Frank Dennis OBE, and
Chris Smith MCIM MInstR
formed Mistral Limited in 1984 and later with the help of Jim Swithenbank, nurtured it through its sometimes difficult formative years.
Three long serving and well known 'characters' from the RAC and Food Service industries. Each with already over half a lifetime's dedicated
service in their respective senior managerial roles. Each motivated by a strong desire to redress the appalling service IT organisations
offered to the RAC industry at the time.
The first working program, a DOS based routine for accurate calculation of coldroom refrigeration loads, took little over six months to research, write and prove. However it took a further three years before in 1989 the founders considered it completely well error trapped and with a sufficiently intuitive user interface as to be marketable. It was an instant success and quickly established itself as the standard program for the industry. The position of course that after four major re-writes, countless new 'builds' and now as a 32 bit Windows program it still retains today.
Sadly two of Mistral's original 'characters' are no longer with us. Frank Dennis died in 1989 and Jim Swithenbank in 1998. Both though left an indelible mark and neither will ever be forgotten. Chris Smith now lives in France having finally accepted medical advice to take 'early retirement'. Meaning that he has since reduced his working week to an average of just 65 hours!
Many of the much younger team assembled as far back as 1992 still work for Mistral today. Naturally everyone hopes they will continue to contribute the product of their outstanding talent for decades to come.
Mission statement:
"Bringing the benefits of computerisation to our industry - without the historically associated problems."