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David
A. Thomas Founder Object Technology International
Inc. and Bedarra Corporation (USA)
Dave Thomas
has a wide spectrum of experience in the computer industry, which spans
engineering, business, and computer science. He has worked in the research
lab, small business and university as well as medium and large corporations
around the world. Unlike many that only conceive new ideas in the lab,
Dave has repeatedly transferred them into successful products and services.
Dave Thomas has over 30 years of experience as a developer, professor,
consultant, architect, manager, president, and CEO. During the last 18
years, he has specialized in the design and implementation of tools and
applications using advanced software technology. Projects and products
have included the successful development and implementation of application
development tools and systems for client-server systems for banking, insurance,
embedded systems, manufacturing, networking systems, electronic publishing,
integrated circuit testing, defense, and instrumentation.
Dave has held academic positions in Engineering and Schools of Business
and Computer Science. Dave holds an adjunct research professorship at
Carleton University, where he was previously director of the Object-Oriented
Research Group. From an initial team of just three professors and six
graduate students, several successful companies have evolved, including
Object Technology International; The Object People; and Objectime. This
group has also educated hundreds of developers for companies such as Dy-4,
Cognos, Corel, Mitel, Newbridge, Nortel, and IBM. He was a principal contributor
to the academic graduate and undergraduate programs in the Schools of
Business and Computer Science.
Dave is widely published in the software engineering literature. He has
served on the OOPSLA and ECOOP conferences program committees for the
past 12 years. His speaking engagements include keynote addresses at many
major industry conferences as well as seminars and courses on software
component technology. In recognition of his pioneering work in object
technology, Dave was elected to the IBM Academy.
Dave is the founder, past CEO and president of Object Technology International
Inc. OTI is a unique software technology company. While many companies
focused on centralized development, OTI adopted what is now called the
virtual company model. The company located its labs where it could hire
the best people and join them with its customers. OTI has labs in Ottawa,
Canada; Minneapolis, Phoenix, and Raleigh, USA; Zurich, Switzerland; and
Amsterdam, Netherlands. The company has an impressive list of object/component-technology
firsts in applications that range from embedded multiprocessors to mainframes.
OTI has generated over 300 person years of R&D without any outside investment
and had profit sharing from its inception. OTI is now a wholly owned affiliate
of IBM. OTI has been described by IBM as one of IBM's "most precious and
effective business units". OTI's Just In Time Software process has delivered
numerous product lines on time and budget.
Prior to the sale of OTI to IBM, OTI supplied critical technology to Digitalk
which was sold to Parc Place Systems in 1995; Sybase, Siemens Nixdorf,
Hewlett Packard and numerous lead users such as Allen Bradley, Credit
Suisse, Nortel, Sprint, JP Morgan, and the Daimler Group.
Dave has been the principal visionary and architect for IBM VisualAge
Java/Smalltalk tools and virtual machines as well as IBM's over all object/component
strategy. The VisualAge family spans the entire range of industry platforms
from PDAs, Windows and Unix to AS/400 and IBM 3090. In 1988 when few had
heard of "embedded system" or "virtual machine" OTI partnered with Tektronix
to build a family of instruments using embedded object technology. His
work in working in embedded systems, has been a major contribution to
the IBM Pervasive Computing (PvC) initiative and Visual For Embedded,
Java Edition. In this role he has worked directly with IBM executives
to chart the technical and business path of Java technology and scripting
technology.
He is a member of the IBM OTI board of directors, AmikaNOW! and an advisor
to numerous other companies including Beachtech, Hewson Bridge and Smith
Ltd., ICHU, Objectime, Blueprint Technologies, Transform Research, Windward
Systems, Microstar, and Tetranet. He has been a personal advisor to founders
at Objective Systems, Palladio Software (both acquired by Rational), Knowledge
Systems Corporation, Digital Composition Systems, and Dy-4 Systems. He
is currently on the advisory board of Computer Science at DalTech, Acadia
University, and a past member of the OCRI board, and Algonquin College.
He has served as reviewer for NSERC strategic grants, and in industry
university initiatives including TRIO, ITRC, SERC. He has served on international
standards committees in software technology.
In 1997, Dave Thomas formed Bedarra Corporation, a privately held management
consulting company that helps clients develop technology-leveraged products
and services, new R&D programs and modern "Just In Time Software" processes.
Bedarra clients include major corporations exploring new business opportunities
or improved software development processes, early stage start up companies,
and investors pursuing technology investments. Bedarra has major focus
in the areas of distance education and e-Business.
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