About the Developer & AnyOrder Awards

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Ron Watters has been involved in the computer and publishing business since 1987.  He and his wife, Kathy, own a small press based in Pocatello, Idaho.  His first program AnyBook came out of a need for a software program that would work for their business. Finding most of the software systems designed for publishing overpriced and poorly designed for small publishers, he started work on a new program.  From the beginning, he had two important goals in mind.  The first was that the software had to be simple and understandable.  And the second was that the program had to work in a natural way, compatible with the way the book business operates.

AnyOrder followed AnyBook, and over 25 years later, both programs have been have well received by the computer and publishing worlds.  AnyOrder was awarded a four star rating by PC Magazine and won the Editor's Pick Award. Simply the Best Software has chosen AnyOrder for its collection of  outstanding shareware programs, and awarded it the "Select Software" Award.  Softbase, a software ranking and informational site, ranks AnyBook and AnyOrder among the top 100 Business & Accounting Software programs.

Watters has programmed for both Apple and Windows computers.  He designed and marketed a program called RaceAid which was one the first software programs to calculate times and provide results of a variety of racing events such as marathons, triathlons, cross-country running races, bicycle races and others.  He is the developer of AnyCard, a program for authorizing credit cards, and he has designed two software packages which are distributed free to non-profit organizations including a mailing list program tailored for university recreational programs and a database system for small resource libraries.