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The Quoter Story
Quoter started back in 1999 when Patrick DesRosiers, an experienced computer programmer and Jiraud Warnett, an estimator in the home building industry, decided to tackle a new challenge. While still working at their respective dayjobs, they developed the first version of Quoter. The first version was far from what it is today. Having worked with many other estimating software on the market at that time, they decided to start a new one from scratch. The work plan was, from the beginning, to make it simple and complete. Therefore, a new platform was built, no MS-Excel was used, as for other software on the market.
"Our software is designed with building supplies retailers and residential general contractors in mind", says Jiraud Warnett, one of the founders of Quoter Estimating Software. The main objective was to produce estimates as quick and as precise as possible.
But good estimates were not the only goal. Quoter had to provide its users with a good sales tool. So a 5000 product database was included in the software, allowing users to easily upgrade sales with a simple mouse click with the easy-to-use substitution product groups. Prices had to be accurate, too. Retailers can thus download a 4-level price list from their POS system and contractors can retreive prices from their favorite retailer in seconds, by Internet.
"When I was proposed this project, I knew it would work !" says Patrick DesRosiers, also founder and top programmer at Quoter Estimating Software. "So I decided to give it the most flexible and stable platform combined with the best-looking interface on the market.
Quoter was fine-tuned with over 600 estimates at Warnett's former workplace, a local LBM retailer, before it was released. After working on this project for a few years, time had come for a market test in 2001.
A first demo was organized with Raffaelle Ciocca, a busy contractor in the St.Jerome, Qc area. First demo, first sale. Quoter was well on its way to success.
Today, Quoter is used in all 10 Canadian provinces by home builders, retailers and pre-fab wall plants. It is also used by Centria Commerce, a large home builder service centre and by Planimage, a provider of architectural design services with over 1500 ready-to-use plans and estimates. Quoter's business partners also include major POS providers such as OMNI, OGC, Silk Dimensions, Ogasys and others.
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