About the MV Market Place

Today the concept of Freeware and Shareware have become the driving force behind the success of Windows, Apples iPhone and iPad, and Googles Android. The idea of the "App store" or "Market Place" is what is sparking a 21st Century gold rush, with today's gold being software.

In 1995 Jay LaBonte wrote an article titled, "The Instant Guide to the Internet", which appeared in the January/February issue of Pick World magazine. The article, Jay LaBonte introduced the creation of an FTP download site founded by himself and Pick Systems for the purpose of distributing Pick based software. The response to the site was overwhelming but short lived. The limitations of Pick Basic at the time, and its limited communications with other site on the Internet quickly lead to its demise.

Today however, is a new era. Enhancements in MultiValue Databases have made the exchange of information over the Internet a simple two line Basic statement, giving every MultiValue system in the world the ability to easily connect and exchange information.

But what can we do with this ability to connect our MultiValue2 systems to the Internet? This is the question that has bothered my since 1995, with that first FTP site for the exchange of Pick Software. I realized then, that I have written tens of thousands of lines of software code that is today just sitting on my server taking up space. Some has even been lost as a result of the lack of interest in maintaining it, or its usefulness to me has long since past.

What if I could revitalize some of that code? What of someone out there is having a problem that my old software would resolve? What if I wrote a great program that helps fix a nagging problem? What if I want to write software that I cal sell, but I don't want to spend the time marketing the product, or maintain a distribution portal. What if I could package my Basic software and post it on a site like those Windows developers, or at an "App Store" like the iPhone developers.

We at the MV Market Place, believe there is a huge amount of "MultiValued" software sitting on servers that still has value. It may not be useful to the original author, but someone out there may still be able to use it. We are also positive there are software applications out there designed to solve current problems, and programmers are busy reinventing the wheel over and over, simply because of a lack of communications and the ability to effectively exchange software within the MultiValued community.

So what do we do about this problem? How do we bring the community together and foster the exchange of ideas, subroutines, functions and complete applications? The answer is simple. Lets barrow from the world of Mobile Apps, Windows App, and Apple Widgets, and create a web site dedicated to the distribution of MultiValued software.

As many people are quick to point out, it is easy to sit down and draw up a list of the things we need to create a community outreach program, yet another to actually create the programs, infrastructure and web site, let alone support the process.

So what's the answer? The MV Market Place is the answer to this problem. The MV Market Place has been created to provide a method for the uploading and downloading of software, subroutines and other MultiValued files. Additionally, it serves as a method for those that would like to distribute their software, but lack the infrastructure to deal with distribution, software reviews, and collecting support questions from clients. The MV Market Place can and will be able to handle a multitude of these issues.