Messaging, Music, Video

Company History

100-Gazillion Years Ago 1200 B.C.E 18th Century 1800-1849

1850 -1879 1880 -1899 1900 -1956 1958 1959-1983

1984 1985 -1995 1996 1997-2003 2004

A Hundred Gazillion Years Ago
In the beginning, there were no telephones or long distance carriers. After all, whom would you call?

1200 B.C.E. – The War of Troy
Signal fires are used in the first successful attempt to communicate over long distances. This was a pretty clever idea, except that the messages were limited to, “Hey, something’s burning over here!”

1791
Semaphore towers invented by the Chappe brothers in France. This involved waving flags in set positions representing letters. It also spurred on a rush to develop different methods of long distance communication, as this system required quite a bit of arm waving, and deodorant had not yet been invented.

1843
The FAX was invented by Scottish physicist Alexander Bain. Unfortunately, since there was only one machine, it really wasn’t very useful.

1844
Samuel Morse demonstrates his electric telegraph. The first message sent, “What hath God wrought?” ushers in a new era of communication, as well as sending several people running for dictionaries to look up the word “wrought”.

1847
March 3rd, Alexander Graham Bell is born in Edinburgh, Scotland. A few minutes later, he went cordless.

1866
The first Transatlantic Telegraph line is laid. America and England soon find that they have nothing in particular to say to each other.

1876
March 10th, Alexander Graham Bell transmits the first complete sentence over the telephone. All went well until a month later, when he received his phone bill. Why do you think he started his own phone company?

1876
March 14th, True Story: A few days after the “Watson come here, I want you” transmission, Bell was testing his instrument over a longer distance. Bell and Watson were using one instrument while Charles Williams used another. Bell was called away and said to Watson, “Here, hold this”. And so the phrase, “Putting someone on hold” was created. Watson got bored, and started humming “Meet me in St. Louie, Louie”. Watson was a good singer, and when Bell came back, Williams commented how good it was to hear music while he was holding for Bell. It was the first case of music on-hold, but it wasn’t perfected for another 108 years, when Audiomax went into business.

1880
American Bell is founded, and over 30,000 phones are in use. Bell speaks over a 1300-foot beam of light using his patented Photophone equipment. Bell coins the term “A Little Light Conversation”, and is immediately pelted with rotten fruit.

1885
Bell telephone forms a new subsidiary, American Telephone and Telegraph. AT&T incorporates on March 3rd of that year. Nobody wonders why everything related to the telephone seems to happen in March.

1899
Name of Bell Telephone Company changed to American Telephone and Telegraph, because somebody thought that it sounded catchier.

1909
The invention of out-going secondary lines for offices, first used in San Francisco. This set the stage for the first ever business caller placed “On-Hold”, who was subjected to a 47 year old receptionist, with a heavy smoking habit, humming out of key show tunes under her breath. It also resulted in the first person hanging up while on-hold.

1956
AT&T comes under fire for Anti-trust law violations. They are ordered by the courts to share their toys and play nice.

1958
Our company President, Anthony Stagliano is born to Helen and Anthony Stagliano, Sr. Young Anthony weighed 6lbs, 8oz – 18.5 inches. Anthony’s older brother Frank calls the hospital and gets placed on-hold – hears nothing – an omen, hmm?

1960
The laser is invented. Sadly, light sabers are still a distant dream to this day.

1964
True Story: During President Lyndon Johnson’s term, many people mis-dialed the White House’s number and instead called Ms. Rose Brown, a housewife in New York, who had a nearly identical number. The President wrote to her, personally thanking her for her diplomacy in handling the many highly sensitive calls, and promised to do the same when her friends and families dialed the White House.

1984
Court orders the divestiture of AT&T based on a Department of Justice suit. It seems that Big Brother really was watching. Cost to AT&T in legal fees and settlements is estimated at 5 Billion dollars. AT&T makes it back in a month and a half by having its employees check the coin return slots in all of their payphones.

