25 years of ViCon – ViCon today

A quarter of a century is a long time, but it goes by surprisingly quickly. ViCon celebrates its anniversary in December and we would like to take this opportunity to look back on "25 years of ViCon" in a five-part series.

In the fourth part, we look at the years from 2019–2023:

25 years of ViCon – ViCon today

The last part of our anniversary series started in 2019. ViCon had become a twen and things got right down to business.

Everything new – viflow 7

Not only did a viflow with a new number for a renovated or improved software come onto the market – (almost) everything was different in this version. The predecessor had become somewhat outdated "architecturally". Or rather: the house was in good shape, only the foundations were slowly crumbling. Repairs are naturally difficult, which is why viflow was developed from scratch on a modern, future-proof platform.

At the end of 2019, viflow 7 saw the light of day in the software world. The WebModel could finally be displayed in all browsers. A small revolution for us and also high time, because Microsoft was soon to retire Internet Explorer (only this browser could display the WebModel). Up to version 6, viflow was a pure 32-bit application and this also changed with "7", Visio or Office in 64 bit were no longer an obstacle.

The biggest innovation, however, was that several users could now work in an SQL database at the same time. What was that like in viflow 6, do you remember? There and in the previous versions, shared modeling was called "SPM" (Shared Process Modeling), in which local client files were imported into a master database. It worked, but was much more cumbersome than the new SQL basis.

So the future could begin, with the freshly spruced up viflow 7 we were well equipped for the new golden twenties that we were looking forward to, which were already knocking on the door.

ViCon in the pandemic

And then everything changed again, only this time not the software.
A small "C" messed everything up in March 2020 and, like so many others, we were caught out cold. Our IT administration rotated. Without further ado, the seminar notebooks were repurposed as "home office notebooks" (on-site seminars were no longer taking place for the time being), VPN access, software for online meetings and telephony were set up and after a few days everything ran as before as if by magic. With the difference that we no longer saw each other live and in color, but online (and also in color). We were doubly lucky. Firstly, with our (IT) industry, where mobile working was possible, and secondly with our administration, which reacted really quickly and kept the ship technically on course.

Everyone slowly got used to the new, often mobile way of working. Face-to-face seminars were scrapped and gave way to online training, which is still very popular today. Individual training courses and customer projects were carried out online and for software development, support and sales – provided there was a good internet connection – it was more or less irrelevant which four walls were being worked from.

Inspired by these crazy times, ViCon has now established a very flexible solution that enables mobile working without neglecting social contacts and losing sight of each other. It's not easy to find a good balance with this very new topic.

And so it went on, it was further developed, mobile from home or live in the office.

Again and again viflow

In mid-2021, it was time for the next generation of viflow, because one thing was still missing from the new 7 version: a brand new WebModel. This made its debut with viflow 8 – blazingly fast, with a new look and a cockpit for individually configured content.

Shortly afterwards, viflow appeared as a subscription, which has since become our bestseller. Always in the latest version with the latest features and the best support – an all-round carefree package, so to speak.

So that's it for the 25 years? For now, yes. December 22nd is the big day and to celebrate, the doors at Oldenburger Allee 25 (!) will be closed on a working day for the third time in the company's history.

We promise we'll have a great time … and hopefully look forward to the next 25 years together with you!