Back blogging – GDC goes to big school

It’s been a few weeks since I last posted. I was away in Colorado skiing with the family and promised not to try to blog from there. Coming down ski slopes and trying to survive makes you very aware of the potential of the third dimension. I also thought that some sort of guidance system that could help you through a white out would be a useful gadget (GPS in your ski tips and audio sensors?. Any way enough about my holidays.

There is plenty for me to write about the acquisition of GDC by MapInfo. It has been a hectic couple of weeks since the acquisition and the dust has not yet settled.

Mike Klein our chairman and major shareholder addressed a meeting of all the GDC staff and likened the growth of the company up to the acquisition to that of a young child who has done really well in primary school and then suggested that now we were moving onto secondary school and would have to adapt to some pretty fundamental changes. I think that was an excellent analogy, just what you would expect from Mike. Many people have complemented me on the strength of the GDC team and what they have achieved over the last 4 years, I think we have now established the opportunity for that team to play on a much bigger stage.

We had a vision of a “different company” and as part of that vision we worked very hard to make over half of our staff owners of the company, a lot of people made exceptional returns on their investments in GDC.

It was great fun building GDC with the support of such a talented team. I want to publicly thank every one of them for their contribution.