Foresight Software, LLC officially came into existence on May 23rd, 2006 but, like many firms in our business, our "ancestry" goes back much further than that.

Our records and "cultural lore" get pretty sketchy when reaching back to our original roots, but our best information to date places our "founding" in 1973 as a collaborative effort between several systems developers in Canada.  This "value-added reseller network" became formalized as the "VARNET" Corporation, and for many years developed and distributed one of the major MRP and MRPII systems of the late 1970s and 1980s.  The Varnet software was continually updated and improved during this period, based on hundreds of customer installations and thousands of hours of feedback.  Two additional companies were also created: Varnet Development Corp. and Varnet Canada.

In approximately 1993, Varnet's ownership sold the stock of all the companies to the MARCAM corporation.  It is thought that MARCAM's intention was to merge the Varnet product into their (then) fledgling MAPICS product, or at the very least to acquire Varnet's large customer base.  Apparently this merger proved to be a more daunting task than was originally anticipated (the two products were, after all, crafted for different environments using different languages), and in October 1995 MARCAM divested the old Varnet product (and staff), creating a new company, Foresight Software, Inc.  It is interesting to note that, during MARCAM's ownership, the Varnet product was rebranded with the name "MXP", as opposed to MARCAM's flagship "MXA" product.

Foresight was at that time headed by former executives of the Symix Corporation, a highly competitive firm in the MRP/ERP field.  (The Symix product was also developed using the Progress database and language, as was the Varnet/Foresight product.)  During these years of Foresight's "infancy", the market for products which had become known as "Enterprise Resource Planning" (or "ERP") systems became both extremely crowded and extremely sluggish.  Foresight's resulting financial position made the company a target for acquisition, and in the summer of 1996 we were aquired by a rapidly expanding venture capital organization, Platinum Equity.

Platinum continued the ownership and management of Foresight for a little more than eight years, until late 2004.  As those of you in IT (or who had high-tech investments) may remember, this was the "bust" period of the software industry "bubble".  Foresight followed this trend, unfortunately, and a prolonged period of stagnation led Platinum to divest Foresight along with a group of four other smaller firms in its portfolio.  This time, we were again acquired by a young VC firm, HALO Investments, in a deal known internally as "the Five Horsemen".

Oddly (or "typically" in light of the above), the Foresight environment and development platform was the "odd man out" in the Five Horsemen deal, and it quickly became apparent to HALO management that divestiture of Foresight and consolidation of the other acquired organizations would be in its best interest.  In the spring of 2006, long-time Foresight employee and vice-president of operations Mark Tyndall crafted a management buy-out (MBO) offer.  This was accepted by HALO, and our current management structure is the result.

Over this 36-year history, our company and our products varied widely in terms of revenues, profits, staff size and market share.  We currently enjoy the tagline "smallest big software company in the world", and we take pride that a group our size has been able to maintain a loyal and robust customer base, and returned to profitability within a year of the latest management change.  We have weathered the latest economic downturn, and are ready with our products and -more importantly- with our attitude to re-emerge into preeminence in our markets.