Datastorm Technologies, Inc., was a computer software company that existed from 1986 until 1996. Bruce Barkelew and Thomas Smith founded the company to develop and publish ProComm, a general-purpose communications program for

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

s. ProComm flourished in the pre-

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

world, when personal computers used

modem The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establis ...

s to connect over

telephone line A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or oth ...

s with other individual computers, online services such as

CompuServe CompuServe, Inc. (CompuServe Information Service, Inc., also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American Internet company that provided the first major commercial online service provider, online service. It opened in 1969 as a times ...

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running list of BBS software, software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user perfor ...

s (BBSs),

Telnet Telnet (sometimes stylized TELNET) is a client-server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. It is a protocol for bidirectional 8-bit communications. Its main ...

and

Gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They ar ...

sites, and the like. Datastorm was the first company to evolve from a

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

publisher into a large commercial software publisher. ProComm 2.4.3 for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

is still available as shareware.

History

The death of

Andrew Fluegelman Andrew Cardozo Fluegelman (November 27, 1943 – July 6, 1985) was a publisher, photographer, programmer and attorney best known as a pioneer of what is now known as the shareware business model for software marketing. He was also the founding ...

, creator of PC-Talk, left a gap in the offerings of dial-up communications and terminal emulation software. Bruce Barkelew and Tom Smith,

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

students at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

, formed PIL Software Systems in 1985 to develop ProComm. They distributed the program as

through

s. Based on the program's popularity, Barkelew and Smith founded Datastorm Technologies Inc. in 1986 to build a full-fledged company around the product. The founders chose

Columbia, Missouri Columbia is a city in Missouri, United States. It was founded in 1821 as the county seat of Boone County, Missouri, Boone County and had a population of 126,254 as recorded in the 2020 United States census, making it the List of cities in Misso ...

, as the company's headquarters because of the relatively low cost of living there to tap into the pool of programmers graduating from the University of Missouri's computer science department. Datastorm financed its growth by reinvesting its earnings instead of seeking outside investment. In 1992, they were ranked 376 in the Inc. 500. The company produced a combination 16/32-bit Procomm Plus for Windows, which included an early web browser called Web Zeppelin. Procomm Plus for Windows supported the remote imaging protocol (RIP) graphic terminal language. This upgrade enabled the display of higher-resolution images than the

ANSI escape code ANSI escape sequences are a standard for in-band signaling to control cursor location, color, font styling, and other options on video text terminals and terminal emulators. Certain sequences of bytes, most starting with an Escape character#ASC ...

s that most bulletin board systems used at the time. In November 1993, the

data transmission Data communication, including data transmission and data reception, is the transfer of data, signal transmission, transmitted and received over a Point-to-point (telecommunications), point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication chann ...

program reached the number one ranking on

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...

's list of top retail software. In 1995, Datastorm sued Excalibur Communications over software infringement. Datastorm became the first company to sue a vendor for infringement of its software using the shareware model. Datastorm grew through 40 consecutive profitable quarters, then was acquired by

Quarterdeck The quarterdeck is a raised deck behind the main mast of a sailing ship. Traditionally it was where the captain commanded his vessel and where the ship's colours were kept. This led to its use as the main ceremonial and reception area on bo ...

in 1996 for over

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

70 million. Quarterdeck was later purchased by Symantec. Support for the last release of Procomm, version 4.8, was discontinued in 2002.

Awards

* 1989: BYTE "Distinction" Award * 1992: Dvorak PC Telecommunications Excellence Award * 1997: Shareware Industry Awards Shareware Hall of Fame

References

{{Authority control Defunct software companies of the United States Communication software Terminal emulators Companies based in Columbia, Missouri Software companies established in 1986 Software companies disestablished in 1996 1986 establishments in Missouri 1996 disestablishments in Missouri