Visible Connections: Quist Valuation

“ Apple offers us inexpensive, ­reliable, and secure video ­conferencing that brings our ­company, clients and families closer together.”

Equipment List:: When the financial wizards at Quist Valuation switched to Macs • G4 PowerBook they didn’t just get new computers, they got inspiration. “We • MacBook Pro • switched to Macs for better reliability, security, and communication,” • says Bill Carroll, chief technology officer for Quist. “We got all • iPhone • Mac OS X those things—security with OS X, video conferencing with • Desktop [tm] iChat. But Apple opened our eyes in other ways, and now we’re • Address Book starting to solve even bigger challenges by developing new • iCal • iChat valuation software on the Mac.” • iLife • Keynote Quist values businesses. The Colorado-based company examines every iota of • Mail ­infrastructure, stock, and holdings to determine how much a business is worth. It’s • a complex craft, one that involves a lot of information, expertise, and organization. • Fedora 6 Linux Server • Asterisk phone system Until recently, the best tools of the trade were the telephone and the spreadsheet. • MySQL Now Quist uses MacBook Pro notebooks, iChat video conferencing, Basecamp project • 37signals Basecamp management software, and Xserve systems to streamline their operation and save • 37signals Highrise them tens of thousands of dollars. And with the savings of time and money, they’ve • MS Office also launched a multinational software development team to create their own web- • QuickBooks (accounting) based valuation software that will revolutionize their work. “We never would’ve • Stuffit Expander been able to do all of this without the Mac,” says Carroll. “They’ve set our business on a new path, and not only are we a valuation company, we’re also a software ­development company.”

The Switch Quist recently opened offices in San Francisco and Seattle. Seems like a tough time to swap out computing infrastructure, but for Quist it made perfect sense. “Security was a major factor for the switch and with Quist’s expansion into San Francisco and Seattle we could not afford to have downtime due to viruses and spyware,” says Business Carroll. With the Mac, Carroll hasn’t seen any spyware or viral attacks. “We have gone Visible Connections: Quist Valuation from multiple virus and spyware issues per week to none. That’s amazing.” Business  Visible Connections: Quist Valuation

“ We have gone from multiple virus The company also needed to stay connected. “The MacBook Pro’s built-in iSight and spyware issues per week to ­camera and video iChat are really big for us,” says Carroll. “Almost every day we use none. That’s amazing.” iChat between our Broomfield, Colorado, San Francisco, and Seattle offices. Removing that distance makes a big difference in helping remote employees feel more like —Bill Carroll a team.”

.Mac To Carroll, switching was obvious. “We transitioned the entire company in two or “Every person here has a .Mac subscription,” three waves,” he says. “People left a Dell on their desktop one night, and they came says Carroll. “It’s great for backing up, but it in the next morning and there was a brand new MacBook Pro.” It wasn’t as traumatic comes in handy when you change machines as it seems. The team intuitively learned the basics of Mac OS X and quickly went or you have two machines—you’re able to beyond them. share address book data, Safari bookmarks, and everything with .Mac. It also gives us Brett Suchor, president of Quist, even turned his MacBook Pro into a mobile movie encryption for our iChat which certainly helps us meet security standards in our industry.” studio. “I turned around and made a home movie for my in-laws’ fortieth wedding anniversary very easily, and I’m not a movie producer by any stretch,” he says. “I had Well Served never done anything like that before, but it quickly turned into an easy process with Mac OS X Server software and an Xserve easily iMovie and iDVD. I started using the Mac for work, but now it’s a huge part of my replaced a Microsoft Exchange server at Quist. personal life too.” “OS X comes with an open-source email server with unlimited clients,” says Carroll. “He’s [Suchor] video-conferencing by himself. He’s creating DVD movies by himself,” And there’s more than email. “It also includes says Carroll. “He’s doing all of the things with the computer that one should be able an open source Wiki and opensource podcast to do with a computer, and he’s not technically savvy. And I’m not involved. That’s cool.” ­streaming capability. Everything’s just built in.” Superb Management Valuation involves gobs of information and a steady stream of communication. The Carroll is the Mac maestro at Quist, but he’s information needs to be organized and lines of communication must be clear. Quist also a maestro away from the office. He uses currently uses Microsoft Excel on the Mac to track and analyze much of the data, but Logic Pro to produce and remix electronic for communication and project management, it has turned to something new. “The tracks in his home studio. “Just last year I released my first commercial remix—‘Leave Macs opened our eyes up to fast, easy teleconferencing,” says Carroll. “Our staff was Me’ by a Denver artist named Xiren,” he says. able to pick up video iChat without any help. Now we can see each other face-to- “Working with Logic is really addictive. You get face no matter where we are.” into the studio, and you start making noises and you can’t get enough of it. All of a sudden The two remote offices in San Francisco and Seattle are hardwired to the main office you’re a junkie. If I’m not forced to work, I’m via a secure VPN, but when any Quist member is on the road, they can still use iChat thinking about doing a remix or figuring out for encrypted face-to-face meetings. “When you have remote offices or when people how to use Logic to its full capabilities.” travel, face time really keeps the office together,” says Carroll.