1984
March (again!) - The Hold Company is formed in a bedroom in Norristown, PA when Rob Horner, Craig Shoemaker and Ken Gehlhaus were forced to wait on-hold for 40 minutes while trying to order a pizza. A new age in the history of the telephone begins.

1984
September – The Hold Company hires their first sales rep, Ed, and scriptwriter, Jeff. Management is forced to move the bed over to the wall in order to make room for the new employees.

1985
The Hold Company secures it’s first office space that does not contain a nightstand in Flourtown, PA. Later that year, they sign their first official contract with their first official customer, Lafferty Chevrolet. They remain with the company to this day, which just goes to show great taste and foresight on their part. As a matter of fact, why not head over to Lafferty Chevrolet in Langhorne, PA right now and check out a new car?

1986
Due to dramatic growth, The Hold Company moves to a larger office space, with a studio, in Fort Washington, PA. Now that they are no longer working 3 to a desk, company morale is greatly improved, and productivity goes through the roof. Of course, the company’s first two employees, Ed and Jeff, miss the convenience of the bar across the street !

1986
Craig Shoemaker moves to LA to launch his comedy career – which you’ll discover later is a great success. However, becomes more known for his alter ego "The Lovemaster"

1987
Anthony Stagliano joins the Hold Company as managing Partner and VP of Marketing. He immediately sets out to expand the market and customer base and tell the world about the advantages of on-hold messaging. He also continues to coach high school wrestling, which serves as a good training ground for the struggle ahead.

1992
Summer – The Hold Company, which having once again grown beyond the capacity of their current offices, moved to an even larger facility with larger studios in Blue Bell, PA. A trail of breadcrumbs is left behind so that those staff members who didn’t read the memo can find the new place.

1994
National On-Hold month is adopted by Audiomax. This is a month to recognize everyone who has been placed “on-hold” after calling a place of business, and to honor those businesses who make this hold time more enjoyable by supplying informative messages and music for their callers waiting on-hold.

1996
The Hold Company is re-named “Audiomax.” The new name reflects their dramatically expanded capability to be a supplier of on-hold messaging and other specialty audio and video services. And the telecommunications world would never be the same.

1997
Craig Shoemaker wins Comic of the year beating out fellow former Philadelphian Dom Irerra.

1998
Summer – In an attempt to confuse the writing staff, Audiomax moves once again, this time to its current location, which features 5 in-house studios and a dishwasher. Stragglers show up several weeks later, and are promptly fed, cleaned up and put back to work. Audiomax becomes an authorized distributor for Music Choice and Direct TV, and becomes a major name in the commercial sound arena.

2000
Autumn – Audiomax makes waves in the on-hold messaging industry by introducing the state of the art 4000 MT digital download system. By taking advantage of download technology, Audiomax eliminates the need for secondary media to transport messaging. Now, updating messaging can be done with the touch of a button. VP of Technology overjoyed, because he now has an excuse to install the giant, red, light-up novelty button that he’s wanted all these years.

2001
Audiomax tops themselves by adding the 4000 MT2 digital download system to it’s service. This 2-channel system can be used in call centers and on-hold / in-store applications. This gives you the capability to play both punk rock and bluegrass music on the same system. But we wouldn’t recommend it.

2004
Audiomax celebrates its 20th anniversary. The party includes a Moonbounce, 2 fire trucks, a waterslide and 239 cans of Pringles, 104 of which were eaten by one person. And a good time was had by all.

2004
In a rare occurrence Audiomax decides NOT to move when its lease is up. Audiomax awards a trip to Scotland in Celebration of its 20th year Anniversary. The entire staff is made to wear itchy kilts to promote this month long celebration.

2009
Audiomax now has branch offices in Arizona and North Carolina – these just happen to coincide with the Company CEO’s, Anthony Stagliano favorite vacation spots!

2012
The Company CEO finally gets to take a vacation for longer than a day and half and travels to his ultimate vacation spot in Sydney, Australia - we haven’t seen him in over a year! But things are still running smoothly under the direction of new company President, Mark Engleman. Mark finally gets his paperless work place instituted.