Our 20-Year Journey - The Founders
Founded in 2002, softWORKZ Innovation Inc. is proudly a Canadian company based in Montreal, QC with offices in Victoria, BC, Canada. For the past 20 years our platform has been known as software_DNA and remains at the heart of our technology. We, the original founders, are active in the company and are proud of our achievements over the past decades.
Team Introduction
Claude Brisson
President & CEO, Technology Architect
Claude brings 15 years of early-stage Venture Capital funding in Technology to the table.
Claude provides overall business and operations guidance and, as a passionate coder, he leads the Tech Support team and Product Development Teams, mapping out the continued development of the software_DNA licensing solution.
Fred Ligeti
Sales, Technology Contributor
Fred, (affectionately) known as 'Freddie the Mac' was the instigator of the project. A life-long entrepreneur and technology enthusiast, Fred and his brother Paul, had launched an Apple distribution centre in Montreal in 1982, called 'Zone 2000'.
Fred is passionate about clean tech, electric vehicles and mostly everything smart and tech.
Paul Ligeti
Tech Support Manager
Paul’s passion for computers and programming started in the late 70s.
In the early 80s Paul and his brother opened a successful Apple computer distribution centre. For use in the distribution centre, Paul had developed an integrated inventory and sales application on Apple II computers networked on CPM. He later continued his programming business to develop custom software on IBM PC and Apple platforms.
Gilles Surprenant
Chief Technology Officer
Gilles brings a depth of IT experience garnered while running a successful IT Consulting company over the years.
Isabelle Valiquette
Financial Director
Isabelle is our numbers person. For the last 20+ years, she has managed financial operations for early and mid-stage IT and Technology companies, and has guided us to remain self-funded throughout our history.
First working prototype in 2002
We initially developed software_DNA to run on Windows machines. Our first working prototype was successfully tested in 2002.
We were thrilled when we successfully tested the early reactivations and lockouts of our test PC's.
Originally, we named the license file 'CDM' which was an abbreviation for 'Client Data Module'.
We developed software_DNA to be highly automated for ourselves, running and supporting it, as well as for our clients and their end-users. We pride ourselves in offering a solid and responsive level of support to our clients.
The Early Cloud
When we launched software_DNA the early internet was flooded with software passwords and code generators. Generally, speaking, software was licensed by simply entering a code. Without an Internet connection, the software was stranded on its own to try to defend itself from software pirates.
In the early days, software developers were hesitant to use the Internet to license their software due to concerns of the background process 'phoning home'.
These we the early days of the cloud, as the technology was emerging, software_DNA was initially hosted on individual machines, set up in 3 geographical locations, from Canada's East Coast to its West Coast. The servers would sync and back-up in real time to provide a reliable back end.
