• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

TOP 30 CANADA's IT Movers and Shakers

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 October 2005, 03:00 CDT

By MacInnis, Patricia

Edited by Patricia Maclnnis * Computing Canada

Canada has had more than its share of inventors and entrepreneurs. They have helped shape not only the nature of this country's business technology landscape, they have changed the very nature of computing itself. From mobile e-mail devices to open source operating systems to platform-agnostic programming languages- Canada's IT innovators have left an indelible mark. Here, we take a look at the nation's Top 30 personalities of the past 30 years.

THE TOP 30 PERSONALITIES IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MICROSOFT

HOW WE COMPILED THE LIST: Computing Canada polled readers, analysts and industry veterans to come up with a list of nominees for this feature. From the more than 100 names on that list, a panel of ITBusiness editors then selected the definitive list of the Top 30 personalities of the past 30 years.

The Messenger is the Medium

By Greg Meckbach * Special to Computing Canada

MIKE LAZARIDIS, PRESIDENT AND CO-CEO, RESEARCH IN MOTION INC.

TOP 1 Over the last five years, Mike Lazaridis has presided over a firm whose annual revenues have risen more than 15-fold, from US$84 million to US$1.3 billion. He has given more than $150 million of his own money to research institutes, was appointed Chancellor of the University of Waterloo and was hand-picked by Industry Minister David Emerson to sit on a federal Expert Panel on Commercialization.

Since Lazaridis founded Research in Motion Inc. in Waterloo, Ont., in 1984, its flagship BlackBerry wireless e-mail device has become a household word.

Why, then, does Lazaridis, who is also RIM's co-chief executive officer, feel self-conscious about not having a university degree - other than his honorary doctorate? After all, he nearly completed his degree in electrical engineering and computer science at the Universitv of Waterloo, and only dropped out to take a lucrative position making a network to connect electronic signs in a General Motors plant.

"At the time I did it, I got a lot of flak from my parents, and I got a lot of flak from my friends," he said. "Later on, when I became quite active in education and research, I realized I was not setting a very good example. I don't encourage people to drop out of school, because not everyone who drops out of school builds a company, and becomes chancellor of the university 20 years later. That's not something you can count on."

Over the past two years, Lazaridis and his wife, Ophelia, have donated more than $50 million to the University of Waterloo, most of which will be used for the Institute of Quantum Computing. Five years ago, he used $100 million of his own money to establish the independent Perimeter Institute, a theoretical physics centre located near the University of Waterloo.

"There is a streak in me that believes we need to invest in basic research in a big way," he said. "Canada could be No. 1 in theoretical physics. For one thing, it's a very cost-effective investment, because theoretical physics doesn't require any expensive accelerators or experiments."

It also attracts top physicists to Waterloo, he said, citing Raymond Laflamme, U of Waterloo's research chair in quantum computing, who started his career working with Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University.

"The Perimeter Institute is a classic example of a Mike Lazaridis act," said David Neale, vice-president of new product development at Toronto-based Rogers Wireless Inc. 'You'll notice it wasn't (named) the Lazaridis Institute, and I think that's quite important."

He said Lazaridis' dedication to pure science is motivated in part by a desire to encourage young people to study science and technology.

"He would particularly like to see words such as 'geek' and 'nerd' eliminated," Neale said. "It's not because he doesn't like to be called geeky, but why would you dissuade somebody who is young - who has a hunger for this sort of knowledge - by describing this sort of stuff as geeky or nerdy?"

Neale has worked with Lazaridis since RIM started producing hardware designed for Rogers' wireless network.

Lazaridis believes wireless data communications is the one technology that will have the greatest impact on the business world.

"It's gotten to the point where . . . people feel they'd be at a competitive disadvantage if they didn't have this thing in their pocket or on their belt."

His decision to produce wireless data devices was heavily influenced by his exposure to wireless technology in secondary school, and to local-area networks and e-mail in university.

In 1987, he decided to focus on wireless after attending a conference where a company was demonstrating wireless technology for managing vending machines and delivery trucks for Coca-Cola.

"I realized that's what I wanted to do, and since then, that's all we've done," he said. "Frankly, we've never looked back."

FIRST JOB IN IT

Writing microcode diagnostics for Cyber 180 computers at Control Data Corp. in Mississauga, Ont. in 1982

BIGGEST BANG TECHNOLOGY

Wireless Data

FAVOURITE MISTAKE

Dropping out of engineering in his final year at the University of Waterloo

BOB YOUNG

By Lynn Greiner * Special to Computing Canada

TOP 2 Had it not been for two incorrect words in a legal agreement, Red Hat cofounder Bob Young might still be in the computer rental business.

