Actually, BCS
Technology Limited can trace
its origins back to 1970. At that time, BCS Technology's
founder got involved in early efforts to automate letter sorting
at U.S. Post Offices, working as a hardware builder and installer, and
as a machine language programmer.
That experience, along with extensive activities in the telecommunications
and transportation industries, indirectly led to the formation
of BCS Technology
Limited.
Our first client was Automeister
Inc. (Naperville, IL), a full service automotive repair facility owned
and operated by Bernie Keltsch. Like many small business owners,
Mr. Keltsch was burdened with administrative work that was essential to
the operation of the company but did nothing to generate sales and improve
profitability. It was clear to him that if he could reduce his
paperwork and record keeping load, he could apply more of his valuable
time to attracting customers and keeping his shop busy. So he turned
to us to devise an integrated system that would automate shop orders, invoicing,
customer database management, and so forth. The result was our first
custom designed, real-time transaction processing environment. Although
we didn't know it at the time, serving this first client had established the basis on which our business was to be built.
One of the problems we had
to solve in automating Automeister was what to do about computer hardware.
For much of the 1980's, IBM PC
compatible computers were financially out of reach for many small businesses.
This fact led us to exploit the capabilities of less expensive eight bit
machines and the subsequent development of add-on hardware to mimic the
features of the multitasking minicomputers then in vogue in many mid-sized
businesses. We ultimately extended this hybrid technology to support
up to 16 simultaneous users but realized that it had its limitations.
However, the effort expended on this technology was to pay off later on
in the development of larger multi-user systems.
As the 1980's drew to a close,
costs had fallen to a point where PC's were now viable for many smaller
companies. Microsoft's MS-DOS®
was the standard operating system shipped with most PC's, but was not capable
of running multiuser, transaction oriented processing software.
Fortunately, a PC version of the industry standard
UNIX®
operating system had been developed to fulfill that need. Also, quality components
for building custom machines ("clones") had become readily available and
reasonable in cost, making it possible for us to build servers tailored
to the unique requirements of the UNIX
environment. This marked the beginning of our application of UNIX to
small business information technology.
In the early 1990's, a large
building materials distributor located in Joliet, Illinois turned to us to replace an existing computer
system with something more powerful and better suited to their business requirements.
As was the case with Automeister, we developed custom multiuser transaction
processing software to this client's specifications. Running on one of our
SCO®
UNIX
powered
The following years saw the
continued acquisition of more clients and the continued exploitation of UNIX
for small business applications. In keeping with our full service
way of doing business, we designed, built and installed large-scale information
processing systems in various manufacturing facilities in the Chicago
area, each built around UNIX and our custom
1999 was a watershed year
in the computer industry, as numerous (and mostly irrational) fears about
the Year 2000 prompted a flurry of remedial activity. We performed
Year 2000 conversions on older software that could not be readily replaced
and upgraded older systems where Year 2000 problems existed
in the hardware. 1999 was also important because for the first time,
Intel's
Pentium® microprocessor was no longer the top performer in the PC world,
having been overtaken by
Advanced
Micro Devices' remarkable Athlon®
seventh generation unit. The Athlon
was less expensive than the Pentium yet was a major leap forward in
computational power.
Our analysis of the Athlon's
design led us to conclude that it would be ideally suited to server applications.
In response to a client's order for a new server, we built and shipped the first
Athlon powered UNIX server to
be installed anywhere in the Midwestern United States. Equipped with
ultra-2 SCSI level 5 RAID, this unit's performance and reliability substantially
exceeded all expectations. It was the first of our ULTRA
series of
As the number of our UNIX
installations increased, so did the requests for Windows®
file and print sharing support on UNIX. We initially satisfied this need by implementing
Network File Services (NFS), a standard UNIX
service. However, experience and client feedback indicated that NFS was not
the answer—it was too technical for most users and didn't mesh well with Windows' "point and click" browsing style. This led to the development of our current heterogeneous
client/server model based upon the Common
Internet File System (CIFS) developed by Microsoft for Windows
networking. The result was full Windows domain log-in capability
for PC's and secure, shared access to UNIX
controlled file and printer resources (thanks to the excellent Samba CIFS server package).
This heterogeneous
network model has proved to be so stable we have dubbed it "crash proof networking."
It continues to be the framework for all the systems we design and build.
Now
in our fortieth year of operation,
Increasingly, we have turned to Open Source Software
to help solve our clients' technology problems. While the Open
Source concept may seem to be something radical in the computer
industry, it's just the next step in information processing technology.
Our philosophy of "evolution, not revolution" fully meshes with Open
Source concepts, as we think in terms of technology as a means
and not an end. We're proud of our past accomplishments but realize
we must continuously look to the future. We're hoping you will join
us as we progress. Please contact us
at your convenience to discuss ways we can help your business prosper with better information technology.