As the new SolidPHP site and m3 started to come together, I found myself increasingly reflecting on what happened in 2007 and where we are heading.

For most of our customers, it will come as a surprise that until 2007, a large amount of our time and revenue came from large contracts rather than our own products. In early 2007, that all changed and lead to a very interesting year.

Some of the highlights:

1. Andy’s new baby girl!
2. Finally getting to serve some of our customers who’ve been begging us to take on their custom development for months/years
3. Acquiring Iono
4. Finishing the m3 Framework
5. Starting work on the new SolidPHP website

Yes, it’s been a very interesting year and probably shaped SolidPHP more than the previous years all put together.

My two highlights, mainly because of my involvement with them, has been the acquisition of Iono and the new website. For many of our customers, it would probably be a dream come true to be able to acquire your main competitor. Late in 2007, this became a reality for us. In a way, it’s affected us far more than we could imagine. Being able to examine another business that mirrors your own on the outside but inside is a completely different beast is hugely revealing and rewarding. It forced us to re-examine certain parts of our own existing business (for the better I think) and probably one of the biggest changes customers will be able to see is documentation right from the start in m3. Rather curiously, one of the most memorable things about it was probably the day before it was announced, a prospective PHPAudit buyer saying “Fine, I’ll go to Iono” because we refused them a discount. Suffice to say, they didn’t get a discount on Iono either (but are now a very happy PHPAudit customer!).

The new SolidPHP website is also a huge favourite of mine. While we used to have a SolidPHP site, this was removed quite some time ago as it was outdated and didn’t seem to portray the business the way we wanted it to. We started work on the new site in 2007, and over the last few months, have tweaked and added to it. While it’s not quite finished and will be undergoing some minor changes in the next few weeks, we hope you agree that it’s far better than what we had before! If you have any comments on it, myself and Andy would really like to hear so please get in touch.

Despite everything, we came out of 2007 healthier than ever. As we now move close to the first stable release of a product built on m3, it’s amazing to think about everything that actually went into this. It’s easy to look at quantifiable things like time and money, but, in the bigger picture so much else goes in – immeasurable amounts of effort, the emotional ups and downs, the love and affection for developing great products. So much more goes into a product than can be measured, and I hope that this will show as you take a look at m3|KB and beyond.

2008 is going to be a big year for SolidPHP. I hope you will join us on this journey.