What an unconventional and unexpected journey this has all been!
Started by my Dad back in 1981 (as Wason Microchip) to provide customers with great finance software and supported hardware, the 40 years have been a varied and exciting.
There are so many highlights & learnings!
Silly things like remembering my dad telling me not to run around in the room that held the huge development servers. They had delicate hard disks back then! (running MUMPS I think). This was his hotel back-office solution. Also, I remember less pleasant things like remembering my dad coming back home with headaches most days. But most of all, I remember the enthusiasm; the thirst to learn and apply.
Just like all at Cbiz, he is still learning and still excited by all that tech can do (he is currently a Power BI evangelist and created much of our internal dashboards for us too!).
Gosh. I remember being so excited to get my hands on the Mac - together with the mammoth 64Mb (that's right kids 64Mb is all you'd ever need), the original Macintosh stunned me!
The company wrote an accounting software called "MacWason" - it was even advertised on the back cover of the leading Mac magazine (Mac User if I remember correctly). "We taught the Mac to be an accountant" was the tagline!
I got involved in 1994/95 - with my brother- when we were looking at Navision (now Business Central).
Coming from Pegasus Opera, Navison (Navi 356) blew my mind! It was so forward thinking. And you could change anything in it. I am still so very nostalgic about those Navision days, they were exciting and hectic times. Hence the picture on the blog post; my prized Navision possession (sans rear spoiler now!). Kindly given to me by Brian Alsford.
The privilege of working with so many great people - our team members past & present, customers & partners. And you cannot think of Navision without thinking and reminiscing about Yash Nagpal.
The company has really innovated along the years and now it feels like we are doing that again. The Cloud brings with it almost limitless potential, yet - in some ways - it feels like a return to the old mainframe days and my Dads servers running all the software that the clients would access! (I'm just allowed to run around more now!).
Obviously, cloud tech is infinitely more powerful, and we are yet to discover what impact things like AI can really make for our business lives. But "the cloud" has and will continue to make powerful solutions more accessible and connected.
Like Simon Sinek says, business is an infinite game. We want to keep helping and keep playing this "infinite game". Looking forward, leading; seeing how we can continue helping and delivering pivotal solutions to many more businesses, for at least another 40 years.
We still feel excited, still like exploring, still love learning, and are still grateful to be working with such a delightful team.
Happy Birthday Cbiz!