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From: sjl@myrias.UUCP (Stuart Lomas)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,can.jobs
Subject: Re: Software Industry in Canada -- general remarks and questions
Message-ID: <562@myrias.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 88 23:25:18 GMT
References: <5358@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Myrias Research, Edmonton
Lines: 46

kmgopinathan@violet.waterloo.edu (Krishna Gopinathan) writes:
> I was under the impression that *very* little software development goes
> on in Canada ( :^) Canada exports lumber and imports high-tech. :-) ) though
> I would agree that much of what does go on occurs in Toronto.  What are
> the advantages of developing software in Canada over the US, and when did
> the software industry in Canada attain any significant proportions?  Would
> you say that today it has any significant impact on the Canadian economy?
> Does the software industry in Canada consist more of multinationals (guess
> who??) or Canadian-owned companies?

While I am not well informed about the position of the software industry in
Canada generally, I can observe that my wife an I are both employed producing
software in Edmonton. Her company builds builds custom hardware and software
that is sold worldwide, including the US and Japan. My company is currently
developing hardware and software for a new parallel supercomputer; the
software includes the operating system, language tools, and some applications.
Each company has about 60 employees, and each was founded and is controlled
in Canada.

I am aware of numerous smaller companies in Edmonton, mostly doing contract
programming. There is a very successful company in Calgary that makes a system
to translate word processor formats, and sells it worldwide. There is another
company in Calgary that does a substantial portion of the compiler development
and support for CDC. There are numerous companies in Calgary making software
for the oil industry - reservoir and well log analysis, for example.

You don't have to think very hard to come up with a wide variety of companies
across Canada that produce a substantial amount of software - Develcon,
Gandalf, NovaTel, Pacific MicroTel, Softwords, Mobile Data, HCR, Bell
Northern Research, to name a few. Most, if not all, of these companies are
Canadian owned and controlled. Also, most of them are not in Toronto.

What are the advantages of producing software in Canada?
	1) You get to live in Canada.
	2) We have a large supply of well educated software people.
	3) We have a healthy and growing software industry.
	4) We have a growing domestic market, and good access to a wide
	   variety of international markets, particularily in the US and
	   the far east.
	5) Many Canadian governments actively encourage the establishment
	   and growth of high tech companies in their jurisdictions.

Stuart Lomas
Myrias Research Corporation
Edmonton, Alberta
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