Documenting my part auto bio with pics - computer software industry appreciation and experience letters

Last updated on 24th Feb. 2020

This post follows up on my previous post: Documenting my part auto bio with pics - the Visa trail as documentation of my foreign trips, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/12/documenting-my-part-auto-bio-with-pics.html.

I worked in the computer software industry from March 1984 to August 2002.

Here's my computer software professional biodata including my free service stint as Hon. Staff, Hon. Faculty and Visiting Faculty, in an Indian deemed university, https://ravisiyer.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/202002-ravisiyerbiodata.pdf.

And here's my computer software industry work-experience details, https://ravisiyer.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/raviiyerindustryworkexperience.pdf.

Appreciation Letters

Given below are pics of some appreciation letters I got during my software industry career:

[To open pic in higher resolution, right-click on pic followed by open in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]

Above pics are from my seniors/bosses at Wang Laboratories, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories, which was a famous tech. company in the 1980s but had started running into financial difficulties in the second half of the 1980s which is where my Indian company, Datamatics, got an opportunity to offer lower cost technical services through us software developers. The first two pics (from top) are for my 2nd USA stint from Sept. 1988 to Sept. 1989. The third pic is for my 1st USA stint from March 1987 to Sept. 1987.

Above pic is an appreciation letter dated Aug. 1991, during my stint in Boshu Technics Corporation. We had done work in our Bombay office, for a Cologne, German client called BUSY Gmbh. Mr. Kaiser who has signed the above letter was the client company boss. But there was a technical lead in Busy Gmbh for this project, a Mr. Achlietner (if I recall the name correctly), who sent us in our Bombay office, a delicious cake as an additional form of appreciation for the work. I don't know whether the cake was sent from Germany or was sent from someplace in Bombay itself. My guess is that they sent it from Germany as, if I recall correctly, it was some German speciality cake. We enjoyed the cake :-)!

Above pics are appreciation letters during my stint as Technical consultant in Mastek, Mumbai, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastek. To help manage my health issues which got easily precipitated by stress, I had completely given up project management work and offered only technical consultancy services as an independent consultant (not employee).

Experience Letters

Experience letters from various companies I was associated with as employee or as independent consultant (not employee), are given below.

Above pic of experience letter is from my first company, Datamatics Ltd., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datamatics, where I was employed from March 1984 to May 1990. I joined as Trainee Programmer and by the time I left the company I had risen to Project Leader.

Above experience letter is from my second company, a startup, Boshu Technics Corporation, where I was employed from June 1990 to November 1992. I was essentially the technical head with the proprietor, Mr. S.K. Basu (ex IBM India, ex IDM founder-director) being the overall head of the small company. (The company had around or less than 10 employees when I joined and I think even when I quit it was around 10 employees though it was an almost completely new set of employees by the time I quit). The official designation I had was: Manager Software.

Boshu Techics is not around now I think. Perhaps after Mr. S.K. Basu passed away, the company closed down. Here's an article from Indian Express in Nov. 1998 that references Mr. Basu and Boshu Technics: Innovative software keeps company going, http://expressindia.indianexpress.com/fe/daily/19981116/32055744.html.

I free-lanced for most of the 1993 year. Above experience letter is from Mastek Ltd.,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastek, with whom I was associated with, as a regular technical consultant (not employee) from end 1993 till June 2001.

Above experience letter is from a startup, CelPro Group B.V. (a Dutch - Netherlands - company), that I was associated with as senior technical consultant (not employee), through (for administrative purposes) an Indian company called Continuum Technologies, from July 2001 to Aug. 2002.
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May-2019-Update:

Later, for the paperback book (grayscale) and for the ebook (colour), scanned images were taken of some of the pics given in this post. Colour versions of those scanned images are given below without any text captions. The text captions can be seen in corresponding camera pic in this post.

End-May-2019-Update
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Given below are some comments from my Facebook post, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2377203519162878 associated with this blog post:

In response to a comment, " It was wonderful going through these Sir. One observation: The length of the recommendation letters are progressively decreasing as the years go by :)", I (Ravi) wrote (slightly edited):
After 1993 till early 1999 when my mother passed away, my main job was mother care involving no money earning but expense. My secondary job was earning money part-time as software technical consultant. So my work output had reduced. Further, I had stopped taking on project management responsibility and would limit myself to technical advice. Now I have noted that the later set of appreciation letters start from October 1999 (from Mastek), though I was with Mastek from end 1993. A few months after my mother passed away in Feb. 1999, say from around April or May 1999, I had started working almost full time (but staggered hours) with Mastek. So the appreciation letters are from after I started working almost full time with Mastek. But I was not accepting project management responsibility and limiting myself to technical advice. I think this may be one reason for my appreciation letters after 1993 being less laudatory and less long :-).
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In response to a comment which said in part, "Probably Sir, the managers became too busy!", I (Ravi) wrote:
In my case, brother, what I said above is the truth. My job profile drastically reduced after 1993, even though I still was able to contribute technically. Earlier I used to own projects, take full responsibility and deliver to the customer. So the customers were very happy with me then. That's reflected in those appreciation letters.
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In response to a comment which partly said, "Wow! Ravi, you took me down my own memory lanes with your chronology! I'm 1963 born and I was with the World Bank group from late 80's until 1997 and we had Wang VS and then we implemented Banyan VINES on Tokenring. I remember attending training courses in Massachusetts in early 90's.", I wrote (slightly edited):
Very interesting --name-snipped--! Fascinating that I found a Facebook friend who knows of Wang VS and Banyan VINES!!! Most of the post 2000 software industry people which includes students I taught software development from 2003 to 2011 in Sai university, Prasanthi Nilayam campus, would not have heard of Wang VS or Banyan VINES!

