Bright Ideas in Connectivity

The story of OfficeExtend, Fransen/King, and connected offices before the cloud.

Long before cloud communications and remote-work platforms became commonplace, Fransen/King built software that connected HP 3000 business systems with the people, printers, fax machines, networks, personal computers, and offices around them.

Read the stories See the path forward

Jeff and Craig at the 1990 Interex Convention and Tradeshow

Stories

Eight starting points from the OfficeExtend archive.

Office ExtendFransen/King products found 1,500 customers in 34 countries around the world–fully 10% of the installed HP3000 base.Read story

The Fransen/King Origin StoryFrom a Peat Marwick tax calculation project to a company building products for the Hewlett-Packard 3000 market.Read story FAX/3000FAX/3000HP 3000 applications, PC fax boards, LaserJet output, TIFF conversion, and a PCL interpreter written for the job.Read story

Expeditors InternationalA logistics customer, leased lines, international fax costs, and an HP 3000 communications problem worth solving.Read story

The First Floppy DeliveryThe first HP3000 software delivered on floppy disksRead story

$19 Show SpecialA trade-show promotion that brought OfficeExtend to hundreds of new customers.Read story

Our Own Leroy NeimanThe year Fransen/King turned a trade-show booth into live promotional theater.Read story

Sorry, Wrong NumberA FAX/3000 retry story involving a wrong number, a sleepless recipient, and one practical solution.Read story

Continuity

From Hewlett-Packard innovation to TagBlue and Bublr.

Fransen/King products found 1,500 customers in 34 countries around the world–fully 10% of the installed HP3000 base.

OfficeExtend belonged to a period when Hewlett-Packard systems gave companies durable computing platforms and independent software companies built the connective tissue around them. Fransen/King's work was about making information move: from host systems to offices, from applications to printers and fax boards, and from local business processes to distributed teams.

Craig Fransen's later work continues that thread. TagBlue and Bublr are present-day expressions of the same instinct: organizing useful information, connecting people to the right context, and turning practical ideas into software people can use.

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HP 3000

The HP 3000 earned an almost legendary reputation because it was remarkably reliable, secure, and easy to manage at a time when business computing was often fragile and complex. Introduced by Hewlett-Packard in 1972, it evolved into a powerful multi-user system capable of supporting hundreds of simultaneous users while running mission-critical applications around the clock. Its MPE operating system, integrated database, sophisticated security model, and exceptional transaction processing made it a favorite for manufacturing, distribution, healthcare, finance, and government organizations. Many HP 3000 systems achieved years of uninterrupted operation, becoming the dependable backbone of businesses worldwide. For thousands of customers, the HP 3000 wasn't simply a computer—it was the trusted engine that ran their company every day.

Print-era pieces from the OfficeExtend story.

OfficeExtend advertisement headed We make two kinds of PC Networks — Office Extend Serial Network advertisement.

OfficeExtend advertisement headed If you play with giants, you'd better be quick — Office Extend Print Connection advertisement.