Mage UK

Mage UK Ltd

Former type	Limited
Industry	Computer software Web development Research and development Computer hardware (Future)
Founded	Kingston upon Hull, England (12 December 2002) (Under the name Mage Software) Renamed to Mage UK and registered as a limited company on (25 February 2007)
Defunct	(September 2009)
Headquarters	Kingston upon Hull, England
Key people	Defunct
Products	MageIM (Instant Messenger) MageBB (Bulletin Board) Mucca (IRC client)[1] Architect Studio (Multi-Language IDE)[1] MageCRM (Business Tools)
Employees	Defunct
Website	www.mageuk.com

Mage UK Ltd was a multinational limited company based in the United Kingdom, and Spain. Its primary focus was to be a technology group consisting of multiple sub-brands (For example, Mage Web Solutions), and to develop software for both the home and business.^[2]

Mage UK is headquartered in Kingston upon Hull, England, their most successful products to date are MageIM and MageBB, both being served at a high rate to the public. Both products are available free of charge, and hence do not impact Mage UK's revenue in a positive nor negative way.

Upon offering computer-based educational schemes to employees of partner companies, Mage UK has started awarding Mage CTE (Mage Certified Technlogy Expert) to volunteers that contribute to Mage UK communities with their knowledge of Mage UK Products, and computing technology in general.^[3][4] It has been recently released that Mage UK will soon be offering online courses to the general public too.^[3]

Charities are a focus for Mage UK, since working with Dove House Hospice on the Dove House Day website.^[2][5]

History

2002: Founding

After noticing a gap in the market for educational products, Rudi Visser and Lee Mytton set out to produce software in order to fulfill the needs. Mage Software was thus founded, producing software for the purpose of educating students in United Kingdom Secondary schools (Mainly Science applications).^[6] The second product produced was a scientific Artificial Intelligence application, CDMuser (the name of which has no meaning). The product was not released, and was feature incomplete (Voice recognition was planned but never emerged).^[6]

2005-2006: Web Software

Mage Software soon realised the potential of the internet, and started producing software for it in a generalised way. Late 2005, two products were released, MageBB and MageIM.^[6] MageBB was a commercial bulletin board system released in December 2005. MageIM's Client Application was released for free; with the server application being released under a commercial license only to limited sources that met specific requirements set my Mage Software. Both web applications mentioned are still in development to date.

Early 2007: Turning Point

Mage Software's name was no longer relevant, as the company did not only sell software to end-users. In February 2007, the decision was made by both Rudi Visser and Craig Pearson to change the company's name to Mage UK, which would be a technology group consisting of sub-companies/sub-brands, including Mage Software. The company 'Mage UK Ltd' was registered in England and Wales on 25 February 2007 as a limited company.

At this point, new sub-brands were created under the names Mage Software, Mage Web Solutions and Mage Internet. As notably taken from the names, the 2 internet brands, Mage Web Solutions and Mage Internet, went "head-first" into the internet market, providing Web Design and Development and Internet Connections respectively.

Mid 2007: Low-Level Work

Rudi Visser, after research continuing for months, has announced that Mage UK will soon be entering the operating system market, producing a 'new-age' way of development, and a new way of using your computer system.^[7]

Late 2009: Dissolution

In September 2009, Mage UK ceased trading completely and was subsequently dissolved and removed from the Companies House Registry.

Certain Products and Services were taken over by different companies.

Product / Service Divisions

Internet Services

Mage UK's Web Development, Design and Hosting division, Mage Web Solutions, is currently offering services of hosting, design and development to businesses wanting websites.^[8] Mage Web Solutions does not currently offer any software products or fixed price packages.

Mage Internet is Mage UK's internet service provider, offering an internet service to users with a BT line in the United Kingdom.

Business Solutions

MageCRM is currently Mage UK's only purely business oriented software product.^[7] MageCRM offers the following features:^[7]

• Sales Tracking
• Workgroup Management
• Task Management
• Meeting Manager
• Accounting/Reports
• Contact Manager
• And more...

Mage UK also offers a Bespoke Software Development service to businesses.

Web software

MageBB and MageIM are the only 'Home Worthy' web services that are notable as of now (Excluding Mucca). Both software products are available free of charge and can be downloaded from the Mage UK Website.^[6] MageIM was historically written in Visual Basic 6, and released as Open Source Software. Early 2007, the software was re-written in the C# language, however was never fully released. The proposed license for the C# version was also open source, however the current released version is closed source (Commercial Licenses may be available).^[9]

Developer Tools

Mage Software is planned to release a new wave of development tools in the form of Architect Suite.^[1] These tools will provide an Integrated Development Environment for multiple languages, and will have features such as an intellisense-like system, syntax highlighting, and a graphical editor. Architect Suite will be the flagship product of Mage UK's new entry in the Development Tool market, and is going to be entering right alongside Microsoft Visual Studio, SharpDevelop and Dreamweaver (For its web technology interface).^{[10][dead link]}

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Mage UK Future Applications". Mage UK. 26 March 2007. http://www.mageuk.com/future.php. Retrieved 26 March 2007. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "About Mage UK". Mage UK. 26 March 2007. http://www.mageuk.com/about.php. Retrieved 26 March 2007. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "Mage UK Education Schemes". Mage UK. 26 March 2007. http://www.mageuk.com/education.php. Retrieved 26 March 2007. 
4. ^ "Mage UK Community Awards". Mage UK. 26 March 2007. http://www.mageuk.com/awards.php. Retrieved 26 March 2007. 
5. ^ "Dove House Day". Mage Web Solutions. 5 June 2007. http://www.dovehouseday.org.uk/. Retrieved 8 July 2007. 
6. ^ ^{a b c d} "Mage UK Corporate History". Mage UK. 26 March 2007. http://www.mageuk.com/history.php. Retrieved 26 March 2007. 
7. ^ ^{a b c} "Mage UK Home Page". Mage UK. 26 March 2007. http://www.mageuk.com/index.php. Retrieved 26 March 2007. 
8. ^ "Mage Web Solutions". Mage UK. 29 March 2007. http://www.magewebs.com/index.php. Retrieved 29 March 2007. 
9. ^ "MageIM (Note: Site doesn't seem to be up to date)". Mage Software. 29 March 2007. http://www.mageim.com/. Retrieved 29 March 2007. 
10. ^ "Rudi Visser's Anncouncement to Architect Suite". Rudi Visser. 27 June 2007. http://www.rudivisser.com/wordpress/?p=19. Retrieved 8 July 2007.