PC-Doctor

PC-Doctor, Inc.

Type	Private Corporation
Industry	PC Diagnostic Software
Founded	1993
Headquarters	Reno, Nevada, United States
Key people	Aki Korhonen, CEO and Founder Suzanna Mak, Chairwoman of the Board Percy Yang, Chief Financial Officer
Website	www.pc-doctor.com

PC-Doctor, Inc. is a privately held corporation headquartered in Reno, Nevada. The company develops and produces diagnostic programs for use by PC manufacturers, component vendors, PC repair professionals, support organizations, and end users. The software is available in 23 languages for Windows, Windows PE, many variations of Linux, BSD Unix, and DOS^{[citation needed]}. Some products are embedded and are operating system-independent.

The company focuses heavily on research and development, with more than three-quarters of the company's staff employed in software development, quality assurance, and technical customer-facing roles^{[citation needed]}. PC-Doctor has a library of intellectual property, including multiple patents (see Code reuse).

History

The company was founded in 1993 as Watergate Software, Inc. in Emeryville, California. The company became PC-Doctor, Inc. in early 2000 and moved its headquarters to Reno, Nevada in late 2003.^[1]

Product history and usage

PC-Doctor products are used by most major PC manufacturers for No Trouble Found (NTF) detection, end-user self-directed troubleshooting, product refurbishment, field service, remote assistance and other similar functions^{[citation needed]}. Other products are used by PC repair and service professionals to diagnose hardware problems in the field and in repair depots.^{[citation needed]}

PC-Doctor's first product was PC-Doctor for DOS, designed to perform low-level testing of the hardware components of PCs. This product is still used extensively by manufacturers^{[citation needed]}. As additional operating systems were introduced, the company adapted its core technology to run on Microsoft Windows, Windows PE, Windows XP Media Center Edition, and Linux. It also developed diagnostics for motherboard and in-ROM applications.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, the company introduced PC-Doctor Solutions Architecture, that combines diagnostic tests and system information collection with known problem cases and solutions. This enables end users to solve categories of hardware related problems without relying on calls to technical support.^{[citation needed][citation needed]}

In 2009 the company announced a new cloud based service that delivers timely, contextual messaging that allows OEM and other business partners the ability to deliver highly personalized service and support capabilities. Lenovo's ThinkVantage Toolbox is the first customer to use this solution.^[2].

Awards

• 2005 PCDIY Magazine "Best Products" Award^[3]

Issued patents

• 6,742,148 – System and method for testing memory while an operating system is active^[4]
• 6,792,562 – Format for extensible error and event codes^[5]
• 6,829,726 – Method and system for testing a universal serial bus within a computing device^[6]
• 7,036,129 – Diagnostic system integrated with device drivers of an operating system^[7]
• 7,139,954 – Method and apparatus for testing a computing device with memory using test program code^[8]
• 7,155,645 – System and method for testing memory while an operating system is active^[9]
• 7,356,744 – Method and system for optimizing testing of memory stores^[10]

References

1. ^ INC Magazine, May 2005
2. ^ http://web.lenovothinkvantagetoolbox.com/index.html
3. ^ PCDIY! Magazine, May 2005, Taipei, Taiwan
4. ^ Patent 6,742,148
5. ^ Patent 6,742,148
6. ^ Patent 6,829,726
7. ^ Patent 7,036,129
8. ^ Patent 7,139,954
9. ^ Patent 7,155,645
10. ^ Patent 7,356,744