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From: daniel@bnr-di.UUCP (Daniel Zlatin)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,can.jobs,ont.jobs
Subject: Re: Software Industry in Canada -- general remarks and questions
Summary: Pointers to where the Canadian software industry may be hiding
Message-ID: <108@bnr-di.UUCP>
Date: 28 Feb 88 19:34:10 GMT
References: <5358@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: DI, Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Ont.
Lines: 46

In article <5358@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, 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. :-) ) ....
> ....  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?

I don't know what the percentages are, but I would certainly say that
software development has a significant impact on the Canadian economy.
In particular, I think you have to realize that much software development
goes out packaged inside products that aren't perceived as "software".
Two examples that I can point at (and I'm sure there are lots more) are:

1) Telephone switches produced by Northern Telecom and sold throughout the
world (what can I say -- I'm biased, since BNR does the R&D for those
switches....) contain more than 5 million lines of code (can you even
*conceive* of that amount?).  Although it is called a telephone switch,
or a PBX, or whatever, and looks like hardware, I think that the costs
in developing it are divided about 50-50 between software and hardware.

2) Flight simulators made by CAE Electronics.  These also are perceived to
be "hardware", but again, must (by their very nature) contain scads of
software created for the specific purpose of controlling the complex
hardware necessary to simulate the feeling of flight.

Of course on top of this there is a lot of software developed "in-house"
by many companies for more mundane applications.  And don't overlook the
software produced by companies such as Spar Aerospace, Develcon, MacDonald
Dettwiler, Microtel Pacific, SED Systems, Bristol Aerospace, etc., etc....
Most of this software would (once again) be hidden inside products or projects
that are not immediately identifiable as bearers of software.

If the question was raised in addressing the area of "meta-software" :-)
(software that helps us produce other software: compilers, operating systems,
editors, CASE tools, etc., etc.) which are then sold in-and-of-themselves as
products, I'm not sure how Canada would rank.  But we certainly produce a
lot that is not quite as visible as these off-the-shelf software products.

Daniel Zlatin
Bell-Northern Research,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

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