John Kowalonek was the big man in Wang VS work on porting Banyan VINES to Wang VS. He was earlier in DEC.

Fascinating that you attended training courses on these topics in Massachusetts in early 90s.

You put it very well: "Everything moved towards Windows (both server and desktop) eventually. How things, technologies and whole companies become obsolete over time! Nothing is permanent." I entirely agree. Especially in Tech and change is so blindingly fast in Tech.

How big were the names of IBM, DEC and Wang in the 1980s! Where are they today? IBM is still around as it reinvented itself as a services company. The WinTel PC revolution just blew them or their computer system maker brand, away!

Thanks a ton for your comment.
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In response to comment that said partly, " Ravi, you're way more technical than today's CS graduates! You say you discontinued your MSc, but you managed to work on such a wide variety of platforms and OS's!" and referred to some Wang computer models, I wrote (slightly edited):
For me the big Wang computer model was the VS 80, which was said to be very close to IBM 360/370. I got pretty deep into it, and also had an opportunity to see a little bit of the actual operating system code.

I think I had to study far more during my computer industry career than during my college days. Honestly!

But my studies have been informal and on-the-job. No academic degree to show for it. But then neither do some of the biggest names in Tech of my days have academic degrees to show for their prolific knowledge and technical accomplishments - Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. So I am in good company :-).

If I recall correctly, I had told one of the vice-chancellors of the Sai university that if I wanted to get a Ph.D. I could get two, not just one :-). It is just that I was not interested in academic research. I was focused on spiritual endeavour and my teaching & guidance on tech matters to students, and initial 5 years of additional role of Systems Manager at Sai university, DMACS (Dept. of Maths & Comp. Sc.) Lab, were my Seva offering to Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, which was an important part of my spiritual endeavour done in the physical presence of Bhagavan. At that time and even now, I was, and am, interested in a spiritual career and NOT an academic career or a tech. career.

I also realized that as in my industry career, all my work was intellectual property owned by the company, even if I wanted to I could not publish articles in trade magazines or even technology magazines, giving key information about my work. So there was no way outsiders would know of my work details, unless they interviewed me on something or somebody from my company told them.

In contrast in academia, one publishes papers on the work that one has done quite freely (unless it is an industry sponsored thing in which case there may be some constraints). Even I am the co-author of two papers published from work done in M.Tech. (CS) student projects where I was technical consultant and a USA based professor (NRI) was the key advisor. Given the intense tech. stuff I had to do during my Wang Labs. work days as well as some other intense software projects I have done, the M.Tech. student projects resulting in published academic conference papers, were minor stuff! Really!

But most Indian CS academics that I came across could not really understand the depth of technical work that many in the Indian software industry who were not formally educated in Computer Science or Information Technology, including me, had done, Their tech. knowledge was, at best, superficial. And so they played the UGC/AICTE game of Ph.D. requirement before anybody is considered knowledgeable in Indian academia!
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In response to comment, "Ravi, you're so right! Formal education is far less important than your passion and drive. What all you did was out of genuine interest to learn and master the subjects! My hat's off to you ", I wrote (slightly edited):
Thank you so much brother --name-snipped-- for your kind words.
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A former student of Sai university whom I taught software development lab. courses, wrote me over email, and was OK with sharing publicly:

You have had an illustrious career laced with multiple fantastic achievements. It must have been lots of hard work to earn those sincere and appreciative compliments. It must also be very pleasing to look upon them fondly - I feel privileged to know you and be your student.
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I (Ravi) responded (slightly edited):
Thanks for the kind words, --name-snipped--. Yes, it was hard work backed with a lot of genuine enthusiasm and interest in software technology that brought the accolades, some only verbal and some written. I took to software technology/software development like a duck takes to water. So while some of it was intense work, including night-outs and long workdays, it was usually very satisfying work.

And yes, it was a pleasure to look back upon these written accolades in the process of documenting my part auto bio.

Glad that you feel good about having been my student (for software development lab. courses) :-).
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