To make it easier to read, I have re-entered the data in a table below.
| Company | Employees | Employees | Employees | R&D | Sales | Exports |
| 1989 | 1992 | 1994 | ($M) | ($M) | (%)
|
| Advanced Scientific Computing | 8 | 13 | 50 | 2.00 | 3.5 | 92
|
| EMJ Datasystems | 30 | 50 | 140 | 0.00 | 70.0 | 30 |
| Focus Automation | 10 | 12 | 35 | 0.75 | 3.0 | 97
|
| MKS | 15 | 47 | 120 | 3.50 | 15.0 | 97 |
| Navtech | 8 | 22 | 40 | 1.25 | 3.0 | 83 |
| Open Text | 0 | 10 | 40 | 1.50 | 5.0 | 96 |
| Research In Motion | 7 | 11 | 50 | 3.50 | 5.0 | 98
|
| Sofware AG | 80 | 120 | 130 | 2.00 | 16.0 | 20 |
| Spicer | 10 | 35 | 45 | 1.80 | 4.0 | 92 |
| S-S Technologies | 25 | 45 | 120 | 2.00 | 20.0 | 50
|
| Taaz Corporation | 0 | 4 | 38 | 0.15 | 3.0 | 25 |
| Thinkage | 0 | 10 | 15 | 1.50 | 2.0 | 98
|
| Watcom | 35 | 60 | 140
| 4.00 | 20.0 | 97
|
| Willow | 0 | 12 | 22 | 0.35 | 3.0 | 80
|
| Waterloo Maple | 5 | 21 | 65 | 2.80 | 10.0 | 97 |
| TOTAL | 233 | 472 | 1050 | 27.10 | 182.5 | 92
|
Some observations that are reflective of those times:
- It is clear that even over 30 years ago, Microsoft Office tools, including Powerpoint, were in widespread use.
- Before LCD projectors, or large flat panel screens, people still used overhead projectors on which these printed ‘acetates’ were shown. Time has wrought some damage, as you can see, where the paper spacers get ‘stuck’ to the acetates.
- It is notable that there were fewer women in the senior ranks, numbering between 10 and 15%. I am proud to say that in my company, MKS, women made up 3 of the 7 member C-suite by the mid 1990s. I was always surprised that this wasn’t common as strong gender diversity through our ranks immensely strengthened our people capabilities.
Since Waterloo’s tech industry started in the early to mid 1990s, it took a decade for this first generation cohort to gain critical mass, and also to start to do major financings. Within 1-2 years of our Ottawa trip, the majority of us had done an IPO, Special Warrant Transaction or were acquired.
The second part of the Powerpoint presentation talks about a proposed “Internet 2000 Consortium”. Although I’m hoping someone can remind what ultimately happened to this visionary proposal, the idea was to get the entire Waterloo community (business, government, schools, etc) working together to make the region an internet powerhouse. For example, MKS was shortly to release MKS Internet Anywhere, followed by the world’s first Web Content Management product MKS Web Integrity. Open Text produced Open Text Web Index one of the world’s first internet search engines which was sadly outspent first by Digital Equipment Corporation‘s Altavista and later Google. Although we reserved our domain (mks.com back in 1985, the internet was still dialup in nature. To transcdnd that, several of us shared costs of a T1 (a fixed broadband connection at a blazing fast 1.5MB/sec rate).
Collectively, the presentation highlights rapid growth and economic impact, and predicts big things ahead:
- Employment in just these 15 leading tech companies had grown almost 5 times over 5 years to 1050. We were predicting, if we could keep the momentum, that the tech industry would be over 5000 people, back when the population was 400,000.
- Exports were the notable at an average of 92% of revenues. Canada remains challenged to transcend its oil, gas and resource economy driven by transformative knowledge-based global leading businesses, with a high export orientation.
- R&D spend is high at $27M and that is a major key to keeping corporate leadership.
- Sales at $182M was poised to surpass $1B by the year 2000.
This delegation proved that the Waterloo tech phenomenon had moved beyond a few visionary entrepreneurs to becoming a true force in the Canadian, and global, economies.
The Atlas Group continued for several more years — eventually passing its peer-to-peer leadership torch by building an organization bigger than any one of our companies. The group wrote a business plan and also wrote cheques (and yes people still used paper cheques back then) to fund a year long experiment they named Communitech. That legacy of entrepreneurs trying to collectively move the needle on a tech growth engine for both the region and Canada, lives on today.
2 Jan 2025
0 CommentsWaterloo Tech – Ancient Acetates from the Early Years
Happy New Year, 2025!
During personal housecleaning, I came across a file folder, with the overhead acetates of a Powerpoint presentation I had thought long vanished.
Back in 1993, Yvan Couture and I co-founded a CEO group for Waterloo area (then including Guelph) technology industry CEOs, later known as Atlas Group,. By our second year, we had all gained immensely from a forum where we could learn together in a peer-to-peer mechanism. And as most of us were jet-setting, high export business leaders, it was good to reflect on what we could share locally in our community. As we compared notes, we realized that we needed to work together to better tell our story, including to various levels of government who had yet to fully understand the transformative potential of the new knowledge-based business paradigm we represented.
On October 27, 1994, we chartered 2 small planes from Waterloo International Airport to fly 15 of us to Ottawa to tell our story to the federal government. Assisted by the late Andrew Telegdi, Waterloo MP at the time, we booked meetings with John Manley, the iconic Minister of Industry, Jean Chrétien, Canada’s Prime Minister, and Ottawa tech leaders, such as Michael Cowpland.
We collectively developed the following Powerpoint to present up in Ottawa, and the group asked me to present to our leaders. The featured image on this posting is a photo taken in the Speaker’s Library in the House of Commons.
The following is the recently uncovered Powerpoint from October 1994.
Ottawa Delegation Powerpoint Oct 1994The following is a scan of the base data used in preparing the Powerpoint, giving an impressive 5 year growth trajectory.
To make it easier to read, I have re-entered the data in a table below.
Some observations that are reflective of those times:
Since Waterloo’s tech industry started in the early to mid 1990s, it took a decade for this first generation cohort to gain critical mass, and also to start to do major financings. Within 1-2 years of our Ottawa trip, the majority of us had done an IPO, Special Warrant Transaction or were acquired.
The second part of the Powerpoint presentation talks about a proposed “Internet 2000 Consortium”. Although I’m hoping someone can remind what ultimately happened to this visionary proposal, the idea was to get the entire Waterloo community (business, government, schools, etc) working together to make the region an internet powerhouse. For example, MKS was shortly to release MKS Internet Anywhere, followed by the world’s first Web Content Management product MKS Web Integrity. Open Text produced Open Text Web Index one of the world’s first internet search engines which was sadly outspent first by Digital Equipment Corporation‘s Altavista and later Google. Although we reserved our domain (mks.com back in 1985, the internet was still dialup in nature. To transcdnd that, several of us shared costs of a T1 (a fixed broadband connection at a blazing fast 1.5MB/sec rate).
Collectively, the presentation highlights rapid growth and economic impact, and predicts big things ahead:
This delegation proved that the Waterloo tech phenomenon had moved beyond a few visionary entrepreneurs to becoming a true force in the Canadian, and global, economies.
The Atlas Group continued for several more years — eventually passing its peer-to-peer leadership torch by building an organization bigger than any one of our companies. The group wrote a business plan and also wrote cheques (and yes people still used paper cheques back then) to fund a year long experiment they named Communitech. That legacy of entrepreneurs trying to collectively move the needle on a tech growth engine for both the region and Canada, lives on today.