Paul McTeigue started the company and these are his words:
The idea for Icefan started in the late 1980's. This was the era of the PC revolution.
After being trained as a programmer and then being thrown in the deep end as IT Manager at fast growing retailer Boutique Au-Coton, it was amazing to see the power of low cost computers coupled with new, rapid software development.
After a couple of jobs at Montreal area technology companies and getting an early look at the amazing emerging technology of Electronic Data Interchange, I started my own IT company.
Because EDI touches front-end systems like supply chain management and order entry, back-end systems like packing, shipping, and invoicing, there were tremendous benefits for companies integrating EDI to eliminate laborious and error prone processes.
Add to that Icefan's development of inexpensive UPC management, automated ASN processing, and smart bar-code scanning and we were kept busy! At least we thought we were. The Y2K crisis together with the simultaneous explosion of the Internet was like a bomb going off in the IT industry.
Mobile phones, RFID sensors, automated E-Commerce, there are, as usual,
exciting new technologies.
What doesn't change is the requirement for us to understand if and how these improvements can be effectively
folded into our clients' systems.