webfactory's History
In 1997 Philipp Bosch, Sebastian Kugler, and Matthias Pigulla founded webfactory GbR while they were high school students at the Clara-Schumann Gymnasium in Bonn. The golden time of the internet was just blooming and a number of companies and organizations were searching for competent support for the development of their websites. One of these was the club “Schulen ans Netz” (“schools on the net”), a joint initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Deutsche Telekom AG and the first customer of the newly founded company.
webfactory acquired its first large scale project in 1998. wallstreet:online strived for market leadership in independent online finance portals and they chose webfactory to do the design, programming and web hosting. In addition to the clear representation of stock news and the wallstreet:online-logo, webfactory successfully developed an extensive discussion forum, chat rooms and a powerful newsletter distributor. The number of users continued to increase and by the end of 1999 there were over 100,000 registered community members. The website clocked millions of visits per month.
As 2000 approached, webfactory had become very good at making websites but they aspired for more. In addition to designing and implementing modern, efficient and attractive websites, they wanted to enable them! Most people who wanted websites didn't have computer-programming skills, which would have been necessary for updating the content on their sites. And so began the development of the content management system wfDynamic. At the start it was a tool for website content managers to edit press releases and update text content in an easy and dependable environment that required no programming or computer skills. In the mean time wfDynamic has developed into a universal framework for browser-based database applications.
In the middle of the stock boom, Haubrok AG invited webfactory to join their exclusive partner network in which webfactory is the featured web development company.
Due to continuing growth the founders decided to convert webfactory into a GmbH on January 1st, 2000.
webfactory has won numerous new customers in the public sector since 2001. For example, webfactory worked with JUGEND für Europa, the German agency of the European Union’s Youth in Action program, JUGEND, creating a comprehensive online platform which eventually attracted many affiliated independent websites.
webfactory is certified to offer vocational training programs in accordance with the German apprenticeship program. webfactory’s first apprentice was Per Bernhardt, who started his apprenticeship in May 2005. He finished successfully in January 2007 and is now working as a certified software application developer at webfactory.
In mid-2005 webfactory won the YOUTHPASS project, the development of a Europe-wide online solution for the generation of certificates that are awarded in recognition of informal study on behalf of the European Commission.
The projects here at webfactory continue to evolve but the fun and motivation in efficiently developing high quality innovative solutions remain the same.