It was 1988, and Young's company, Vernon Leasing and Rentals, was in a market share battle with companies like Leasametric and Comdisco, in a slowing market. To boost its share, Vernon decided to purchase a thriving business called The Computer Rental Store. Young found out, the hard way, that the purchase agreement was not structured correctly.

Before he departed Vernon, Young said, the focus had been on renting Unix workstations, and as part of his marketing plan he made friends with Unix user groups and published their newsletters for them.

"They were saying, 'You should tell us about this free software stuff, because there isn't anything in the major publications about it.'"

Young admits he wasn't sure there was an economic model for open source software, but he studied it and found it to be a form of barter: companies or individuals give away one resource to get another back.

"Once I realized this, that there was an economic model at work, I switched from being a publisher of New York UNIX to doing a mail order business of Linux products," Young said. That business thrived, and by early 1995 he was beginning to worry that if Linux became really popular it would be in the big computer outlets and he would have trouble competing.

"That led to conversations with Marc Ewing, and we merged our little operations," Young says.

That merger became Red Hat, where Young was CEO until 2000.

"My problem is I make a very good entrepreneur, but I make a very poor corporate executive. I don't have a process management bone in my body."

Their open source interests led Young and Ewing to found the non- profit Center for the Public Domain, where they are still directors. In 2002, Young founded Lulu Inc., where he is trying to "use the Internet to reinvent publishing on behalf of authors and readers."

In 2003, Hamilton native Young purchased the foundering Hamilton Tiger Cats football team. Why?

"I couldn't bear to watch some other idiot mismanage the TiCats," he said. "If some idiot was going to mismanage the TiCats, it was going to be me."

FIRST JOB IN IT

Hamilton Group, directly after graduation from university

BIGGEST BANG TECHNOLOGY

The PC revolution, the Internet and Open Source

FAVOURITE MISTAKE

The Computer Store contract debacle

"My problem is I make a very good entrepreneur, but I make a very poor corporate executive. I don't have a process management bone in my body."

JAMES GOSLING

By Poonam Khanna * Computing Canada

TOP 3 Java was both the best and worst thing that ever happened to James Gosling, the language's inventor.

The Canadian-born Gosling, who is a W and fellow at Sun Microsystems Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif., is proud of the work he did in creating Java, but also says, "My life basically went to hell" as a result. That's because he no longer gets to spend his time doing what he loves best - engineering. Instead, his time is devoted to being a Java evangelist.

Gosling discovered his love for programming when he was just 14. "I was a young geek kind of guy who liked to play around with electronics." He began sneaking into the computing centre at the nearby University of Calgary campus and said the punchbutton combo locks didn't present a barrier. When he was 15, Gosling was offered a job writing software for the physics department for a group dealing with the ISIS 2 satellite.

Gosling has also contributed to the Network extensible Window System, or NeWS, and Gosling Emacs, which was the first Emacs to run under Unix. He started working on Java as a result of another project, which looked into the way non-computer science disciplines were using technology. There he discovered frustration with the need to develop different software for every type of chip, and Java was born. He had no idea how pervasive it would become. If he had a chance to go back and design the language differently, there's a "pretty long list of nerdy, deeply technical things" he'd change. But, says Gosling, if he had spent time doing that, it would have taken at least a year to get Java out, and by then "the world would have passed it by." Gosling hopes to one day return to engineering on a full-time ba\sis.

FIRST JOB IN IT

Working on the ISIS project at tfie University of Calgary

BIGGEST BANG TECHNOLOGY

Networking and all tfiat comes from it

FAVOURITE MISTAKE

Not taking a job offer from Industrial Light and Magic 22 years ago

MICHAEL COWPLAND

By Shane Schick * ITBusiness Staff

TOP 4 He has reams of important numbers committed mem-ory - two billion mobile phones in use by the end of this year, with almost 670 million sold in 2004, worldwide traffic nearing the trillion mark. But ask Michael Cowpland how often he gets contacted in a typical day via short message service and the answer is in the 30s.

"In North America, most of us are on Wi-Fi e-mail. (SMS) is only supplementary," says Cowpland, chief executive of short message service (SMS) application provider Zim Corp.

