Jean-Paul Ladage

"Entrepreneurship runs through my veins". I have been involved in my dad's company Bram Ladage since I was a little boy. For people living in the area of Rotterdam known for his excellent fresh French fries.

After working there for more than 10 years, I realized that my real interest was technology. If you do something you better do it right, so I started a evening study in Technical Informatics at the Hogeschool van Rotterdam, got my bachelors degree within two years and founded Zest Software.

Openness and Quality are two important principles I learned from my dad. In a Bram Ladage store you can see how fresh potatoes are cut, fried and served in sight of the customers, similarly I strive to make Software development as transparent.

"Why would you keep everything for yourself?" That's a question that comes to mind when talking about software patents. With this question sits my vision on doing business. Open Source Software to me the the 'new economy'. By sharing the investments in software development world-wide, each consumer will get more value in return. With regards to content management, using Plone or Drupal allows for very cost-efficient solutions.

"But what if I need more?" That is very the power of Zest Software really shows. Because we are specialized in web development and can use the available software as a starting point, we can delivers seamless solutions to our customers. Where possible we publish generic parts for other people to use or even receive improvements.

in short: "Winning by sharing".