I just closed the books on 2015, and it was another record year for Sundog Software: net income (profit, after taxes) was up over 20% compared to 2014, making 2015 our best year ever on both the top and bottom line. Thanks to our loyal customers for fueling that growth!
Let’s look back at what Sundog did in 2015:
- We delivered 45 updates to the SilverLining Sky, 3D Cloud, and Weather SDK and 42 updates to the Triton Ocean SDK to our customers, making them more stable, realistic, and beautiful than ever.
- We released SilverLining 4, featuring an all-new simulation of stratiform clouds never before seen commercially.
- We got directly involved in training citizen astronauts to conduct meteorological research from space.
- I wrote a book sharing the techniques I used to turn Sundog Software into my full-time job.
- Sundog was once again named a top simulation and training company and our work was all over I/ITSEC.
- We launched support for Visual Studio 2015 and DirectX 11.1.
- I launched a whole new business for Sundog, training people online for careers in data science. Courses on MapReduce and Spark are already out, and are expected to drive a lot of revenue growth in 2016.
- SkyMaxx Pro 3 for X-Plane was launched, and became the fastest-selling add-on for X-Plane ever.
- We pulled our Unity products from the market, as they were costing more to maintain than the revenue they created from the outset. This should also set the stage for an even better 2016.
2015 also sticks out to me for a few more reasons. By and large, we stopped doing contract work in 2015, and are now focusing exclusively on making our products better and creating new products. The fact that our revenue grew even while giving up contract work is pretty exciting. That revenue comes from diverse streams all around the world: SDK’s, flight simulator add-ons, and online courses.
We’ve landed some big new customers I can’t tell you about just yet, and we’ve seen strong repeat business from our existing customers. Our strongest growth in 2015 has been in China, despite the language barrier and our lack of a local presence there.
All in all, 2015 was awesome – and the outlook for 2016’s great as well. Happy new year!