At 62, and having made a fortune building businesses such as Mitel and Corel Corp., Cowpland is rolling the dice again, but he says his reasoning remains the same.

"It's the open technologies that are growing into a global marketplace," he said. "The trend has been that people are embracing more and more openness, and that's what tends to create a bigger market. As far as SMS in the North American market was concerned, for example, one of the reasons it didn't take on as quickly as it did in Europe was that the carrier was a walled garden. They wouldn't send in teroperator SMSes. Then they realized what they were missing out on."

FIRST JOB IN IT

Design Engineer for the first microcircuit telephone at Nortel Labs Ottawa

BIGGEST BANG TECHNOLOGY

The unlimited bandwidth of optical fibre eliminating distance, enabling Canada to be a global knowledge leader

FAVOURITE MISTAKE

Buying Word Perfect. It was tough competing with Microsoft, but Corel became a major software company

"They wouldn't send interoperator SMSes. Then they realized what they were missing out on."

TERRY MATTHEWS

By Paolo Del Nibletto * Special to Computing Canada

TOP 5 Life would have played out differently for Terry Matthews if he and his partner, Michael Cowpland, received the shipment of lawn mowers they were expecting in 1972. The pair originally set their sights on the mowing business, but a twist of fate forced them to switch gears. And so Mitel was born. Matthews also started 22 other companies. His first foray into IT was when Mitel launched PBXes in 1976, four years after developing tone receivers.

Matthews' career highlight was taking Mitel public in 1979. "To take a company that is private and has gone through a floatation and is now public on (the) Toronto, New York and London (stock exchanges) was always a highlight for me." Matthews also took Newbridge, Ubiquity, Newport Networks and March Networks public.

The lowlight came at the end of 1982, when Mitel lost more than 30 per cent of its business when the Bell operating companies broke away from AT&T. Mitel was one of the suppliers of PBXes to the 23 Bell operating companies. The U.S. government stopped it, under legislative settlement to break up AT&T. "That as the worst year of my life."

FIRST JOB IN IT

Mitel in 1976

BIGGEST BANG TECHNOLOGY

Bringing computer power to the masses

FAVOURITE MISTAKE

Not making massive employee cuts in 1982 after deregulation

DENZIL DOYLE

6 Denzil Doyle has been called the grandfather of hightech in Canada, and it is a moniker he wears proudly. His career in Canada's high technology industry has included research and development, sales and marketing, corporate management, and venture capital investing.

In 1963, he established a sales office for Digital Equipment Corp. in Ottawa, which by 1981 had evolved into a multi-faceted corporation with sales in excess of $160 million and a staff of more than 1,600.

Following that career, he established Doyletech Corp. for the purpose of assisting Canadian enterprises (both private and public) in the building of a stronger high technology industry in Canada. Doyle was recently awarded the Order of Canada to recognize the outstanding contributions he has made to the country.

MARC ANDREESSEN

7 Marc Andreessen is widely recognized for his role in launching the Internet revolution in 1993 with his creation of the Mosaic browser while at the University of Illinois. After graduation, he co- founded Netscape Communications and played a critical role in the company's hypergrowth. In 1995, Netscape's initial public offering propelled Andreessen into the public's imagination. He became the poster boy of the Internet bubble generation. Today, Andreessen is the chairman of Opsware Inc., a provider of data centre automation software.

JOHN THOMPSON

8 John Thompson is the chairman and chief executive officer of Symantec Corp., and the man behind one of the biggest mergers in IT software history. In July of this year, Symantec joined forces with Veritas in a deal worth approximately US$10 billion. Thompson joined Symantec after a 28-year career at IBM Corp., where he held senior executive positions, including that of IBM Canada president. He moved to the U.S. with IBM Corp., where he eventually landed the role of vice-president and group executive of IBM's Software Group.

DON TAPSCOTT

9 Don Tapscott is an internationally renowned author, consultant and speaker on business strategy and organizational transformation. He has written or co-written ten books on the application of technology in business. His latest book (co-authored with David Ticoll), The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business, describes how corporate transparency, accountability and stakeholder relationships are the new frontier for competitive innovation. Tapscott is the president of New Paradigm Learning Corp., which he founded in 1993.

PETER DE JAGER

10 Peter de Jager is perhaps best-known in the Canadian IT scene for shining the international spotlight on the Y2K problem. Today, de Jager is an international speaker, writer and consultant in areas relating to the management of change and technology and is a regular contributor to many leading mainstream and industry-related publications. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Futurist and Scientific American.

