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If you're a novelist, screenwriter or blogger -- and you own a Mac -- then you've probably heard of Mariner Software.
The Minneapolis company makes desktop software for what its president, Michael Wray, calls the "creativity market."
Last year, sales at the 11-employee company grew by 60 percent, much of that driven by writers and other creative types who wanted an easy way to perfect their crafts.
The company has been profitable for the last eight quarters in a row, Wray told MacNewsWorld.
However, when Chief Technology Officer William Parr founded Mariner Software in 1999, it was an entirely different company. Back then, it was trying to compete with the likes of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) for a share of the desktop productivity software market.
It wasn't easy.
Change of Direction
"Mariner Software was known for its productivity software," said Wray, who joined the company in 2001. "That's our claim to fame. We came out with a word processor and spreadsheet for the Mac. We were this little rinky-dink company going against the world's largest software company in Microsoft. That was our exclusive focus."
By 2003, the company was tired of getting beat up by Microsoft and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and decided to switch directions.
"We chose the writing and creativity market," Wray said. "We came out with MacJournal, and it's still our most popular product."
MacJournal is a journal and blogging application that has since been through five different versions. The software allows users to write and post any kind of content they want, including PDFs, QuickTime movies, images and text.
After the initial success of MacJournal, Mariner Software released Montage, a screenwriting application.
"There were already a couple of the major players, like Final Draft and Movie Screen Writer, in the market," Wray said. "Yet it appeared to us that there wasn't a lot of movement in terms of technological innovation with those applications."
Novels and Recipes
In addition to MacJournal and Montage, Mariner also has an application for novelists, called "StoryMill."
Writers can track, tag and filter characters, scenes, locations, research and more with a built-in outlining tool. For fiction writers, StoryMill provides features -- such as word frequency counting, a cliche meter and a progress meter -- designed to help them meet daily writing goals.
"We've had great success with distribution and channels with StoryMill, and it is available in almost all Apple stores worldwide," Wray said.
The company also has a poetry-writing application called "Desktop Poet" and a newer application for managing recipes and wine called "MacGourmet Deluxe."
"Our business model has gone from business productivity to writing and creativity to whatever," Wray said. "It's kind of funny how we've evolved. If we see an opportunity where we think we can develop a product that won't be just a me-too, then we're going to go after it."
Productivity Market
Mariner Software never abandoned the productivity software market -- it simply switched focus.
Today, the company still offers a word-processing application called "Mariner Write" and a spreadsheet application called "Mariner Calc."
In January, Mariner acquired ReceiptWallet, a San Diego-based developer of an application that allows users to scan, store and manage receipts and documents on their computers. All the data is searchable on a Mac.
"It's most beneficial if you're a salesperson on the road and you have a ton of receipts," Wray said.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Mariner Software is in the process of developing its first mobile productivity applications for Apple's hit iPhone.
"We just submitted Mariner Calc to Apple -- our first iPhone application," Wray said. "The differentiator is that it supports both reading and writing of Microsoft Excel files. You can edit and view and send documents back to whomever you're dealing with. We think it's going to be a huge solution for the business and enterprise market -- people that need access to their spreadsheets on the road."
An iPhone version of MacJournal is also in development, as is another, as-yet-undisclosed Mariner Software application, said Wray.
