category:Defunct companies]]

Latest revision as of 00:01, 10 September 2023

A company founded by Viresh Bhatia and Rick Harold in Schaumburg, Illinois, USA in 1987 to market an Microsoft Windows based geographic mapping software that actually never saw the light of day. But in an attempt to generate cash the company started to productify and sell some of the programming utilities they had developed for their in-house needs.

History

Their first products were shipped in 1990 and by 1991 they five cross-platform programmers utilities and libraries that they called "The Shield Series" and were available in version for both Windows 3 and OS/2 PM 1.x, with each product using the exact same API for both operating systems, thus simplifying the creation of cross-platform Windows and OS/2 applications. The company had a slightly unusual naming scheme with all their products having names ending in all caps "SHIELD", apparently more in the vein of "shielded you from the native API" rather than as reference to defence in any way.

Products

  • DbxSHIELD
  • DemoSHIELD
  • InstallSHIELD
  • LogSHIELD - session recording and playback
  • MemSHIELD - memory manager library
  • TbxShield

Personnel

  • Viresh Bhatia
  • Rick Harold