Oak Tree Software was founded in 1993 by Don Devine, with the purpose of creating an object-oriented framework which could be used by Don's other company, Cold River Software, to create a Windows-based tax preparation product for professional tax preparers.
There were two reasons for forming Oak Tree. Of low importance is the fact that Oak Tree may choose to license its technology to product companies other than Cold River. More important is that Ron Jeffries couldn't face the prospect of working for a Tax Company.
Oak Tree consisted of four developers, Ron Jeffries, Ann Anderson, Jim Howe, and David Relson. They have built a framework which supports a team of from 8 to 20 developers who have built the Veritax product. This product's first commercial year was 1995 (the 1994 tax season), and they later released 13000 free CD copies of a Test Drive, to prospects for the 1995 tax season.
Using the facilities built by Oak Tree, Veritax included capabilities which no other tax package can match, and showed prospects of becoming a dominant entry in the marketplace.
Unfortunately, Oak Tree and Cold River didn't make it. The product was too little, too late. The reasons were complex, but everyone learned something for next time. The cost was too high in dollars and pain, but that's life.
See original on c2.com 