Back when I was a wee nipper and had a proper job, this was where I started work.
Back then it was called Data Connection, a splendidly dull name - bought off the shelf when Companies House was on strike and you couldn't register new ones. Just imagine all the ones which were worse.
It was owned by a trust, the beneficiaries of which were the employees. A kind of a coop, basically.
I loved that model. I felt it permeated the culture, because we were working for our benefit, not someone else's. So I took two hour lunch breaks to pop up to Edinburgh University to gatecrash undergrad Arabic courses, or two month holidays to study in Fez or Tripoli.
That was before this kind of thing was more common in tech. I worked hard, too, but I know there were and are people who work a lot harder and aren't as enormously privileged.
Eventually it was sold to a venture capital firm - most people wanted that, so fair enough. I left, after an extended grump. Sorry about that bit.
Partly I mourned the coop model. Partly no matter how hard you try to choose who you sell to, you can't choose who they sell to, and what happens next. Partly I could afford to.
The grass is always rosier in the rear view mirror. I probably idealised it. It could easily have gone bust ages ago if it hadn't taken that route. I expect I'd have left anyway, in time, for work that for me was more rewarding and worse paid. Companies come and go, evolve and die, just as people do.
I have fond memories of it, though. And I hope the people who were there find new homes.
If any of them fancy a radical change to the charity tech sector, then I'm happy to talk them out of it.
Microsoft will continue selling Azure for Operators but focus on infrastructure support and leave applications development to others.
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Microsoft to quit Affirmed and Metaswitch in telecom retreat
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R&D Technical Architect at CDW Canada | Specializing in M365, Entra ID, Sentinel, and PowerShell | Innovating and Scaling IT Security Architectures
4moAh shoot, no official degree. So I’m out. However some may say I’ve got a doctorate in Gifs.