Company History

A humble beginning…
In 1982, Dick Jacobson wrote a small utility program to automate job scheduling so his employer wouldn’t need an off-hours operator. He formed Help/38 Systems to sell the new product, Robot/38.

Evolved…
As the years passed, Robot/38 became ROBOT, then Robot/SCHEDULE. The System/38 was succeeded by the AS/400, then the iSeries, and now the System i. And, Help/38 Systems grew to Help/Systems, the world’s leader in software solutions for the System i. 

Focused…
As the company grew and prospered, Dick decided that the company should focus on operations automation for the AS/400, the most reliable midrange business system on the market.

Became a vision
It occurred to Dick that system management tools, as they then existed, did more monitoring than managing. He decided to go a step further and develop products that would release operators from constant monitoring of the system and allow users to run their AS/400s unattended. Today, the Robot Automated Operations Solution provides worry-free operations for the System i.

Was recognized for excellence
Through the years, Help/Systems has received numerous product excellence awards from various industry publications and customer approval awards from the users who actually benefit from the products. We value these awards because they reflect our users’ opinion and their confidence in our products. To further these achievements, Dick decided to pursue ISO 9001 certification and, in 1992, Help/Systems was the first software company in the United States to be certified under the ISO 9001 standard. We are proud to maintain our certification under the updated 9001:2000 standard.

Continues to expand the automation vision
Help/Systems started because Dick Jacobson identified an operations problem—not wanting to spend his nights at work—and solved it with a revolutionary product that transformed his life and the lives of the countless users who’ve embraced it. Over the years, Help/Systems has continued to look for other operations areas that could be improved through automation. As each new product was conceived and developed, Help/Systems helped users around the world solve their operations problems. We’ve done the work so you don’t have to.