Carroll also discovered a unique tool to stay in touch with clients. Basecamp, a project management application by 37signals, lets coworkers and clients keep tabs on projects. “Clients can log into a secure site and see how things are going with their project,” says Carroll. “That used to take several phone calls or emails.” Clients can also upload financial data to Basecamp using bank-level encryption. “That’s very important to us because we’re constantly trading sensitive financial documents with our clients,” says Carroll.

The Mac and Basecamp have replaced $70,000 worth of Microsoft software and related equipment. “We pay a few hundred dollars a month for an unlimited version of Basecamp,” says Carroll. “It takes care of Microsoft SharePoint server, Microsoft Project server, and most of Microsoft CRM. We’ve replaced a solution that would have cost at least $70,000 to fully implement and would have required a full-time tech consultant. And we never would have made the switch to Basecamp had we not made the switch to the Mac .” Business  Visible Connections: Quist Valuation

Better Valuation Mac OS X also opened the doors to software development. “When we made the switch to Apple and our eyes were opened to opensource software, I woke up at 3 a. m. in the morning and drew out the initial idea for the software we’re now ­developing,” says Carroll. The CTO knew that there was a better way to value ­companies—goodbye Excel spreadsheets and awkward data management.

“ This move away from Microsoft “We’re creating something that can capture the information that we need to do a solutions to Mac-centric solutions valuation,” he says. “If we have a program that makes it easy to capture information, then an analyst doesn’t have to spend his or her time cutting and pasting information saved us well over $60,000.00 this into an Excel spreadsheet. It frees the analyst up to do things that are more analytical year alone.” in nature. Our program is designed to replace dependence on the monotonous parts —Bill Carroll of the valuation process.”

Money Saver Carroll decided to develop the software using Ruby on Rails, an open-source web Quist needed to save money. The company programming language developed by a partner of 37signals. Quist is working with had already dumped almost $20,000 into a distributed development team in Colorado and India to build the software. Again, Microsoft project- and customer-management iChat keeps the team in almost constant contact with the Colorado-based company. software and had hired a tech firm to maintain “We have iChat meetings on a regular basis and it really helps us stay in touch,” says the setup. “We were spending an incredible Carroll. The team also stores the development code on the Quist Xserve. “We set up amount of time, and the cost was just going the Xserve ourselves, we didn’t need any help,” says Carroll. “Like most Mac software up every month,” says Carroll. In a company and hardware, when you turn it on it pretty much sets itself up.” that heeds value, it just didn’t make sense. “We found that we could implement the same kind of software on the Macs without outside help With Macs, Quist has been able to launch a new division that will ultimately stream- or a dedicated onsite tech support person,” line valuation for everyone. “We had $150,000 budgeted last year to purchase and says Carroll. implement the Microsoft technologies, and we stopped halfway through and took a different direction with Apple,” says Carroll. “Our total spending has gone through the basement. We have the ability to create a completely different arm of our company because of the money we’ve saved. Because we went with Apple, we’ve been able to move forward in so many ways. It’s an amazing turnaround.”

Quist doesn’t have a specific launch date for its new software, the tentatively named Qval–RealTime Valuation Software™, but is already testing and beginning to use it internally. A public release is planned within the year.

For More Information © 2008 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iCal, iChat, iDVD, iLife, iMovie, iSight, Keynote, For more information, please visit Logic, Mac, MacBook, Mac OS, Safari, and Xserve are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. and iPhone are trademarks of Apple, Inc. .Mac is a service mark of Apple www.apple.com/business. Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. June 2008 LXXXXXXA