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On March 20th, Pringle.com celebrated its 10 year anniversary on the
web! This is quite a milestone, when you consider that in 1995, many of
today's Internet stalwarts such as Google and eBay had not yet been
formed. I'm sure that Pringle's Potato Chips would love to own the "Pringle.com"
domain name, but we got there first! As a result, we were one of the
first builders in the country with a website.
This example of "leading the charge" is not an isolated example, or a
case of random luck. Rather, it is the result of a corporate culture we
have fostered and encouraged from the day Pringle Development was
founded. We made a conscious decision to utilize technology to the
fullest extent in order to maximize productivity. We've never had a
problem with "keeping up with the Jones" of the technology world; if
anything, our problem has been to avoid crossing the line beyond
"leading edge" and crossing into "bleeding edge," where one adopts
technology before it's ready for day to day production use. There have
been many examples of this philosophy in action over the years,
including these:
In the early '80s, we ran the entire company using Osbourne computers,
which ran the original CPM operating system. We were running PC's before
IBM even invented the architecture known today as the "PC."
One of the applications we developed in those days was the first
generation of our sales management system, now operating under Sales
Logix. It is fair to say that we developed and utilized Customer
Relationship Marketing years before the CRM industry was born. In
addition, we developed and used an in-house "job cost and accounting"
system years before the off-the-shelf systems now available were
developed.
Most of you are aware that "Neighborlinks" was first developed for use
at Royal Harbor under the name "Harbornet." You may not know, however,
that we attempted to develop the community intranet system starting with
Royal Highlands, but the local providers such as Sprint, AT&T and others
were not yet ready for us. Today, of course, all of these and more stand
in line in hopes of supplying service to our communities.
The point of all of this is not technology for technology's sake, like
climbing Mt. Everest "because it was there." Rather, the point is that
we have consistently stayed abreast of new technology and used new tools
as they became available to increase productivity and profitability. As
company owners, you have a vested interest in seeing this philosophy
continue. The alternative to any of the above "early adoptions"
invariably would have been to spend more money somewhere else: more
employees, more offices, more mobile phones, more something costing more
money. At times, the technology approach may seem more costly, but
history has demonstrated that over the long run, we're better off making
use of these tools as they are developed.
So, Happy Birthday Pringle.com, and many happy returns to you and to the
rest of the Pringle technology family!
John Pringle
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