Company overview

Palo Alto Software is the worldwide leader in business plan software and marketing plan software. The company was founded in 1983 by Tim Berry, a business planning expert, Stanford MBA, and co-founder of Borland International with a long history of technology sector leadership in the Silicon Valley. Despite the company's name, Palo Alto Software is now headquartered in Eugene, Oregon, with international offices in London and Ireland.

Our products

Our core business is developing and selling Windows-based desktop software for startups and small businesses.

Business Plan Pro is our flagship product. For nearly a decade, it has been the business world's most popular business plan software (according to NPD Intelect, formerly PC Data), outselling all of its competitors combined, and it is regularly on Amazon.com's top 10 list of best-selling business software. Business Plan Pro is available for sale on our website and in Staples, Office Depot, and many other retail locations.

Marketing Plan Pro is the #1 selling marketing planning software for 10 years running. With Version 11.0 we have partnered with John Jantsch, author of the popular Duct Tape Marketing system, to produce software that will create a vital, energized action plan of marketing goals and activities for any size business.

Email Center Pro, which launched in early 2008, is our first Web-based "software as a service" (SaaS) application. It makes it easy for small organizations to manage shared email accounts like info@yourcompany.com.

Start, Run & Grow Your Business is our "Best of breed" software package which offers essential business tools and services to help you start, run and grow your business.

Our web properties

In addition to our online stores at Paloalto.com and Paloalto.co.uk, we maintain several of the most popular content sites in the small business marketplace.

Bplans.com attracts roughly half a million visitors per month with its free business planning articles, financial tools, sample business plans, and more. A companion site for UK visitors is available at Bplans.co.uk.

Mplans.com provides similar resources for marketing planning.

Company history

Palo Alto Software was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1983 as Infoplan, a sole proprietorship. In 1988 it was incorporated in California as Palo Alto Software. The company relocated to Oregon in 1992.

During the 1980s, the company focused mainly on consulting and market research, with clients including Apple Computer, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Lotus Development Corporation, Ashton-Tate and others. Its forecasts of the personal computer market in Mexico became the standard source in that market until Select S.A. was established in 1988. Founder Tim Berry developed annual business plans for Apple Latin America from 1984 through 1987, during which time sales quadrupled, and for Apple Japan from 1991 to 1993 as sales increased tenfold.

Business Plan Pro, our flagship product, evolved from extensive consulting in business planning for large and small companies. In 1984, Infoplan published a business plan template, which accompanied a book published by Oasis Press, and in 1988, the original version of the software was published as the Business Plan Toolkit.

In 2007, Tim Berry changed his role to focus on blogging and educational activities, handing responsibility for daily responsibilities to a new management team headed by his daughter Sabrina Parsons.

For more information about our company history, read our founder's story.

Management team

Tim Berry

Founder and President
Tim Berry is the founder of Palo Alto Software, a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He makes several notable appearances in Fire in the Valley, Swaine and Freiberger's classic history of the PC industry, and is the originator of plan-as-you-go business planning.

Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching, and evangelizing for business planning. His popular Planning, Startups, Stories blog is featured on AllTop Small Business. He also writes the Up and Running blog for Entrepreneur.com and contributes regularly to Business in General, All Business, the Huffington Post, and other publications. His full biography is available at TimBerry.com.

Sabrina Parsons

Chief Executive Officer
Sabrina has served as CEO of Palo Alto Software since 2007. She and her husband, Noah, founded a UK software distribution company in 2001 that later was purchased by and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Palo Alto Software. Sabrina is a successful Internet expert, having served as Director of Online Marketing at Commtouch, Senior Producer at Epinions.com, and founder of her own Web consulting company, Lighting Out. She is a graduate of Princeton University.

Noah Parsons

Chief Operating Officer
Before joining Palo Alto Software, Noah was an early Internet marketing expert in the Silicon Valley. He joined Yahoo! in 1996 as one of its first 101 employees and become Producer of the Yahoo! Employment property as part of the Yahoo! Classifieds team before leaving to serve as Director of Production at Epinions.com. He is also a graduate of Princeton University.

Josh Cochrane

Vice President of Product Development
After an early career as a magazine editor, Josh spent ten years with a leading industrial ERP software provider, playing key roles in everything from technical writing and customer experience to marketing communications and online marketing to product management and software interaction design. He joined the team at Palo Alto Software in early 2007, overseeing the company's online marketing and e-commerce operations. More recently, he has moved into product development, focusing on helping to design and build the next generation of the Palo Alto's award-winning products.

Marci Hansen

Vice President of Marketing
Marci brings more than 15 years of marketing experience to her position at Palo Alto Software. She previously served as VP of Marketing at Crafts Americana Group, Marketing Director at Dotster, Marketing Director for People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Amazon.com and Eddie Bauer. She was rewarded for her work with the Guerilla Marketer of the Year award from Brandweek magazine for her efforts on the youth marketing campaign for PETA. Marci is a graduate of Oregon State University.