29 That Sounds Like a Great Idea 1895

In the year 2000, Northern Telecom (Nortel) had its most successful year. The company had 94,500 people working for it all over the world. It was worth 1/3 the total amount of all the private companies put together on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Quite good for a company that started completely by accident in 1895.

When Alexander Graham Bell (see 1875) invented the telephone, he asked his friend Thomas Cowherd to help him grow his business. Thomas and his son James put telephone wires up. They showed people how to use the telephone. James started to sell telephones to those who wanted to own one. James then started his own business making telephones in Canada.

Charles Sise was a sea captain. He met Alexander Bell who gave Charles a job as the President of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada. Charles bought phones from James until James died of an illness. When James died, his company stopped making telephones. Charles could not find anyone who could sell him telephones in Canada.

The Canadian law said that only the person who invented a product and got a patent had all the rights to make, sell and use that item. If they stopped doing these things, they lost their rights and anyone could then make and sell the item. After James' death, Charles was not making or selling telephones in Canada and he was in danger of losing the patent rights. Charles thought the only thing he could do was start his own company to make telephones. He called it Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company Limited. (NEMC) One hundred years later, that company would become Nortel.

Charles' company, NEMC, began in 1895. The company soon started to make other things that made a sound. It made telephones for the police to use in boxes on the street. It made radios and televisions. The company made the first record player called a gramophone. A handle had to be turned to make it go. The company made organs. It even made the first sound system for talking movies.

In 1900, the NEMC rented office space to Emile Berliner. Emile came to Canada with an idea. He was German, but he had lived in the USA for most of his adult years. He invented the gramophone, but he had lost the patent rights to Frank Seaman, a person Emile was doing business with. Frank stole Emile's idea and put him out of business. Frank did not enjoy success by selling Emile's gramophone for long, though. A year later, Emile had a better idea.

By the time Emile arrived in Canada he had already made a better gramophone. His new one had a motor so it would turn at one speed. It did not need to be turned by hand. The gramophone used metal rolls to play the sound, but Emile thought of something different. He made a 7” vinyl disc. It was flat. It was called a record. Emile began making his records in the NEMC building. The NEMC made the gramophones to play them on. Records quickly became popular and gramophones changed into record players. Frank Seaman was put out of business.

The NEMC had people working for it whose only job was to think of new products to sell. One of their ideas probably became the way that the cell phones we use today look. They put the numbers on the handset-the part of the phone that everyone had to hold in their hand. At that time, people had to listen and talk with the handset. The NEMC made these numbers, on the handset, ones that people could push. People did not have to turn them in a circle. These phones became very popular. Soon all phones had push numbers, instead of ones that turned.

The NEMC kept thinking of ideas before any other company did. They made hundreds of new technology products that are used all over the world today. At one time, they had 17,400 people working in 31 different places on new ideas. In 2006, the company made US$11.42 billion. In 2008, it lost all its money and the most successful technology business in Canada closed its doors.

NORTEL WAS THE LARGEST AND MOST SUCCESSFUL TECHNOLOGY COMPANY IN CANADA

Alexander Graham Bell was a visionary. He saw a future that others could not.He surrounded himself only with others who had vision and thought his ideas would work. It is not surprising then that the company which one of Alexander's friends started became one of the most successful businesses in Canada.

Today, thanks to the popularity of electronics, like phones and computers, Information Technology(IT)is growing very fast.More IT businesses and IT jobs are started every year than any others businesses in Canada.