About
Welcome to the Ship Software OnTime Manifesto.
My name is Hamid Shojaee, the founder of Axosoft, an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) that focuses on building tools to help development teams manage their projects and ship great software.
For the past 5 years, Axosoft has been shipping its flagship product, OnTime, at a ferocious pace. We released OnTime 2008, which is the 8th major release in OnTime’s young life in December of ’07. We have kept the blazing speed of releases by assembling an extremely talented, small team of developers and paying little attention to competitors. We’ve challenged our team to innovate, not only in the creation of the product, but also in our sales methods, marketing, support, user community and training.
The result has been phenomenal adoption of OnTime in the marketplace and incredible success for Axosoft. Far better than any of us had ever imagined and far outpacing average industry growth.
Along the way, we have tested a number of theories, have made lots of mistakes, have done a few things right and generally have learned a great deal about shipping software. This blog will attempt to share some of what we have learned in the hopes that it will help you and your team ship great software.
My Background
I am a developer at heart, but over the last 13 years I have learned a lot about the business side of software. Axosoft is my 2nd business venture. My first was a time and attendance software company that never took off in the way I had hoped. I left that company to join Microsoft.
Prior to starting Axosoft, I worked for several years in Microsoft’s Consulting Services (MCS) division. My job was to help Microsoft’s enterprise customers improve their development practices. I worked closely with a large number of development teams at various Microsoft enterprise customers and have seen a variety of development styles, methodologies and processes in action. Most of what I saw, you’ll want to avoid. Some of it was priceless. All of it was essential in helping me build a successful software company.
While at Microsoft I had a different perspective on things than many of my colleagues. Having come from a failed software company, I was paying close attention to Microsoft’s fine-tuned systems and business practices. It was extremely impressive to see such a fine-tuned machine from the inside. I also learned that it’s easy to beat large companies at their own game. Fine-tuned mega machines lack the passion that entrepreneurs bring to their work. Passion reveals itself in the products we create and users, left to their will, will choose a product that was created with heart over a product created by a machine any day.
Articles and Comments
I started this blog to create a manifesto of what it takes to ship software on time. I plan to keep the blog focused on that topic with about one article a week and although I read every comment and highly encourage you to leave comments with your opinion, I probably will not respond to comments, except in the form of future articles.
I hope you enjoy reading the articles as much as I enjoy writing them.
Looking forward to reading your experiences!
Sameer
November 20, 2007 at 2:35 pm
How can i send you an email?
Mehran
January 11, 2008 at 4:35 am
I have an interesting suggestion for you.
Can you connect with me by email?
Thanks.
Uljana Orlova
April 8, 2008 at 7:30 am
Dear Mr Hamid Shojaee,
My name is Bernadette and I’m a student at the University of Växjö, Sweden.
I’m writing my bachelor thesis about call centre outsourcing.
At Your homepage , by the article called “Outsourcing is for Dummies” (posted by you on December 3, 2007), you have this picture:
http://shipsoftware.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/distributedteam.jpg
Is it okay for You and possible for me using this picture on the
front page of my bachelor thesis? I hope to hear from you soon.
Best regards
Bernadette
Bernadette
May 19, 2008 at 10:54 pm
[...] an interesting article from Hamid Shojaee, founder of Axosoft. At work we use their OnTime software extensively to track Bugs/Defects/Feature [...]
Performance boost with Google Chrome? « Iain’s Blog
September 24, 2008 at 7:08 am
Hello Hamid,
Does the first free version of OnTime is still available somewhere (For Free!) ;-)
Best Regards from France,
Tarek
Tarek
October 23, 2008 at 12:24 pm
thank you for your fast work.
Best regards
Darria Film
Hayley Tamaddon
Darria Designer
December 25, 2008 at 3:00 am
Thank you for your services.
Tamaddon Hayley
January 3, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Dear Hamid
Salam
I leaved a comment on the post. As it is hard to DL the Video (Learn Scrum in 10 Minutes) every time.
I was wondering if we can have a direct download link.
also I was wondering if you could give us the video scripts so can we translate or subtitle it into Persian.
unfortunately there is no ScrumMaster course here in Iran, the nearest classes take place in India, see http://www.goodagile.com/ .
Yours,
Nasser Ghanemzadeh
http://BOS.opatan.com
Nasser Ghanemzadeh
January 8, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Thanx for the software.
Staff
Ethan Aaron
January 11, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Thank you for the software.
D E I
Staff
Darria Club Design Studio Film Production Entertainment
January 19, 2009 at 1:13 am
Was really impressed at looking your career and the products you have developed.
Keep up.
Siva
February 1, 2009 at 9:44 pm
really impressed at looking your career and the products you have developed.
Keep up.
La YEllow Shuttle
August 17, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I was wondering if you could give us the video scripts so can we translate or subtitle it into French?
Nicole Aaron
August 17, 2009 at 9:23 pm
You are great!
I like you and your software,eventhough Im new to it but I can feel the pasion ;-)
babak bagherzadeh
June 17, 2010 at 5:01 am