At the core of ColeSoft Marketing is David Cole, who has 40 years of experience in mainframe systems programming and development starting with MFT and running through MVS and today's z/OS systems. Throughout his career, Dave has had the opportunity to work on nearly every element of the z/OS operating system and has earned a reputation as an authority in his field. He is the author and lead developer of the company's core product, the source level assembler debugger z/XDC, which first came to market as "DeBugging Controller" or DBC in 1980.
Dave's son Calin was born in 1981. Shortly afterwards, Dave left Yale and he and his family moved from New Haven, Connecticut, to Afton, Virginia. Dave took a job in Washington, DC, and for several years commuted to DC and back every week.
In 1984, Dave completed a major overhaul of DBC, expanding its scope from 24-bit to 31-bit systems, and re-christened the product XDC, for Extended Debugging Controller. Then, in 1988, Dave bought out the rights to XDC from Yale and formally started Cole Software, now called ColeSoft Marketing. Dave had known Bob Shimizu while working in DC, and brought Bob on board to help with marketing and sales for XDC.
Cole Software operated out of Dave's home in Afton for several years, until 1992 when Dave rented the farmhouse next door and established a separate office. Then, in the late 1990s, ColeSoft really began to grow. In 1995 and 1997, Wendie Wyant and Tamara Critzer joined the team on the administrative side, and in 1998 Frank Chu was hired as an additional programmer. This core group of people has been integral to ColeSoft's success.
ColeSoft believes that the existence of z/XDC has helped contribute to the continued usefulness of the Assembler Language as a modern program development tool. Just as MVS/SP evolved over the years to become z/OS, z/XDC has evolved from the original DeBugging Controller into a full-featured, powerful development tool.
ColeSoft's greatest strengths are strong support for our user community and continued refinement of our products from a team of dedicated programmers. Our users also have a great deal to do with ColeSoft's and z/XDC's future direction, and their needs and feedback contribute directly to our products' development.
