I started a group on LinkedIn.com some time ago to try and find some of my old ICL workmates. It has grown to almost a 1,000 members and that’s amazing to me. ICL was a company filled to the brim with brilliant people and just having this venue to reconnect with them and find out what they are up to these days, brings back fond memories for me of the old ICL South Africa days.
ICL may have suffered from some management quirks during those last few years, but it was an honour to have worked for them. I guess it was the history of the corporation that truly drew me to it, with such innovative products over the years built around VME. I never actually applied for a job there, as ICL bought over the niche service provider I was employed by, and I sort of landed in the employ of ICL South Africa to start another colourful chapter in my professional life as a technologist. I learnt a lot during this time, from a better and clearer understanding of GIS systems, learning about the local council/municipal solutions en-route to the actual client, to coming to grips with the demanding retail environments ICL was involved with and appreciating the solid presence of a mainframe system with the wonderful revenue opportunities it presented to the company.
Balancing all that against my own knowledge of newer technologies like the Internet, Microsoft’s ventures into the corporate environment and so on, was always a trick I never quite managed. I remember just how bad I would feel when I upset some mainframe specialist with a cocky response about his or her old technology vs my much newer and ‘obviously’ more brilliant Microsoft or Netscape solutions. I guess I grew up in ICL and came to learn that there is definitely a ‘horses for courses’ methodology in technology, and I believe because of that experience I left behind those petty ‘my dad’s better than your dad’ arguments I so often fell into during the first 10 years of my IT life.
If you worked for ICL before or still work for Fujitsu Services or Fujitsu itself, you are most welcome to join our community on LinkedIn.com. Just click the link and you will be taken right to the group. Once there, look me up and let me know about your experiences there.
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