MERS KUTT

11 Mers Kutt's association with the Canadian IT scene is long and colourful. Hailing from Winnipeg, he did stints with Philips, IBM and Honeywell before becoming a professor of mathematics and head of the computer centre at Queen's University. There he developed the first key edit system - a data preparation system to replace the 80- and 90-column punch cards of the 1960s. Kutt also served as president of CIPS in 1969 and 1970, and was instrumental in launching the first Informatics conference in Kingston.

FRANK MCKENNA

12 Frank McKenna is a lawyer by education and a career politician, but for Canada's IT community he is widely regarded as the driving force behind New Brunswick's successful call centre initiatives. Under his leadership as premier, New Brunswick became the first jurisdiction in the world to require computer literacy as a high school graduation requirement. McKenna resigned in 1997, 10 years to the day of his 1987 election. In March of this year, McKenna became the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S.

K.Y. HO

13 Ho co-founded ATI Technologies Inc. in September 1985, serving as the company's president and CEO until April 2000. At that time, he was appointed chairman in addition to his responsibilities as CEO. Prior to establishing ATI, Ho had spent more than 10 years in the information technology industry in Hong Kong serving in senior engineering, manufacturing operations, material planning and control, procurement, quality control and administration roles with such companies as Control Data, Data Products, National Semiconductor and Philips Electronics.

SHEELAGH WHITTAKER

14 Sheelagh Whittaker is best known to the Canadian IT industry as the former president of EDS Canada. While at the helm, Whittaker saw revenues jump more than six times what they were when she joined the company. Prior to her arrival at EDS Canada, Whittaker was president and CEO of Canadian Satellite Communications. She also served as the CBC's vice-president of planning and corporate affairs, playing a key role in bringing the country's first 24-hour television news channel, Newsworld, to the network.

DON WOODLEY

15 Don Woodley led Oracle Canada during a period of unprecedented growth for the company (1997-99). During his two-year tenure as president, the company's annual sales more than doubled to $350 million. He says that Oracle's position as a leader in the Canadian information management software market made his decision to leave much easier. Prior to joining Oracle, Woodley spent 10 years at Compaq Canada, where he oversaw an operation whose annual revenues climbed from $96.2 million to an estimated $750 million in 1996.

RICHARD C. HOLT

16 Richard C. Holt is a professor of software engineering at the University of Waterloo's School of Computer Science. A pioneer in Canada's high-tech scene, Holt is the director of the university's Software Telecommunication Group and is also the Nortel Networks chairman for telecommunication software engineering at the University of Waterloo. Holt earned his PhD at Cornell University's Computer Science program in 1971. He is a visiting scientist at IBM's Centre for Advanced Studies as well as president of his own consulting firm, Holt Software Associates Inc.

FRANK CLEGG

17 Until last year, Frank Clegg was the president of Microsoft Canada. He is currently on sabbatical from Microsoft to spend time with his family. When he joined the Canadian subsidiary in 1990, the company was a $55-million-a-year footnote in the parent corporation's annual report. Fourteen years later, Clegg and his team of more than 700 employees had grown the subsidiary into a $1.2- billion gem. The accomplishment he says he's most proud of is the development of the Child Exploitation Tracking System, which was created in conjunc\tion with the Toronto Police Service.

PAUL RUMMELL

18 Paul Rummell was the first chief information officer for the Canadian government, a job that allowed him to provide technology strategy advice while heading its internal IS operations. While there, he managed a budget of $4 billion per year and a professional staff of 16,000. Rummell's legacy includes the development of the Public Sector CIO Council for federal and provincial CIOs. He is currently an executive at EDS Canada, is a senior advisor to major organizations/governments and is on the board of directors for several companies.

CAROL STEPHENSON

19 Carol Stephenson is the telephone operator who would be CEO. She got her start at Bell Canada in 1973, advancing through management positions to join the executive ranks in 1988. From 1995 to 1998, as president and CEO of Stentor Resource Centre Inc., she led the national marketing and technology development centre for Canada's nine telecommunications companies. Then, as president and CEO of Lucent Technologies Canada from 1999 to 2003, she spearheaded the team that tripled Lucent's sales in Canada despite an industry downturn. Currently, she is the Dean of the Richard Ivey School of Business.

