Entrepreneurs set the "Trend" in software development (January 2003)

Is it so hard to break into the software market? Not if you're young and enterprising and produce a product that clients will line up to purchase.

Mississauga based TrendMetrix Software Inc. have released the first search engine optimization software package SEO Studio, solely designed in Canada and developed by two first-generation Canadian Programmers.

Joel Katona, a 40-year-old Hungarian native who immigrated to Canada in 1983, is the CEO and president of TrendMetrix. He received his formal training at a Toronto based computer college as programming analyst, and has come a long way since purchasing his first personal computer, a Commodore VIC 20.

"I had learned the basic programming language and started to write small programs as a hobby," he said.

That hobby mushroomed into a full-time business venture with the help of software developer Kris Briegmann.

Briegmann, 25, moved here from Poland with his parents as a teenager and quickly became an avid "computer geek." He went to college to study computer programming and analysis while working nights at a shipping company to pay for his tuition. He and his future business partners met through a mutual friend and began working on a variety of web projects which in turn led them in the direction of improving Internet visibility.

According to Katona, "we felt that we had a great opportunity to make a difference in the Internet marketing efforts for small to medium size companies. We'd get them better visibility and exposure on Internet search engines with our software and an excellent return on their investment".

What they did was write a search engine optimization program based on the demand by web site owners, and web masters for simple and easy to understand software packages.

It takes the difficult and time consuming task of analyzing HTML web page code and looks for keywords, tabulates and calculates the data, and presents a visually appealing format.

It is the first software of this nature completely home grown in Canada. The two programmers felt it was time Canadians made their contribution to the technology sector and prove to the world this country has the ingenuity and knowledge in not only developing new applications, but also making a difference in economic growth.

By writing a program that can be incorporated into the development of a web site and boosting a company's web presence, "this will make a significant difference for the SME's (small medium enterprises) across Canada", said Katona.

The program, SEO Studio, was designed to analyze, submit and track web pages on Internet search engines.

The analyzer is the first such tool to combine the tabulation and display of the web page content by different HTML, page sections and allow the user to highlight specific keyword phrases in the web page content.

The submission feature can be fully automated with the help of a scheduling component. It has a built in Spam guard feature to prevent the user from over submitting to search engines. In addition, the user can track manual submissions.

The two developers have already begun developing the second version completely written in the "Microsoft. Net" platform, which will include upgrades consisting of a web, log analyzer and link popularity tool.

These additions put them ahead of the competitors in the market for SEO tools. Said Katona: "all other search engine applications are derived either from the United States or European markets. This is the first of its kind and we are extremely excited to design a product for this niche market of search engine optimization".