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Alpine Technology Corporation


Alpine Technology Corporation had its roots in the 70's as its founder, Mick Baker, had a global vision to develop a software application that would revolutionize how Waste Industry Professionals ran their business and routes. The story about Alpine Technology is less about a company and more about an idea. An idea that was well ahead of the software development market when it began. An idea that landed in an unlikely industry...the waste management industry.

History

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The[Waste Industry] has been around ever since the first dump was created in Athens around 400 B.C. Since that time, the industry has grown by leaps and bounds. For example, in 2010 in the U.S. alone, Americans generated over 250 million tons of residential garbage![1] As long as the population continues to grow, waste professionals will be in demand. However, when you think of this traditional industry you do not think of technological advancement. Yet when you look at what applications are now being used to help waste professionals run their office and routes more efficiently, productively and profitably, you would be amazed. Alpine Technology was formed over 30 years ago to move those technological advancements along.
In Roseburg, Oregon Mick Baker saw a need in the waste industry and knew he could make an invaluable contribution. His vision was to provide stable software applications that would do more than just match the competition in their feature-rich solutions, but would give them tools to customize their application to meet their unique business needs. RAMS (Route Accounts Management System) was born. To most the ability to “customize” an application is not such a big deal, but to RAMS it meant something completely different. Most software companies typically boast on their ability to provide a broad selection of features that an end user can choose from to “customize” their experience. We all have grown to expect such features. However, with RAMS it is more than just offering a host of features to choose from (which they also provide). With their empowerment tools they allow their customers the ability to actually create code that truly customizes the application to meet their operational needs.

A New Era For Business Intelligent Software

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RAMS was born out of the conviction that the customer understands their business model better than anyone else. As a result, to limit the customer to specific feature sets is, in essence, telling the customer how they should run their own business. [business tools] should exist to free the customers up to run their business more efficiently and productively. This freedom should be felt by both small and large business alike. Typically such tools are only available to larger companies; however the trends in software development are favoring small companies[2] . The scalability and customization capabilities of RAMS allows even small to mid-sized customers (which represents a large portion of the privately-owned sector in the waste industry) to be competitive with their larger counterparts. Companies that do not have the technological infrastructure can now move it to the "cloud" and can operate like some of its larger competitors. This new era of customizable, scalable, affordable and comprehensive tools are the future.

International

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With substantial roots already in the growing U.S. waste industry, RAMS-Pro began to make headway in other international markets, including [England] and [Australia]. Presently, some of Alpine's largest waste haulers are in these markets and continue to see growth there. The Australian market, for example, is a 11 billion dollar industry, has over $2,400 businesses serving the waste industry,and generates over 46 million tons of waste. It continues to grow 10% annually[3] .

Important Dates

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File:Mick and Gretchen.jpg
  • Started in Roseburg, Oregon in 1978
  • 1978 introduced high speed customer access
  • 1982 introduced the first Report Writer to industry
  • 1984 Relocated to Colorado; International distribution began
  • 2000 Visual RAMS-Pro – 7th major release
  • 2005 Visual On-Route
  • 2008 Visual RAMS-Pro Enterprise – 8th major release
  • 4 Development offices in 3 countries
  • 7 Distributors in three countries and in 7 languages
  • 26 Associates & Employees



References

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  1. ^ [www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw_2010_rev_factsheet.pdf "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2010"] (PDF). www.epa.gov. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 10 July 2012. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  2. ^ DesMarais, Christina. "Can Small Business Benefit From Business Intelligence Software?". www.inc.com. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  3. ^ "Waste Disposal Services in Australia: Market Research Report". IBIS World. IBIS. Retrieved 11 July 2012.