Canadians have always been visionaries, ready to blaze trails across uncharted territories, and it was in this great tradition that two entrepreneurs set up shop in Ottawa in May 1963, to sell computer technology to the scientific and defense groups in the national capital region, as the first subsidiary of a young New England-based firm called Digital Equipment Corporation (founded but seven years earlier).

The Canadian company, Digital Equipment of Canada Limited, sold a respectable half-million dollars worth of computer boards during its first year and the parent corporation, recognizing the manufacturing prowess and expertise of its Canadian employees, began manufacturing its first mid-range, or minicomputers, in 1964, at the Canadian facility — the former Bates and Innes Felt Mill, located west of Ottawa in Carleton Place.

In 1971, the firm purchased 56 acres of land for a combination head office and manufacturing site in Kanata, Ontario, and in 1972 the troops moved in (the same year the firm recorded its 1,000th computer sale with revenues exceeding $22 million).
 

1. At Digital Canada's R&D lab, a Canadian scientist examines "interconect" board, the electronic nervous system of computers. 2. Kanata, employing 800 manufacturing staff, exports tens of thousands of personal computers worldwide, as well as VAX and Alpha AXP departmental and small business systems.

Since then the Kanata site has expanded five times to the point where today it covers half a million square feet and employs nearly 1,000 workers in various aspects of sales consulting, manufacturing, research & development and distribution. In fact, the plant now produces personal computers as well as computer boards and Digital’s VAX systems, the ideal “server” for the many tasks which Digital’s networking expertise connects to its workstations, personal computers and those of other vendors. By the summer of 1993, nearly 1,200 PCs a day were rolling off the assembly lines in Kanata, including the world’s fastest PC — the DECpc AXP/150 — based on the 64-bit Alpha AXP reduced instruction set computer (RISC) chip.

This PC runs at 150 Megahertz and established Digital Canada as a leading manufacturer and exporter of high-technology equipment. The firm’s revenues in 1993 topped the billion dollar mark for the second consecutive year, of which approximately $700 million were for systems exported worldwide, aiding Canada’s balance of payments. Included in these products were the VRL01 Medical Terminal, developed by Gibson Product Design and Digital in Ottawa, which won the Industrial Design Award for the Canadian Awards for Business Excellence (CABE) in 1992.

Across Canada Digital employs nearly 3,000 permanent employees and provides jobs for thousands of Canadians in related industries.

Although best known for its hardware and software products, Digital Equipment of Canada Limited is also one of Canada’s top service companies offering 24-hour, 365-day telephone support on all its products and thousands of competitors’ products from its national Canadian Technology Support Centre in Hull, Quebec. Here more than 250 experts, linked globally with comrades in 91 countries, keep Canada’s business computers working, day in and day out. The firm recorded more than $250 million in services revenues in 1993, which went from simple break-and-fix services to running the computer data centres and networks of renowned firms such as Imperial Oil Resources, TransAlta Utilities and RBC Dominion Securities. The future looks bright for this IT star.