A brief history of The D Co from its President, John Durrant:
I have worked in the computer industry since 1979. I previously worked as
a bookkeeper and as an auditor for a Boise area accounting firm. I have an
Associate degree in Accounting. The first computer company was called Latah
computers. We developed software for S-100 bus based systems using a Micropolis
operating system called MDOS. As the address space was limited, our software
had to fit in 16 K (thats right, kilobytes) of memory. Compared to todays
systems that contain gigabytes of memory, it was quite different. Data was
saved onto floppy disks each containing around 300 K of data.
I then helped found Cougar Mountain Software, doing the initial design of all of
the accounting systems. This was written in basic running on CP/M systems.
With the invention of the "Personal Computer" and Microsft releasing DOS,
we had to move our software to a new platform. At that time, I developed a
compiler for Cougar that would compile the 8-bit code for running on DOS, which
is 16 bit. We later ported that to work on Unix.
After leaving Cougar, I worked for Bourbaki, also here in Boise. Bourbaki
developed DOS based utilities with their main product call 1dir (wonder).
It was a DOS shell that allowed you to navigate through your disk system and automatically
launch programs, a precursor to what Windows does today. With both Cougar
and Bourbaki, the products were sold nationally with hundreds of users of each.
After Bourbaki, I did another few years at Cougar, then started working for various
small companies in the Boise area. I learned a lot about different aspects
of the computing industry during this time. Before, I had just been a software
developer. During the span from 1993 to 2000, I acquired skills in many areas
of the industy, like networking, SQL server administration and interoperability
between different systems. Each company I worked for had great aspects, but
most struggled financially, and each ended up going out of business or being bought
out and moved out of the Boise area. As my wife and I did not want to move
from this area we decided it was time to do something different.
I had the knowledge and experience, just not the clients. Using the contacts
that I had developed over the years, I decided to try it on my own.
It was rough going at first, but the rewards of running my own business, and the
satisfaction of helping businesses get control over their IT issues has been great.
My unique set of skills and the ability to adapt and understand client needs has
really helped. I have never looked back.
I hope we can help your business grow like mine has.
John Durrant
President
The D Co
|