MachineTools.com was founded by Stuart Carlin in 1999. He said the idea of a machinery website was brewing for a year, but when the office from which he was running a machine listings fax service burned down, he knew it was time.

MachineTools.com was the first website of its kind to list new and used machinery from around the world on one site.

The site generated so much traffic that it outgrew its original platform and was recreated on a new platform (MT 2.0) in 2009.

MT 2.0 was a more robust version, but otherwise identical to MT 1.0.

In 2010, Carlin realized that his customers would benefit from a searchable model database. The idea grew into the design for MT 3.0, a new and updated version of MachineTools.com, which Carlin envisions having "all the good parts of 1.0 and 2.0 on a new and updated site that adds the ability to research every machine tool in the world." MT 3.0 will be rolled out at IMTS 2012 in Chicago in September.

"This is the first time we're changing our model since we started the site 13 years ago," said Carlin. "Whereas we used to be a site to find for sale machinery, now we're a site to research every machine tool model in the world. The goal is to have every machine tool model ever created in one massive searchable database. Right now we already have over 100,000."

In addition to adding the model database, MT 3.0 features an improved user interface. "It's a whole new redesign, so the user experience is much improved and the look and feel of it is more up to date," said Carlin. "We've made the site a lot more user friendly."

In another move that Carlin believes will make MachineTools.com easier to use, the company will launch an iPhone app along with the site redesign at IMTS 2012.

"We knew mobile was going to be huge, which is why we created the mobile version four years ago and now we're creating apps, the first one being for the iPhone," said Carlin, who noted that the iPhone app will be followed shortly by the Droid app.

Carlin says he also looks forward to the upcoming introduction of a web-based dealer inventory management system currently in development.