Roots

Before changing its name to MobiMedia Inc., a company known as Rambold Computer Inc. grew to become the leading provider of computer-aided selling systems (CAS) and customer relationship management solutions (CRMs) in Germany’s clothing sector. 

Rambold Computer Inc. was founded in 1987 with the intention of providing a solution for mobile data entry for its own uses in the clothing industry. (At that time, a clothing manufacturing company was part of the family business.) 

This practical relevance quickly resulted in a suitable and efficient product. From the beginning, the ease of operation using a touchscreen computer display played an important role. Also since the beginning, much value has been placed on ensuring extraordinary user-friendliness so that computer skills are not necessary to utilise the software. 

Today the 4th software generation is available on the market. Over the years, the MobiMedia complete system has established itself in numerous different branches.

Milestones

1986 for the first time, the idea of directly entering orders during the ordering discussion became a reality when Epson presented the first touchscreen computer display, the Epson EHT-10.

64 KB memory, 192 KB RAM, 4 MHz speed and the now-obsolete operating system CP/M (the forerunner of MS-DOS) were the basic parameters for managing the orders of our first customer ESPRIT. The orders were printed out using the robust Diconix printer by Kodak.
  
  
  
   

The data transfer was conducted using self-developed transfer software and by the acoustic coupler from the company Elsa, with a speed of  1200 baud. The catch?  Since any outside noise could result in interference, the sale representative’s favourite dog absolutely had to keep his barking to himself during data transfers. :-) The software was developed under DOS – using an emulator that was self-designed specifically for this purpose – and was then compiled onto one of the legendary Osborne laptops under CP/M. The barcode-reading software and the XMODEM protocol for data transfer had to be self-designed in those days.

1990 the software was rewritten in DOS.
It was the dawn of the MobiPad, a touchscreen-based computer by Fujitsu.

In order to make the system usable for us, Fujitsu carried out hardware changes specially suited to Mobi.

1994 the change to the Epson EHT 400 with the advantages of a larger screen and a memory expansion thanks to the new standards for PC card slots. In addition came increased battery life and an elegant design.

  
Modems available in 1994 make the transfer easier. 
The original 1200 baud have been expanded to 50,000 baud. With the first radio local area network we developed the first online system, still working with DOS.

1997 using the first touchscreen notebook by Siemens-Fujitsu, the software was presented in Windows. Now we support all standard Windows functions: from the standardised remote data transfer to net-based print routines. The colour screen opened new possibilities for presentation and both pictures and videos were included.

In parallel with the continued technical development of the operating system, the developmental path led us from web-based data transfers to working with radio transmission networks to the revolutionary n-tier technology, allowing for a split online/offline process.

At this time, the functions of sheer order entry were expanded to a complete CRM application, including groupware functions and work organisation.