You Need
May 2000
The view from Inclusive’s Window
Martin Littler gives the first in a
brand new series of
Monthly Reports
Each weekday 5,300 of you hit this site (7,500 at weekends) – a welcome to you. Of the weekday hits, 500 visitors stay long enough to be classed as “users” and in their “user sessions” they mooch about for an average of 11 minutes 30 seconds each. Multiplied up you users spend 5,750 of your earth minutes with us each day. A staggering 95 hours per day of your attention. Thank you. A thanks to Helen Melhuish who runs all of our sites (until recently from Sweden) but now happily back in Macclesfield.
I feel the least I can do is welcome you all in and give the latest low-down on Inclusive Technology and its doings. I will be doing these reports each month from now on – so tune in again. Next month we will focus more on our development team and the new products we are refining and producing. This month I will bring you up to date on the corporate story so far …
Two years ago on April 1st 1998 we (that’s Trish Hornsey, Roger Bates and me, Martin Littler) bought Inclusive Technology from its owners. It was formerly the education division Ocean Software which had itself just been bought by the French multi-media giant Infogrames.
 Roger, Martin and Trish |
Earlier, toward the end of 1996, Roger, Trish and myself and six colleagues had left our previous employer and set up this Inclusive Technology division of Ocean Software specialising in special needs resources. After eighteen months we took the chance to buy the company ourselves. |
| Two years on, and your support has brought dramatic growth in the supply of the resources and services we offer. Take our March sales. This year you bought £312,000 of our special software and access devices. We thought 1999 March sales were good at £203,000. In March 1998, we supplied you with £82,000 of goods and in our first March of 1997, just £18,000. Sales are set to reach £2,000,000 this year ($US 3.2 million) and this give us the customer base and the investment income to launch new special needs resources. You ain’t seen nothing yet. |  |
Some of our customers are more equal than others …
 (Click for a larger version) |
Our References Sites and key contacts together with our Agents and Dealers are invited to a special receptions and updates three times a year, together with folk from our Special School Service. On April 6th the numbers expanded and we had to abandon plans to meet in our seminar rooms in Delph and take over the local Saddlewoth Players’ Theatre. Can you see your self in the audience? |
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The Oldham Special Needs Show is back! Well sort of. Actually it is in Bolton, at the wonderful Reebok Soccer Stadium. On May 23/24 2000, we are joining forces with the famous Special Needs North Exhibition. Our exhibition is called SpecialNeedsIT and each of the exhibitors has a forty-minute How-IT-Works seminar slot on each day to talk you through their product range. |
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We could be buying this pub!
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Our original business unit in Delph grew to two units, then three and now four. We went from 750 square feet to 2,500 square feet. We need more space. We have put in an offer for the Floating Light which was formally a pub on the Pennine Way long distance footpath. It has 5,000 square feet on two floor plus ample beer cellars. It also has the best view of any software company in Britain. Come back next month and find out if we were successful in buying the pub.