SERGE GODIN

20 Serge Godin was just 26 years old when he founded a two- person computer consulting company in Qubec known as CGI. Under Godin's leadership, CGI has grown to be one of the largest independent information technology and business process services firms in North America, employing 25,000 professionals. In 1996 he received a special distinction from the Universit du Qubec Chicoutimi in appreciation for his lifetime professional and business achievements and for his personal involvement in social issues. Most recently, he joined the University of Waterloo's board of governors.

IAN SHARP

21 In 1964, Ian Sharp formed I.P. Sharp Associates, a company that pioneered packet-switch technology in the 1970s and developed IPSANET, a communications network that linked its computer systems to customers in many countries. Over the course of 23 years, the company grew from the original eight employees to about 650 people spread over 20 countries. In 1987 I. P. Sharp Associates was acquired by Reuters and forms the basis of Reuters activities in the organization and maintenance of on-line historical financial data. Ian Sharp continued as president until 1989, when he retired.

PATRICIA GLENN

22 As a result of her work with CIPS (she is a former president of the organization) and her corporate interest in the successful trade of Canadian information technology products, Patricia Glenn was instrumental in the development of the Canadian Software Quality Alliance. She has been on the Trade Policy Task Force on The International Trade Advisory Council as well as the National sector Team for Information Technology and Telecommunications for the Canadian Government. Glenn is an Information Systems Professional and a Certified Management Consultant with over 30 years of experience in the information technology industry.

WILLIAM HUTCHISON

23 William Hutchison is chairman and CEO of Hutchison Management International, a strategic consulting firm. He is a professional engineer by education and has served in senior executive roles in IT, telecommunications and media companies in the U.S., Canada, Asia and Europe. Hutchison was the founding vice-chair of the National Advisory Board for Science and Technology, chaired by the Prime Minister, and founding chair of CANARIE Inc. which has led the development of Canada's advanced Internet research and education infrastructure since 1993.

TIM BRAY

24 Tim Bray co-founded Open Text Corp, in 1991 and built one of the first successful commercial Internet search engines in 1994. A graduate of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Bray participated as an Invited Expert in the work at the World Wide Web Consortium that led to the creation of XML. Bray served as co-editor of XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML. Since 1999 he has served as CEO of Antarcti.ca Systems. He is the original author of the popular open- source Bonnie file system benchmark, and of Lark, the first XML processor.

CALVIN GOTLIEB

25 Calvin (Kelly) Gotlieb is perhaps best known as the man who founded the Canadian Information Processing Society in 1958. In 1948, Gotlieb was part of the first team in Canada to design and construct digital computers and to provide computing services. He established the first university credit course on computing in Canada in 1950, and in 1964 he founded the first graduate department of computer science in Canada at the University of Toronto. In 1994, he was awarded the Isaac L. Auerbach Medal by the International Federation of Information Processing Societies, and in 1996 received the Order of Canada. Gotlieb is professor emeritus in computer science in the faculty of information studies at the University of Toronto.

JUD NEWELL

26 Jud Newell is the founder of Canada Remote Systems, one of the country's first electronic bulletin board systems. The service was the forerunner of today's electronic file transfer and communications services, which are now delivered over the Internet. In 1979, Newell started his business in Mississauga, Ont., with two phones lines. By the time he sold it to Delrina in 1992, Canada Remote Systems had grown to more than 10,000 members and more than 250 incoming phone lines. Today, Newell owns and operates Newell Consultants, a Toronto-based accounting firm specializing in accounting related computer software.

MICHAEL POTTER

27 Michael Potter is the former chairman and CEO of Cognos, a market leader in business intelligence technology. Appointed CEO in 1975, Potter managed the company through several business transitions to its latest position as an international provider in managed reporting, decision support and application development. Under his leadership, Cognos' revenue grew in excess of $200 million and was listed on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In 1987, he was the recipient of the Canadian High Technology Person of the Year Award. Potter retired in 1995 and has since pursued a number of business activities, principally with younger companies.

STEPHANIE PERRIN

28 An internationally recognized expert in freedom of information and privacy issues, Stephanie Perrin was instrumental in developing Canada's privacy and cryptography policies for over 15 years as Industry Canada's director of privacy policy. She led the legislative initiative that resulted in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the electronic commerce privacy legislation that received Royal Assent on April 13, 2000. Today, as the chief privacy officer of Zero-Knowledge, Perrin manages the company's public affairs activities and acts as the company's primary liaison to government and non-governmental organizations.

