July 2nd, 1997 will always be a special day in the history of PRD Software.

It’s the day the first ever sale of HelpMaster was made back in 1997 to an educational centre in Taranaki, New Zealand.

Coincidentally, this was also the day we scrambled to create a helpfile , a product installer, license agreement, some basic documentation and organize international shipping and packaging. Nevertheless, we got it all done, and it was the start of wonderful journey of becoming a software vendor in the helpdesk and service-desk business.

The world-wide-web

Back in the mid 90’s, the internet was in its infancy, and no-one really understood its power and scope. To me, the world-wide part of the web has certainly lived up to its name.

HelpMaster has taken me around the world, physically, and virtually (everyday), and I have loved working with helpdesks, service-desks and customer-facing centres that have used HelpMaster in many, many different ways. It’s been great to take all of that exposure and feed it directly back into product and company development. Our product development wish list and “to-do” list is ever growing. Working with such a diversity of businesses and levels of operational maturity has really given us an insight into service-management best practice and what we need to do as software developers and product creators.

Help from friends and partners

Over the years, we’ve also had some great partners and helpful friends of the business, so thank you to all that have been part of our journey. Special mention goes out to Andrew Pearce , who, unbeknowst to him at the time, helped us win the first sales of HelpMaster throughout New Zealand. Back then, Andrew ran his own consultancy business, and has as recently as this week announced that he is once again going back to running his own consultancy agency . This is great news for any buinsess that needs someone with Andrew’s IT and business experience. If you’re after a change manager that knows his stuff, Andrew is your man.

Long live the code, long live the passion!

As the owner of PRD Software, I look back on these days with such fond memories of a time when we lived and breathed software design and development. Really, not much has changed. As I write this blog in markdown using VS Code, my trusty version of Visual Studio is also open and ready for me to continue coding and working on the next version of HelpMaster. In the background, our build machine is constantly running (literally) - thanks Finalbuilder

It’s hard to believe that a piece of software can be 27 years old and still have so much left to do. My passion for developing service-management software has not waned over time - quite the opposite in fact, and the whole team here at PRD Software love what we do!

Thank you to everyone that has been part of the HelpMaster journey so far. Special thanks to the past and present staff members for your loyalty, professionalism and passion. Delivering software of this scope and complexity is not possible without super-smart people and a unified team effort. Thank you guys!!

PRD Software timeline

Check out the PRD Software timeline , and learn more about us here .

HelpMaster day

June 2 every year is HelpMaster day, and for me it’s a day of reflection and thankfulness. Thinking of my brothers, Peter and Darren, the “P” and the “D” in PRD Software, staff members past and present and all of our clients and experiences we’ve shared over the years.