‘Tracker’ Program Files, Retrieves Information : Scotsman Puts His Heart Into New Software
Until last year, if you wanted to find Irvine software entrepreneur Robert Gilchrist, one of the likeliest spots was the cardiac care unit.
A victim of degenerative heart disease, Gilchrist, now 48, spent the better part of the last decade fighting his condition with bypass surgeries and other treatments. At the same time, the Scotland native was trying to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming “an American entrepreneur.”
Until last May, neither quest was producing spectacular results.
Although Gilchrist’s company, DayFlo Software Corp., raised and spent $10 million in venture capital--a record for software companies--it took three years to produce its first product.
When he finally completed development of a sophisticated and complicated data management system, it attracted rave reviews within the personal computer industry but had very modest sales.
And because Gilchrist was spending increasing time in the hospital, he could do little to improve the situation.
However, early last year, Gilchrist was accepted into the heart transplant program at UCLA and over last year’s Memorial Day weekend--he still isn’t sure which day it was--Gilchrist received the heart of a 20-year-old accident victim. With his vigor renewed, Gilchrist began plotting a new course for the stumbling company.
The result is a software package that DayFlo is betting will turn the company from a no-name also-ran in the competitive, $35-billion-a-year personal computer market into a recognized leader among personal computer software publishers.
Scheduled for release this week, the new DayFlo “Tracker” combines the standard features of data management systems with the most popular features of word-processing programs to create what Gilchrist believes is an entirely new category of software for office management: information tracking.
Electronic File Cabinet
The program allows its users to catalogue and trace memos, letters, important articles and any other information that would usually find its way into a typical file cabinet. But unlike paper, the computerized data can be maintained and simultaneously updated in several different files. After finding a piece of data, “Tracker” allows the user to automatically copy the information into a pre-determined format for a memo, letter or other document.
While analysts say DayFlo is the first company to offer a large-scale information tracking product for the personal computer, they caution that a major marketing victory is hardly assured, particularly in light of the company’s earlier product flop.
“Being first is not always an advantage,” said Esther Dyson, a personal computer market analyst in New York. “You have to spend a lot of time explaining your product.”
And although analysts admit that the personal computer users--particularly office workers--would benefit from a product like Tracker, they question whether DayFlo has the marketing clout and savvy to take advantage of its opportunity and to fend off an expected rash of competitors.
According to Kathleen Lane of Dataquest, the San Jose high-technology analysis group, a larger and far better established software publisher that she refused to publicly identify is expected to introduce a similar product later this year, in a move that could undercut any advantage DayFlo might win from being first in the market.
“There’s a need for this type of product, there’s no doubt of that,” Lane said. “But in our industry the question is not what the product has in it, but how it’s marketed. DayFlo has done the easy part now by designing it. Now they have the hard part left, selling it.”
Gilchrist and Marketing Vice President Steve Magidson said they plan to concentrate initially on an ambitious advertising program in computer magazines. This strategy, they say, bypasses distributors, who typically shun new products and charge higher prices to carry products from start-up companies.
Less Than $150
Further, DayFlo has decided to appeal to the computer-using masses by charging less than $150 for the program--less than half the price of its first program. That move should help business managers buy the program directly out of their office supply budgets rather than through their data-processing departments.
“They have to strike while the iron is hot, otherwise they are out of luck,” Lane said. “This is a last gasp for the company.”
Gilchrist and Magidson, virtually DayFlo’s only remaining employees, acknowledge the uphill fight ahead. But Gilchrist, with one other major victory already won, remains quietly confident.
