Gary Baker Over 25 years experience in the successful development and commercialisation of software. In a nutshell In 1996 I co-founded Askalix.com, now also trading under the Scoot.com brand, raised £6 million in VC funding and sold my interest in 2005.     My background prior to 1996 was primarily in software development and IT strategy. Since then I have acted as both Managing Director to a hundred plus strong telesales force selling Internet advertising products as well as acting as Technical Director on search engine, SEO, mobile tracking, data management, reporting and image processing software development projects.     I've built high density data centre infrastructures from scratch, developed business plans and operational strategies, done cost analysis and IT team recruitment, managed million pound plus budgets, performed technical due diligence and managed teams of software developers through the entire development cycle as well as contributing to marketing and sales strategies. A selection of projects: Search engine: more ... Image processing: more ... Databases: more ... Mobile phone tracking: more ... Voice recognition: more ... Systems for disabled users: more ... Embedded software Digital Muliplexers Modems: more ... Payroll Accounting Stock control Order processing: more ... The above is by no means an exhaustive list as I've designed, written, implemented, marketed or sold many other systems including: CRM, e-commerce, expert systems, AI and Neural Nets, remote network monitoring, SMS (Text) messaging, materials cutting, time management, copy protection, web builders, firewall, telecommuting, e-mail, project management and mirror backup systems. In my spare time I write. Two free novels can be found here.

How I can help you I have a passion for innovative software, a keen commercial eye and bags of business development experience. Investors Preliminary software evaluation: I can play devil's advocate, ask those awkward, technical questions, be your 'smoke-blower' detector. Quickly determine the IP, barriers etc. Start ups I can bring excellent software development knowledge and man management skills to enhance any board or management team. An innovator with a keen commercial sense. A communicator to bring VCs and Entrepreneurs together for mutual profit. Software Houses Building IT infrastructures, recruit technical teams, analyse current and proposed strategies, optimise for growth or consolidation, find channels to market, develop marketing plans etc. Software Developers Which VC or Business Angel would be interested? You need £3 million - what's that as a percentage of your company? Get VC ready - as a highly successful innovator myself, I'll speak your language. General If you need a bespoke software solution and you're not sure how to get started (or get it finished!): I can help. Contact: Fax: Email: I have bases in Yorkshire (2 hours from London) and in Western Scotland (an hour from Glasgow).     Last updated November 2007

A selection of projects

Search engine

This is myself and Tony Blaire sharing a stage at the European wide launch of AskAlix in 2001.     The search engine, AskAlix, was built to index and search 22 million European business data records supplied by Dun & Bradstreet.     Revenues were derived from the sales of priority listings, banner ads and website development. A 100 strong telesales force was employed to sell and update the system. A key feature being updates in real time which could be shown to potential customers while still on the phone.     I designed and developed the software from scratch as in 1996 nothing was available with the required performance characteristics.     MI International Ltd owned AskAlix until its sale in 2004. I co-founded MI in 1996 and I sold my interest in MI in 2005.     During my time at MI I acted as Managing director and Technical Director, raised £6 Million in VC funding and the company was awarded the Deloitte and Touche Fast Fifty award 2 years running. top...

Image processing

From basic online stock photography storage, distribution and sales systems to 3D surface mesh and NURB determinant algorithms - edge (feature) detection, STL reverse engineering, plus animation, viewing and editing projects. Mass (40 million+) image storage and retrieval over distributed, redundant hosting. The image is a view from the interior of a Bathsheba Metatron object used to test surface detection and 3D printing algorithms. top...

Databases

I've designed and developed many databases including:   -  AskAlix.com / Scoot.com: IP access via HTTP, Interactive, multithreaded and with transactional backup features   -  Uneek: a parameterised relational database to support sales, purchase, nominal, payroll, stock and order processing systems   -  Pictor: an image repository, distributed over several hosting sites. Images were tagged with other binary, meta and textual data   -  Parazzipack: an e-commerce enabled image, customer detail and transactional database distributed over multiple hosts using an SQL interface      Buy, borrow (Open Source), or build it yourself - a must-have debate especially relating to how the decision affects your company's value. top...

Mobile phone tracking

While Technical Director at MI International LTD I came up with the concept and managed the successful development of the mapamobile phone tracking system.     mapamobile was sold to Cybit in 2004 and I sold my interest in MI in 2005. top...

Voice recognition

During the early 1980s and 1990s I designed, developed and sold various voice recognition engines - continuous and discrete - using Hidden Markov Modeling and PCM image matching techniques. Customers included IBM, Dragon and Aptech.     I also developed the world's first Chinese voice recognition system used to drive a Chinese version of Windows 3.1. The system increased a Chinese typist's productivity by 400 percent. top...

Systems for disabled users

I spent several years developing and selling specialised systems for disabled users. Customers included The AA, Employment Services, The RNIB etc. Systems would include: screen readers (for blind users), voice recognition interfaces, brail to qwerty converters, voice synthesizer algorithms, zoom text as well as reading interfaces to Teletext. top...

Embedded software

I have developed and overseen the development of firmware for Digital Multiplexers, Modems and voice synthesizers. I've also developed - or lead teams which developed - firmware for various communications cards including: af8, g703, nx64, optical terminators, e&m signaling, etc. distributing data via pcm timeslots. Customers included several large banks, Scottish Power, Tate and Lyle and the MoD. The most recent project was overseeing the development of a GPS, GPRS, IP and text 'black box'. The system was developed in C and ASM on an ATMEL chipset and various versions of the product are being touted to car manufacturers and Satnav providers though I am not involved with this aspect. top...

SPN etc

Building Sales, Purchase and Nominal Ledger systems was how I started in programming. Before striking off on my own and building a thriving, and profitable, software house and consultancy, I built numerous accounting systems, payrolls, stock and order processing systems for Insta Systems of London. Customers included Dan Air (Payroll), Thomas Cook (Ticket Booking System), Normans (Property Management). top...

www.brambling.com (c) Gary Baker 2007