The Omni Group

The Omni Group has been shipping Mac software since the copyright line says 1994 — which makes them older than most tech companies' current pivot. They started in NeXTSTEP land, rode every transition since (OS X, Intel, App Store, Apple Silicon, subscriptions), and are one of the few independent shops from that era still alive, still private, and still selling you software instead of a relationship with their investors.

The suite

• OmniOutliner — the elder statesman. Outlining done so well it shaped how a generation of Mac users thinks about hierarchical anything.
• OmniGraffle — diagramming and rapid prototyping. What Visio would be if Visio were pleasant.
• OmniPlan — project management with Gantt charts and resource leveling.
• OmniFocus — GTD-based task management; was there at the App Store's birth in 2008.
• Omni Labs — the retirement home: OmniDiskSweeper, OmniPresence, and OmniWeb.

Why they matter on this shelf

Two things set Omni apart from the general run of software companies:

1. They kept perpetual licenses. When the industry converted to subscriptions because recurring revenue looks better in a slide deck, Omni added subscriptions without taking away the option to just buy the thing. This should not be remarkable. It is remarkable.
2. They maintain their dead. Discontinued products don't vanish; they move to Omni Labs with download links per macOS version going back to Tiger. Try getting that from a company that calls shutdown "sunsetting your journey."

Proper reviews of each app are stubs until usage evidence lands here. The heart item already got its own page: OmniWeb.

Status

draft pending per-app writeups.