I have a lot of respect for the PR firm Text 100 because I grew up in this business with Mark Adams, one of the co-founders of the company. I used to work with Mark when Text 100 was just a two man shop.

At the time, in 1981, I was working as a reporter for Computing, the largest weekly trade newspaper. In those days trade print publications were extremely competitive, profitable and employed lots of journalists.

Mark represented Microsoft, which was when Microsoft wasn't yet Microsoft, it wasn't much at all.

Microsoft was trying to establish its MS-DOS, and was up against Digital Research with its much better known CP/M operating system.

That was the battle, and we now know the outcome, but at the time MSFT was the underdog.

It's strange to think of Microsoft as the underdog but that's the way it was and that's what made the story interesting: can plucky Microsoft beat Digital Research?

How many PC makers support MS-DOS versus CP/M? How many applications run on MS-DOS? These were some of the key metrics that we reported on, who has more oems, who has the developer community?

And in those days Digital Research had the upper hand, there were times the future looked bleak for Microsoft...

SOHO Times

Mark and I were both young and just starting our respective professions, both of us discovering how to do what we were supposed to be doing. Those were fun years, living and working in central London.

Computing's offices were in the middle of Soho. The streets of Soho at the time were gritty and urban, but full off some of the best hidden jewel restaurants, bars, clubs, and pubs...

From Text To Next

Text 100 grew up quickly and became part of Next Fifteen Communications Group, with 800 staff and a publicly traded company. It includes well known PR firms: Bite PR, August One, and Outcast Communications. Plus it has a stake in the innovative tech policy PR firm 463 Communications.

Tim Dyson the chief executive of Next Fifteen, would sometime reminds me of the time when he used to pitch press releases to me when I was working at Computing...(!) 

I'd like to congratulate Text 100 on its 25th Anniversary.

And I want to interview Tim and ask him his plans for the next 25...

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Additional Info:

Tom Lewis and Mark Adams met in 1980 at Interco Business Consultants, a London PR agency. By early 1981, they were discussing the business principles for starting a new agency and, in June of that year, left Interco to form Text 100, the first company in what has now become Next Fifteen Communications. The company commenced trading in July 1981 and was legally registered on August 13th, 1981, the same day the IBM PC debuted in the United States.

http://www.nextfifteen.com/about.html

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Next Fifteen is a holding company for a number of leading PR businesses. From its start-up origins in 1981 Next Fifteen concentrated on organic growth, building up over 30 operations all over the world from the ground up.

Next Fifteen Communications

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Text 100 Public Relations a PR Consultancy

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Next Fifteen Communications Group plc

SYMBOL:
NFC.L

YEAR FOUNDED:
1981

# OF EMPLOYEES:
800

CORPORATE ADDRESS:
5 Albion Court
Galena Road
London W6 0QT
United Kingdom

OFFICERS/BOARD MEMBERS:
Will Whitehorn - Chairman
Tim Dyson - Chief Executive Officer
David Dewhurst ACA - Finance Director
Tom Lewis - Non-Excecutive Director
Brendan Magee - Non-Excecutive Director
Ian Taylor - Non-Excecutive Director
Mark Sanford - Company Secretary

MANAGEMENT TEAM:
Next Fifteen Communication’s senior management team comprises: Aedhmar Hynes, CEO of Text 100; Sarah Howe, Managing Director of AUGUST.ONE; Clive Armitage, CEO of Bite; Grant Currie, Managing Director of Inferno, Caryn Marooney and Margit Wennmachers, founders of OutCast; Hugh Birley, Chief Executive of Lexis.

VISION STATEMENT:
Next Fifteen Communications believes public relations will become the principal form of consulting used by all marketing departments around the world. By offering a complete range of PR services through a portfolio of PR businesses, Next Fifteen Communications aims to be one of the world's leading public relations groups. Next Fifteen Communications will retain a core specialization in technology-related businesses, as it firmly believes this market will drive best practice both for consumer and business-to-business marketing.