1990s–2010s
Martin Fowler joined the company in 1999 and became its chief scientist in 2000.[10]
In 2001, Thoughtworks agreed to settle a lawsuit by Microsoft for $480,000 for deploying unlicensed copies of office productivity software to employees.[11]
Also in 2001, Fowler, Jim Highsmith, and other key software figures authored the Agile Manifesto.[12] The company began using agile techniques while working on a leasing project.[13] Thoughtworks' technical expertise expanded with the .NET Framework in 2002,[14] C# in 2004, Ruby and the Rails platform in 2006.[15] In 2002, Thoughtworks chief scientist Martin Fowler wrote "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture" with contributions by ThoughtWorkers David Rice and Matthew Foemmel, as well as outside contributors Edward Hieatt, Robert Mee, and Randy Stafford.[16]
Thoughtworks Studios was launched as its product division in 2006 and shut down in 2020. The division created, supported and sold agile project management and software development and deployment tools including Mingle,[17] Gauge (formerly Twist), Snap CI[18] and GoCD.[19]
On 2 March 2007, Thoughtworks announced Trevor Mather as the new CEO.[20] Singham became Executive chairman. Also in March 2007, Rebecca Parsons assumed the role of Chief Technical Officer, having been with the company since 1999.[21][22]
By 2008, Thoughtworks employed 1,000 people and was growing at the rate of 20–30% p.a., with bases around the world. Its clients included Microsoft, Oracle, major banks, and The Guardian newspaper.[23] Singham owned 97% of the common stock of the company.[23] By 2010, its clients included Daimler AG, Siemens and Barclays, and had opened a second headquarters in Bangalore.[24]
In 2010, Singham opened Thoughtworks’ Fifth Agile Software Development Conference in Beijing.[25]
