2002.12.20--Version 5.1 of Helix was developed by what was essentially a “virtual company” with management and engineers spread out across the North American continent. Telephones, eMail and Timbuktu® Pro provided the communications channels necessary to keep things moving and the product, which has been lavished with high praise by its beta testers, was produced at a fraction of the cost of the last upgrade.
“Almost more exciting than the new version itself is the incredible story of how it came to be,” said Gil Numeroff, Helix’s director of marketing and business development. “What remains of the original user base is a core of users who are near fanatical in their devotion to the product. And we’re not talking about fringe crazies here,” he said. “We’re talking about business people--in particular, the ones who supposedly wouldn’t use a Macintosh because it’s not a business machine.”
Helix is far from through. Plans call for the completion of an OS X version in 2003, followed by a platform-independent edition. That plan was developed and is being implemented by two long-time Helix veterans who were given the task of managing and operating the company in June of 2002.
Gil Numeroff, president of Synergy Business Solutions, Syosset, NY, a Helix development company since 1986, was hired by Helix’s parent company, The Chip Merchant (TCM) of San Diego, CA, in 1998, when TCM became Helix’s third owner.
Matthew Strange, president of Autograph Systems, a Macintosh reseller and Helix development company based in Mansfield, PA, was manager of Technical Support under Helix’s second owner and was also asked to join the staff of the new company in 1998.
When TCM was forced to place Helix development on hiatus in January of 2002, the future looked bleak for what remained of the Helix community. At one time, there were nearly 30,000 registered users of Helix’s core product, known at various times as Helix, Double Helix, Double Helix II, Helix Express and now known as Helix RADE (Rapid Application Development Environment). On top of that, more than 50,000 seats were registered for its companion product, Helix Client/Server Toolkit, used to deploy Helix applications over a network.
After the Windows 95 juggernaut began sweeping Macintosh users away from the platform in droves, the Helix community seemed nearly decimated. Between 1992, when the second owner took over, and 1998, when TCM rescued Helix from oblivion, the size of the community dwindled to a point where one could only guess how many users remained.
Gradually, the new owners picked up the pieces and discovered that there were far more active users than anyone truly imagined. But more important, these users’ devotion to Helix was deeply seated. It appeared they would do almost anything to see Helix survive.
In the late spring of 2002, Gil Numeroff and Matt Strange tapped into this well of support and drew from it the inspiration and funds needed to get the product back on its feet. What began strictly as a maintenance effort soon blossomed into a small software development project. As the user base became aware of what was happening, the well of support seemed to grow deeper, and the users provided more and more funding in the form of product upgrade purchases.
Before long, it became clear to the new management team that there had to be something beyond the short-range goal of a maintenance release that would address various long-time user dissatisfactions. Also, being that it would still be an OS 9.X product, they knew it would not receive much coverage by a media devoted solely to products moving to OS X.
“When we saw how deep our well of support ran,” Numeroff continued, “we knew there was a future beyond 5.1. While users would call or write us in seeming despair of a Macintosh future where OS 9 would no longer boot, or where business users were being forced to give up their Macintosh machines and conform to the one-dimensional vision of the future presented by Microsoft®, we kept hearing the same message over and over: there is still no product like Helix on the Macintosh and there is still no product like Helix in the Windows world.”
Clearly, they believe, if the well runs deep enough, and development continues to be managed in the same cost-effective manner, it’s not hard to see Helix getting there.
“With the release of our 5.1 product at hand,” say Gil and Matt, “an OS X product is clearly within our sights.” While they can never say with absolute certaintly that the money will be there to get through the entire project, the support of the Helix community has gotten things this far and Gil and Matt both believe that community has everything to gain and nothing to lose by taking a shot.
“Once we get there,” says Gil, “once the Macintosh community sees Helix come over that hill, we don’t think anything can stop this train from going the rest of the way.”