I have worked full time for about 20 years now - god, time really flies! It all started at the university, which you can read about in the Education section.

Microsoft IPG

My first steady job with some relation to my education was with Microsoft International Product Group in Dublin, Ireland. I started working here as a software localizer in the spring of 1990. I then became a technical specialist later the same year. As a technical specialist, I was responsible for handling technical problems mostly in Excel 3, released in 1990, and later in Excel 4 (released in 1992). I was also involved in an internal tools group, looking for tools and methods to ease the localization work. IPG Ireland had some serious growth pain during this time - when I started, we were about 40 employees, and in late 1992 we were up to 500. We also had a management reorg about every three months. Eventually I got fed up with this and went back to Sweden in October 1992.

Freelance

I actually quit Microsoft without having a new employment, but I was fairly confident I could find something. Well, I decided I could work in (surprise!) software localization, so I wrote a few letters and landed a job as freelance translator for Berlitz Sweden. My first job happened to be translating the help files for Microsoft Word.

But since I'd prefer a steady employment in Gothenburg, I kept on looking and got in contact with Wordwork AB, a new company that I had already learnt of when I was in Dublin. Through Wordwork I got a consulting job with Wang Laboratories Inc. of Lowell, MA, USA. This was a short term job to localize some sort of communications software and lasted from January 1993 through March 1993. Even though this was only short term, it was a very interesting experience. I decided that there were things about USA that I liked - being called Sir, for instance. And there were things I disliked, like American job security.

Wang was already in dire straits, having failed to transition from minicomputers to PC:s, and had filed for Chapter 11 bancrupcy protection in August 1992. My project went on as expected all the way up to a week or two before release. Then the man with the black book came, walked around the cubicles, and terminated at least half the staff. People who had worked for Wang their entire life were sent home immediately - just pack your things and go. And, of course, the product we had been working on was never released. Boy, was I glad I was an external consult not actually employed by Wang then!

Wordwork Part 1

Back in Sweden again, I started to work directly for Wordwork, and quickly became the technical guru both in regards to technical translations, but foremost in developing tools for the localization process. Wordwork was at the time already a pretty modern company, utilizing various tools and macros to make the localization easier, faster, and more consistent. Most of these tools were deleoped in-house: this was before translation memory software became a must.

Well, our tools got so good we decided to commercialize some of them. This got us to Textkontroll, a Microsoft Word plugin (later also for other word processors) that performed surface corrections and congruence checks of a kind not avaliable in existing spelling and grammar checkers. The program sold reasonably well but did not become a huge success.

With that done, I decided to try what I really quit Microsoft for.

Evolvera Part 1

It took a few years, but in early 1996 I started working for Evolvera AB, a company owned by my old class mate Manuel Alves-Martins. Evolvera was a consulting company, developing custom database solutions using the Macintosh program 4th Dimension. We also had two canned applications that I took part in deveoping: Struktur, a program for project coordination with features similar to (todays) Outlook and Entourage - only better. And TimeEdit, a scheduling program for people and resources mostly used in higher education. These programs consisted of a solid core functionality that let us spin off custom applications easily.

One successful spin off in 1997 was Ophelia, a program we developed for the hospital Mölndals sjukhus, used for everything from scheduling operations, personnel, and resources to keeping track of patients, sending mail and such. Ophelia became much appreciated among the people using it, but was eventually forced out due to political problems (a big hospital can't rely on such a small company ...)

Wordwork Part 2 aka Lernout & Hauspie Mendez Svenska AB

in 1997 Wordwork was bought up by one of Europe's largest translation agencies, grew a lot, and had an interesting offer - to take Textkontroll to the next level. This entailed making it into a stand-alone program, and develop a dictionary program that used data from Norstedts Förlag, who also would act as a retail partner. I was in charge of the dictionary program and developed that mostly myself, at the same time making various tools for importing data to the database. Eventually, I also made a Macintosh port of the full program that was sold to newspapers and other large customers.

But with the program out, what to do next? Why, change jobs of course.

Evolvera Part 2

In 1999 I went back to Evolvera again. This time I worked a lot on porting the externals I had developed for 4th Dimension to the newly released Windows version of the database. I also got back to several of my earlier customers; e.g. Diskrimineringsombudsmannen (DO) and Ombudsmannen mot diskriminering på grund av sexuell läggning (HomO), for whom I had made programs for case and document handling. But this eventually got old, and when I one day got asked "which clients are you seeing this week?" I decided enough is enough and quit. (I am not really a "peoples" person you know.)

Wordwork Part 3 aka Bowne Global

What, am I crazy? Going back to the same company for the third time ... Well, I guess it's a bit like a MacDonalds burger, you know what you'll get.

But seriously, it wasn't that bad. During the time I was away the other developers had come out with Skribent version 2.0 where the database engine had (as I had suggested before leaving) been replaced with a custom engine working with static trie structures. This made the dictionary application much faster, and the databases much smaller. And with the parallel searches of multiple databases, I really don't know of anything better, not then nor later. This was already finished, though, so I got to work on data extraction to make custom databases. And also on an internal time report and scheduling system that was co-developed with the Helsinki offices of Bowne Global.

Bok & webb

Now we have reached spring 2002. The CEO of Wordwork had been bought out and was looking for something new to do. Since he had already written a few popular high school books, the education business seemed like a good idea. And so Bok & webb was born. It started with five former Wordwork / Bowne Global employees and set out to revolutionize the middle education in Sweden. I, as the sole web developer got busy making a custom CMS and many internal tools for time reporting among others. A lot of other people got busy creating books and web contents, and after a few years we had covered all the standard courses in the Swedish "gymnasium", as well as several courses in adult education and immigrant education. We were a huge success with our customers. Unfortunately the economic success was not as great.

In the fall of 2006 our owners, Berling Media AB decided they couldn't wait any longer for profit to appear. They turned our entire procuct set over to our (much bigger) sister company, Gleerups, and let most of the employees go.

32grader

Those who were left ended up in a new company that we, after thorough (five minutes) deliberation decided to name 32grader AB. Unfortunately, it wasn't clear what this company was supposed to do, and people started dropping out one by one. I myself hung on about a year but then decided to call quits.

Fronter

So I called up Roger Larsen, CEO of Fronter AS and asked if he wanted my services. Being a smart person he did.

We did know each other from before. Apart from creating "bok-och-webbar", Bok & webb introduced the Fronter collaboration platfrom in Sweden, and I myself helped land several of the first big orders.

But now I am a senior developer for Fronter AS. Sofar I have worked mostly from home, travelling to Oslo every second week or so. We'll see if that will change in any way during 2008.

So, there you have it. This is my life in 20 years and about 1500 words. Have at it ...

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