The Next Generation of Class Management Software.
The 1980's brought about a major change to gymnastics and dance school management when the first "DOS" based computer software programs were developed to help gym and dance school owners manage billing. In these days, data corruption was a big worry and backup procedures along with networking issues caused frustration and headaches.
In the 1990's several PC based gymnastics products hit the market with a "Windows" version of class management software. Although very instrumental in the development of the evolution of class management software, networking issues and Windows stability issues continue to plague school owners still today. In addition, as school owners became more knowledgable about internet technology, they began to demand features that PC packages could not provide such as:
- Online payment integration
- Real time class openings on their web site
- Online class registration
- Access from home or work
- Co-located data with guaranteed user managed security
- Operating System Independent Software (works on Windows, Mac, Linux)
In 2002, the first web enabled class management software packages hit the market. Although revolutionary in concept, lack of high speed internet availability and slow connection issues caused early adopters lots of frustration. In addition, early and even some current web based software packages charge outrageous prices and set undesirable enrollment restrictions. In essence, school owners are penalized for their business success.
About the same time, Tom Forster developed ZipGym to handle five Aerials locations in Colorado with over 2000 enrollments. He began marketing ZipGym to desperate gym owners and in doing so raised the bar for developers by providing very easy and flexible solution. By 2004, ZipGym was being used by school owners all over the country. Ironically, this very success caused Tom to make the decision to move toward a web based version.
The fact that ZipGym was PC based made making updates and enhancements very labor intensive and expensive because school owners across the country would have to be mailed updates and walked through the upgrade procedures.
In January of 2008, ZipGym and iClassPro announced a joint effort in an effort to strengthen both companies ability to provide cutting edge web services and class management software to customers. An amazing team of school owners, programmers, graphic artists, coaches and industry experts were assembled to envision the "Future of Class Management". With more than 100 years of combined ideas and experience, iClassPro once again raises the bar for the next generation of class management software.
iClassPro technology supercedes other products on the market by using stable and proven operating systems based on Unix. In addition, iClassPro has combined that stability and security with an advanced database engine which is the same database engine used by Google Inc. for it's proven and fast web searching capabilities. With all of these technologies combined, this application provides the most stable, secure, and fastest class management sofware on the market.
This new era of software will revolutionize the way gymnastic schools, dance centers, swim schools, and children's activitity centers manage their business. iClass Pro provides ground breaking communication tools that help parents, athletes and coaches better communicate.
