★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ SOFTOGRAPHIE ★ DEVELOPER ★ TRIPTYCH PUBLISHING ★ |
| Applications - Company | Games - Company | Triptych Publishing |
Christina Erskine talks to the threesome at Tryptych Publishing Take an ex-Army captain, a mass market book publisher, and an Australian civil engineer. Could this be the ideal mix for a new software house? Certainly the triumvirate in charge at Triptych Publishing seem to think so. From hopeful beginnings at the London Business School, they are now on the point of launching a suite of six programs, aimed at bridging the gap between the home and business market. “We met one another while doing the year-long Sloan programme at the Business school,” said managing director David Juster, the former army officer. “Since everyone who does that particular course is expected to become a big boss after graduation, we were all full of ideas as what to do after we'd finished.” It was David, too, who initiated the idea of going into computing. “I had come to the conclusion that computers were A Good Thing, and bought myself an Apple. Then I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, so I had to identify other computer buffs on the course and pick their brains.” David correctly identified civil engineer Stuart Armstrong, now Triptych's managing editor, and plans for a computer business began in empty lecture rooms at the end of the day. “Originally we wanted to go for software in the educational market,” continued David. “But as we went into the idea in more detail, we came up with one area where we felt there was a definite need.” Triptych's programs now fall into the applications category, with an education bias. ‘Integrated applications through learning' is how they term it now, having The third member of the founding troupe, Duncan Baird, came in to provide useful publishing experience, to add to Stuart's technical know-how and David's management interest. “We knew who our target audience was; people who have bought a micro and want to put it to serious use without necessarily learning to program,” explained David. “And we wanted our products to offer more than things like home budgets — after all, if you can't do your monthly accounts on the back of an envelope you might as well employ an accountant. “The first six programs are fair indication of what will follow. Entrepreneur is a program designed to help someone set up a small business — you tap in projected figures, and the program will tell you what sort of piofit you'll make, and what are the things to look out for. In some ways, we could have done with Entrepreneur when we set up Triptych.”
Numbers at Work is a kind of adult numeracy program, which can help with anything from arithmetic to how to fully understand mark-ups, simple and compound interest and so on. “Equally, Project Planner, Decision Maker and Forecaster can be used by either business people or interested home users. Then we plan that about a quarter of our output will concentrate on more general topics. The first of those to come out will be Star Watcher, a comprehensive astronomy program.” Each of the program packages comprises three parts: a teaching program designed to initiate the user into the subject, an applications program where they can use their knowledge to good effect and an accompanying book. “The book contains anything that we feel is appropriate to text than to the micro — things you would want to flip through and refer back to, and which would take up memory space as reams of text on the screen,” explained David. Prices have been kept as low as possible — from £14.95 for Spectrum programs to £19.95 on the Commodore and BBC to discourage people from thinking the programs are either specialist or heavyweight. Triptych hopes its programs will be absorbing and interesting rather than simply educational. “We've been very pleasantly surprised by some of the reactions to the titles. Stuart's wife, who had always been of the opinion that the only use for a home micro was to play Pacman, spent half an hour with Project Planner, and is now insisting that she gets a copy for the travel business she runs.” Confident though they are that they have found an untouched seam in the software market, there is still the problem of getting this across to the consumer. “Quite honestly, it would have been helpful if one of the big companies had started doing this sort of thing already and paved the way for us. But while there are databases, word processors, spreadsheets and so forth around in abundance, there doesn't seem to be too much telling how to manipulate them and what sort of situations they are useful for. So it looks like we have to start the ball rolling. “We really felt, 18 months ago, that the market now would be a lot more sophisticated than it actually is — and I wonder if the very mixed quiity of today's software hasn't begun to put people off.” The trio went into every aspect of their image with a good deal of care. Some of the longest arguments arose over the company's name. “We were adamant that we would not be Microsomething or Compusomething. We see ourselves as a creative editorial team, rather than overtly technical. Our name would have to be something esoteric, and something amorphic.” With a vocabulary like that, it is not surprising that David thought of Triptych. “I was amazed we hadn't thought of it before. A triptych is an artwork in three parts; there were three of us, and there are three parts to each of our programs — it fitted like a glove.” ‘Publishing' was added to avoid confusion with a Corby construction company with the | same name, and their advertising agency I thought up the name Brainpower for the program series, having presumably decided that Triptych could be too esoteric and amorphic for the mass-market. PCW
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