About GrapeCity and ActiveReports

When GrapeCity acquired Data Dynamics late last year and the GrapeCity name started appearing in all Data Dynamics promotions, it was a relatively unknown name for a number of customers who probably wondered who GrapeCity was.

As it turns out, GrapeCity's name is very familiar to a number of US and international Component and Developer Tool vendors.

The Very Beginning
After being founded in 1980 in Japan, the first product it developed was a school accounting software in the years before Microsoft Windows 1.0 came out, that today is a Microsoft case study on how develop large scale enterprise class .NET systems and has about 80% of the Japanese market for enterprise class education back office management for schools, colleges and universities.

Launch of Developer Tools and Components business
Soon after, the company realized that there was a big untapped market for Microsoft Windows based developer tools and components in Japan and Asia. It proceeded to do two things: First, it partnered with premier component and tools vendors to localize, sell and support their products in Japan and secondly, it proceeded to design and develop software products specifically for the Japanese market.

You might recognize the familiar third-party products listed on the GrapeCity Japan's Tools web site.

The Data Dynamics/ActiveReports Connection
GrapeCity started localizing and selling ActiveReports in Japan soon after the first ActiveX/COM version was released in 1996. Similar stories were repeated with other component vendors.

A little known fact behind the proven multi-language support and high overall quality of ActiveReports that customers often mention is the fact that every ActiveReports release is rigorously tested and "certified" by GrapeCity's own QA and testing teams in Japan before release. Not surprisingly, the English versions of the product also benefit from this internal quality process.

Today, as a matter of fact, GrapeCity is the world's largest component vendor by size and revenue. It has about 1000 employees taking care of diverse businesses.

Founding principles
But, more importantly, it is steadfastly committed to its founding principles of delivering uncompromising quality and paying the greatest attention to product details and keeping customer satisfaction above everything else, thanks to the years of market leadership in the highly demanding Japanese market.

A dated but an interesting article on GrapeCity appeared in the February 2006 issue of the Visual Studio Magazine.

GrapeCity as an Independant Software Vendor (ISV)
Other than software components and developer tools of its own, GrapeCity has developed the School Management system mentioned earlier. It has also developed a number of financial accounting software products, Banking systems for Mongolian banks and the government and ERP like systems for mid-size businesses.

Other Solution and Service Offerings
Other than developing software solutions, GrapeCity's other business units offer custom software development services, ERP and CRM implementation services and other technical services for its global clients, primarily on the Microsoft platform. GrapeCity has been a long time Microsoft Technology Adoption Partner Program member and a former Regional Director of Microsoft in Japan, China and India. Its technical teams have presented as speakers in Microsoft conferences such as Tech Ed and PDC in these countries and GrapeCity has been one of Microsoft's preferred solution providers in these countries.

Another area of expertise of GrapeCity is in the areas of Microsoft Office, SharePoint and Infopath solutions where it was the only company from Asia invited by Microsoft for the Office 2003 beta conference for selected global partners. GrapeCity builds and sells enterprise class workflow solutions on top of Microsoft Office and SharePoint platform.

This aspect of GrapeCity is described in this book on "Partnering with Microsoft", published in 2005. The employee numbers and revenue numbers are dated but the article still provides a pretty good overview of the company in the Microsoft context.

One can learn more at http://www.grapecity.com/.