The history of the software industry really follows the history of Cincom. Cincom began in 1968 when the company was founded by Tom Nies "with $600, a card table and a dream." That dream, selling computer software separately from hardware, revolutionized the way computers and their components were sold, and pioneered the software industry.Today Cincom Founder Tom Nies is the longest actively serving CEO in the computer industry. He is featured alongside other software and computer leaders such as Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and Steve Jobs (Apple), in the Smithsonian Institution's Computer History Collection.Cincom continues to make history. In 2004, Tom Nies won the Ernst & Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Former national winners include Michael Dell (Dell), Steve Case (AOL), Scott McNeeley (Sun), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and David Filo (Yahoo!). In 2005, along with the CEO of Adobe, Nies won the International Stevie Award for Best Executive—"the business world's own Oscars," according to the New York Post. In 2005, Nies also received the University of Cincinnati Lifetime Achievement award and in 2006, was named as one of the Top Ten IT Visionaries by START-IT magazine. In 2008, Tom and Cincom were featured in a Harvard Business School Study.In 2008 Cincom's 4oth Anniversary was recognized in New York Times. Mr. Nies thanked Cincom's customers and employees for "40 years of impossible dreaming in the software industry" on large screens in Times Square in New York and Las Vegas.
