Jeremy WhiteThis month marks our 15th year anniversary. We're having great fun with it; you can check out our videos and the fantastic promotion we're running to go with it. I hope it all helps you to enjoy CrossOver goodness.
It's been a very interesting ride, these past 15 years. CodeWeavers is my second company; I was a partner in another company, Holten, White & Associates, prior to striking off on my own to found CodeWeavers. I founded CodeWeavers because I wanted to do interesting and meaningful work, work with people I respected, and have fun at work.
I'm glad to report that we've succeeded on all three fronts, although some of our dark days in the mid 2000s were very challenging.
We started out as a general purpose consulting company; we did high tech programming for various tech companies around the Twin Cities. But I wanted more meaningful work; I wanted to feel that my efforts made a real difference in the world. So we seized upon the Wine project, and we rebuilt the company entirely around the mission of Wine: helping people use Windows software on a non Windows platform.
I am deeply proud of what we have accomplished. Wine has had not one, but two stable releases, and is threatening to do a third. Wine now runs literally tens of thousands of Windows applications (we know this from analyzing the usage data our customers voluntarily submit). I like that we were quietly operating with an open core business model 7 years before it became trendy. (Heck, I was a nerd before that was trendy, too 😊 ). It's perhaps not as visible from the outside, but we also have a fantastic team of people. I have never worked with as talented, dedicated, or fun a group of people as we have here at CodeWeavers. I hope that comes through in our customer service and each contact you have with us.
I think our biggest challenge now is that people often have not heard of CrossOver or Wine. There is nothing more frustrating to have someone tell me that they wish they'd heard of us before they bought VMWare or Parallels. Hence, our effort to spread the word. And forgive us, but being silly is pretty much our favorite approach to marketing.
Of course, Wine is very far from perfect. We still have many bugs to fix (like getting Rift back in running order, for example), and we continue to work on this long, slow, process. My greatest wish is that in my 30th anniversary blog post, I will no longer have to say that.
Finally, I am deeply grateful for the many people that have helped us through the years. I appreciate each and every one of our customers hard earned dollars (although I have to admit that starting this Sunday, I'll appreciate your hard earned Euros and Pounds more 😊 ). Our advocates provide us with staunch moral support, and have created an amazing resource for our customers. The vendors and partners we've worked with through the years have acted as an extension of our own fantastic team.
Thank you all; I am deeply grateful.
Jeremy