WALTER LIGHT

29 Walter Light spent 25 years at Bell Canada earning his stripes. In 1974, he was appointed president of Northern Electric. He was the force behind the company's name change to Northern Telecom in 1976, which he said would be "a low-cost producer, a leader in technology and a leader in market-driven technology." Light was a firm believer in attracting and retaining talented employees and to that end, he instituted a top 100 most talented employee search. He also insisted that Northern adopt a more global perspective. Light's business sense, determination and leadership helped Northern anticipate and prepare for today's Information Superhighway powered by the new, high-performance Internet.

JEAN MONTY

30 Jean Monty has had a noteworthy career with Bell Canada. Monty first joined the telco in 1974, where he held a variety of positions in his 18 years at the company. In 1992, he became president and chief operating officer at Nortel Networks. Five years later, he assumed the same role for BCE and was appointed CEO in 1998. During telecom's boom in 2000, Monty's took a gamble on convergence, the marriage of content with networks. He acquired the three-quarters of Teleglobe Inc. that BCE didn't already own. This turned out to be Monty's undoing, with Teleglobe going into bankruptcy protection several years later. In 2002, he resigned as the head of BCE.

WORLD EVENTS * POP CULTURE * TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGHS - WORLD EVENTS * POP CULTURE * TECHNO

1975

MICROSOFT

Microsoft is founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

1976

APPLE COMPUTER

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak form Apple Computer.

PC

Joe Clark becomes the leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party.

1977

RADIOSHACK

RadioShack sells 10,000 TRS-80 microcomputers in its first month on the market.

1978

THE ANIK B SATELLITE

The Anik B telecom satellite is launched, linking northern communities.

1979

ORACLE

The company launches the first commercial SQL relational database management system.

1980

O CANADA

Canada's national anthem, "O Canada," approved by Parliament.

1981

CANADARM

A robotic arm bearing the word Canada performs in space for the first time.

1982

MACHINE OF THE YEAR

Time magazine declares the computer "Machine of the Year."

1983

RADIOSHACK

RadioShack offers a book-sized computer, the Model 100, the first laptop.

1984

Y2K

IT pundits make the first mention of the Y2K bug.

AFRICAN FAMINE RELIEF

David Foster co-writes and produces "Tears Are Not Enough" to raise money for African famine relief.

1985

NETNORTH

Canadian universities are connected to a shared network known as NetNorth.

1986

WORLD CHAMPION

Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson beats world champion Carl Lewis in Moscow.

1987

CANADA CUP

Mario Lemieux scores the winning goal at the Canada Cup.

1988

NSFNET

Canada joins NSFNET, an international backbone of computing centres that enables more network connections.

1989

ROBERT MORRIS

Robert Morris releases his "worm" program, which cripples the Internet for days.

1990

GST

The feds introduce the Goods and Services Tax.

1991

LINUX

Linus Torvalds releases th\e first Linux kernel.

1992

THE FINAL FRONTIER

Canadian astronaut Dr. Roberta Bondar goes into orbit in the space shuttle Discovery.

1993

IBM

IBM appoints Lou Gerstner as its new CEO.

1994

NETSCAPE

Marc Andreessen and colleagues form Mosaic Communications Corp., which later becomes Netscape.

SCTV ALUM

Canadian comedian and actor John Candy dies in Mexico.

1995

WINDOWS

Consumers line up at computer stores as Microsoft releases Windows 95.

1996

NOVELL

Corel buys WordPerfect from Novell.

1997

MEL LASTMAN

The newly amalgamated Toronto elects Mel Lastman as its first mayor.

1998

MONOPOLY

U.S. Justice Department and 20 states sue Microsoft for violating anti-trust laws.

WINTER ICE STORM

A severe winter ice storm rages across eastern Canada.

1999

WAYNE GRETZKY

The great one decides to hang up his hockey stick.

2000

PIERRE TRUDEAU

The former prime minister passes away.

2001

HP

Hewlett-Packard announces plans to buy Compaq for US$25 billion.

2002

ACCOUNTING SCANDAL

WorldCom, which operates part of the Internet backbone, files for bankruptcy.

2003

WORLD HOCKEY

Anson Carter scores in overtime against Sweden as Canada wins the world hockey championship in Helsinki, Finland.

2004

WORD OF THE YEAR

The Merriam-Webster dictionary chooses blog as the word of the year.

2005

GAY MARRIAGE

Canada passes law legalizing gay marriage.

Copyright Plesman Publications Ltd. Sep 23, 2005

Source: Computing Canada

More News in this Category