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GAMCO Educational Software

Topic: Company

 From HandWiki - Reading time: 3 min
Short description: American software developer


GAMCO Educational Software was an American educational computer game developer located in Texas .[1][2] From 1995 it a wholly owned subsidiary of Siboney Learning Group, a division of Siboney Corporation.[3]

History

Siboney was founded as Siboney-Caribbean Petroleum in 1955 by Jerry Tegeler.[4] After the 1960s, the company evolved into the industries of coal properties, plastics production and domestic oil exploration.[5] In 1968, Siboney purchased Gamco Inc., a company that manufactured and sold educational products.[5] In 1992, Siboney granted options to purchase 175,000 shares to employees of Gamco Industries.[4] In 1995, Jerry's son Tim took control of the company and sold off all the operating divisions except Gamco, a small educational systems company in west Texas.[4] Bodie Marx, then working for a French trade publisher, was brought in to take over software operations via Siboney Learning division.[4] By this point, Gamco had released 17 titles, the most popular one being Touchdown Maths.[4]

Touchdown Maths had been developed after "tests revealed that both girls and boys enjoy learning math in connection with the game of football."[6] The series sees pairs of students compete in maths problems, the winner gaining yardage on the field.[4] The series was released on Mac Color Classic, LC Series, Roman Numeral II series and Proforma 400 and 600 series.[6] Touchdown Maths had recently been accused of being societally and technologically outdated; "too boy-oriented", and only running on Apple II / DOS systems.[4] Marx paid a Ukrainian software developer $350,000 update the games to run on Windows and Macintosh computers; meanwhile he tasked Siboney software staff of 8 programmers to create more titles.[4] They debuted in October 1997.[7]

Of Gamco's total sales for the quarter ended March 31, 1997, approximately 94% was generated by proprietary software.[8] In 1997, Siboney Learning Group launched Orchard: Teacher's Choice Software, which offered schools a curriculum-based solution with universal management by tracks student scores on all Siboney programs; this included Gamco products.[3][4] Gamco dealers' sales grew 14.4% in 1998.[3] Gamco had ann "on approval" policy where products shipped subject to customer approval were not billed for and could. be returned within 45 days.[3] Gamco's R&D budget was $403,000, $440,000 and $412,000 in 1998, 1997 and 1996.[3]

As of 2001, Siboney employed around 60 people at its Kirkwood headquarters, Hanley Industrial Court fulfillment center and other offices throughout the United States .[5] In 2005, sales of GAMCO and Teacher Support Software decreased 33% compared to 2004.[9] In 2009, Siboney signed a latter of intent to sell Siboney Learning Group to an affiliate of educational software company EdOptions.[10]

Series

Maths

  • Math Concepts One... Two... Three!
  • Math Concepts in Motion
  • Math Concepts Step-by-Step
  • Skillbuilders
  • Paws and Pyramids
  • Word Problem Square Off Series
  • Touchdown Math Series
  • Number Facts Series
  • Money Challenge/Discover Time

Reading

  • Phonics
  • Reading Concepts
  • Reading for Critical Thinking
  • Captain Zog's Main Idea
  • Undersea Reading for Meaning

Language Arts

  • Renegades
  • Essential Language Series

Writing

  • Paragraph Power & Responsive Writing
  • Precision Writing
  • Writing Renegades

References

  1. ↑ MacUser December 1994
  2. ↑ Gamco Education Materials: Educational Software for K-12
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 "SIBONEY CORP - 10-K Annual Report - 12/31/1998". http://getfilings.com/o0001011240-99-000015.html. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 "Siboney recasts itself, fills educational software niche". https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/1999/11/29/focus1.html. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Fast 50 winners 31-40 - 2001-09-24 - St. Louis Business Journal". https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2001/09/24/focus6.html. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "FOOTBALL PROGRAMS TEACH MATHEMATICS" (in en). 26 September 1993. https://buffalonews.com/news/football-programs-teach-mathematics/article_435f118a-4475-5d83-8ed6-7bf761fa8b78.html. 
  7. ↑ "More on New Math Courseware: Other titles, new companies & extra tools for math instruction -" (in en-US). 1997-08-01. https://thejournal.com/articles/1997/08/01/more-on-new-math-courseware-other-titles-new-companies--extra-tools-for-math-instruction.aspx. 
  8. ↑ "Siboney Corp 1997 Quarterly Report 10-Q" (in en). https://sec.report/Document/0001011240-97-000046/. 
  9. ↑ "Siboney Corporation Form 10-K". https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/90057/000106880006000226/siboney10k.htm. 
  10. ↑ "Siboney Corporation Announces Proposed Sale of Siboney Learning Group Business" (in en). 2009-02-03. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20090203005249/en/Siboney-Corporation-Announces-Proposed-Sale-of-Siboney-Learning-Group-Business. 

External links



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