I was born in Nottingham, in the mid 60's. My family had come south with the mining industry
- so I know the A1 pretty well. After school, as I studied Business at College, I quickly realised technology would have a huge
impact on the tired business methods of that time. I set about getting into
computing, rather than business, through the NCC data processing threshold scheme.
After completing the NCC course, I found a local company 'Copystatic' who were prepared to take a chance on my enthusiasm. I stayed there for 14 years. During that time we grew as a company from six staff to over two hundred. I travelled the world, and learned a lot. I'll always be grateful to the guys who took the time to help me along.
The company developed a suite of applications based around a core Field Service Management product 'ServiceMan'. Initially run by some ex-DEC employees, most of the early systems ran on DIGITAL (DEC) computers and the software was either VAX DIBOL or PDP/11 (RSTS/E) assembler (remember All-in-one). You can get the idea of how things were then at Compaq's VAX 'timeline'. By 1990 Servasure ran mostly on Unix and a little VMS on a variety of hardware platforms, using a cross platform development environment based on DIBOL and PVCS. By the mid '90s I'd switched to C++ and CORBA, architecting a complete development environment, method and process using Object Technology which could replace our BS5750/TickIT approved 3GL.
We were among the first companies to earn BS5750/ISO9001 for all Software development, delivery and service. I guess being a provider of 'Service Management' systems and in a company owned by a guy totally committed to quality improvement (Doug Harper) sharpens the focus on quality.
I left 'Servasure' (the name changed due to a USA company trading as ServiceMan) after the company was placed in administration. Over half of the staff were 'let go', and all non-core development was stopped. I had just spent two years preparing an object oriented, CORBA based development environment to take 'Servasure' through the millennium, along with a complete 'virtual helpdesk' ('n' tier Visual C++/CORBA/Linux and Oracle).
After leaving, I worked at Equifax in Bradford (U.K.) developing a complex score card building system in Visual C++. After the first release was delivered, and out of the blue I got a mail shot from Computer People looking for developers to work in the USA. I couldn't wait to get to the interview....
A couple of months later the whole family and I went out to Atlanta, GA. I was placed at BellSouth to develop a distributed order processing system. Sadly they had already done much of the "work" on a largely undocumented "architecture" using dce to implement a complete range of "home made" object services. Pity no-one thought through the architecture end to end. I'd arrived late in the project, but developed a number of 'shelved' projects, and gave the business back some faith back in IT.
The experience was fantastic - long sunny days, balmy evenings and air-conditioning everywhere!! I now know why ragtop cars were invented. We met some great people, and made a lot of friends. I eventually got the hang of working at Bell (my first really big company), and as I left, received the prestigious 'Maestro' award for 'Leadership, Creativity and Support'. The folks there were great, and there is a certain 'way' about the south, which once acquired, is difficult to let go. Their end-users were some of the best I've worked with, and the IT staff were totally committed.
My family and I enjoyed it, and I have to compliment the residents of Roswell, GA, Fulton Co. and the Greater Atlanta Area on a great neighbourhood. We'd rented out our house in the UK, and with the tenants gone early and some family concerns, headed home.
We've been back in the UK since '98, and missed it ever since. Compare the weather in Roswell and Nottingham to find out why!
I've been a contractor more or less ever since - the last few years primarily to see my wife through her nursing training. I've switched
to developing with J2EE although I still write C++ as and when the need arises. If I could get a set of
libraries as well developed, productive and easy to use as the JDK (and Swing) for C++, I might be tempted back. Both environments
are good, if you know what you're doing!!
The availability of free CORBA implementations (Java and C++), development tools and web services technology including wireless, XML, XSL, EJB (J2EE) and .NET coupled with the internet will make software play an ever increasing role in our lives. Call me, or e-mail if you want to know how I can help your company be ready for the challenge.