Talk:Terry Matthews/Archives/2013

Other businesses: Pixstream, Sandvine
Celtic House Venture Partners is a major investor in Sandvine (http://www.sandvine.com/about_us/default.asp, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandvine), which was founded by several former Pixstream employees in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada (Pixstream (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PixStream) was also funded by Celtic House). Both of these had Terry Matthews wisdom and insights to help guide them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.97.15.226 (talk) 14:29, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't disagree with your statement in regards to Pixstream but Sandvine does not have Terry as an investor nor is he on the board. Terry now conducts all of his investments though Wesley Clover.

Latest Edits - Sept/Oct 2006
One Of Terry Matthews Brothers Names Are Rubane I No Because Terry Matthews Owner Of The Celtic Manor Is My Uncle

"Mitel became a technology consultancy company run from home, to the various companies around Ottawa's emerging tech district - including the National Research Council, the Communications Research Centre, and a tiny handful of pioneering start-ups included SHL Systemhouse and Quasar Systems (now Cognos)" - this is not stated the in the citation provided.

"Obtaining funding by other means from boths banks and BNR, " - Mitel was self (& Angel) funded and I do not beleive BNR had any involvement in the funding of Mitel.

"reacquired the Mitel PBX business and company name" - he also acquired the manufacturing arm that was subsequently spun out as part of breconridge it maybe more prudent ot say purchased all the assets of mitel except for the semiconductor division which subsequently became Zarlink.

I would disagree with the statement "return to mitel" he spent the majority of his time between 2001-2004 in March Networks. If my memory serves (it usually doesn't however) he tried to merge march and mitel but was unable to for some reason.

It would be nice if we could sum up his education. I know he attended University of Wales. DOes anywone know from what dates? which campus? a quick google didn't provide the answer. --Smartbettor 13:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi - thanks for comments: yes, the old article was awful! I have referenced in the sources from various articles, all of which are referenced/linked or at External Links noted at the foot of the article. At times, trying to piece things togther for a Bio is a bit like trying to put a train wreck together within in a PR machine - so there are things they want to forget, some things get merged by various editors, and then you have the PR-spin element of whatever they wanted to achieve from that article. If you think I have got things in the wrong order/completly wrong, then please go ahead and correct, or limit back to where you feel it is right. Certainly the early days (education-why/how Canada-Mitel) could do with a lot more work/sourcing. The failure of the lawn mowers, the re-trench to home consulting and the launch of Mitel on the chip PHD is well sourced; but happy to remove the listed companies consulted for - only one source. The Breconridge piece could also do with some more work, and yes he tried to merge Mitel/March. The fun thing while researching this article, was a blogger source (listed) who attended a meeting with Matthews in Australia, and quoted the then Wiki article - which Matthews said was mostly not quite right. Love to know his thoughts after our renewed efforts! Rgds, - Trident13 13:55, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Sources Needed
I flagged this page with the 'unsourced' tag because there are a large number of statements made here without any sources cited. To come in line with the Verifiability policy, sources need to be cited for the statements made on this page. -- User:Dyork August 17, 2006

Previous Comments
What is Terry Matthews role in Breconridge?

Terry is an investor and a member of the Board of Directors at Breconridge. Bruce Rogers, Breconridge's CEO, worked for Terry at Newbridge Networks where Bruce managed manufacturing operations.

How can you have margins of 1000%??? The original author must have meant "almost 100%" margin or else 1000% markup.

Citizenship
Surely Matthews would be counted as Welsh, not Canadian?
 * He resides in Canada and most of his investments are there.
 * Yeah, but residency does not mean origin. Tom Jones lives in the US, but is still counted as Welsh.
 * First of all the Origin (birthplace) of someone on wikipedia does not pigeonhole their categorization, its usually the place where they became wiki-worthy (ie where they became famous, or the place where they resided during their rise to fame).
 * Also - He holds Canadian Citizenship, he lives in canada, he's been a resident for over thirty years, he started each of his companies in Canada, the vast majority of people employed by him are in Canada. Plus matthews is listed under the Welsh entrepreneurs category, Canadian businesspeople, Knights Bachelor, Natives of Newport. His welsh connections are firmly linked in his bio. I don't think that there's anything missing except a link to the ottawa business people category (if it exists.) The tom jones reference is a bit silly since he hold no US citizenship and the majority of his fame came from when he was located in the UK.
 * Hmm...I thought Tom Jones held US citizenship, but it appears I was wrong. My mistake.

Is he?
Is Terry Mattthews a member of the Bilderberg Group? A recent meeting (2006) in Canada was held in Kanata, Ontario at the Brookstreet Hotel. Who owns that hotel? I was always curious about this..I know the bilderberg's are so concerned about my welfare and all....--Oracleofottawa (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Terry Matthews Account of the founding of Mitel and the lawnmower story
from http://www.profitguide.com/article/4685--sir-terry-matthews accessed May 18, 2012 Q&A You're well known as a technology entrepreneur and began your career in that sector, but your first business started out in lawn mowers. Why? Mike Cowpland and I started our first business in 1972. We called the company Mitel, for Mike and Terry Lawn Mowers. I started it up by borrowing $4,000 from Bank of Nova Scotia. It was Mike's idea that we could get early revenue simply by being the Canadian representatives of HC Webb & Co., the first company to make a cordless electric lawn mower. We had quite a few interested distributors take the product. The problem was the shipping company lost the container. We heard that the container might have been washed overboard, but the truth is that all of the documents that went with it got washed away. We finally found the container at the end of September. I can tell you, there's a big learning there: timing is almost everything in life. In Canada, in October, you can't give away lawn mowers. That killed that. It taught me a very important lesson about timing. I could have been the lawn mower king if the stuff had arrived in January. But it didn't. Mitel eventually focused on telephony. How did you identify that opportunity? What I did was discuss with customers, right up front, the area of most interest for them. And I had an area of interest that they wanted: Touch-Tone receivers. We developed the world's first single-card Touch-Tone receiver [a tone-to-pulse converter for central office use, based on Cowpland's PhD thesis]. No one had ever done anything like that, but we cranked it out in nine or 10 months. I've still got the first circuit cards we put together. We sold those products for about $150, compared to AC receivers from ITT or what was then Northern Electric, which were $1,500 each. And even then, we made 80% gross profit. Once we had prototypes that worked and clients liked, we borrowed $120,000 from friends and family. For every $1,000 loaned, the lenders got the right to a $1 share. The $120,000 was paid back in three years. But here's the important thing: 10 years later, each $1 share had turned into about $2.5 million. So, the people who got stock options working for Mitel for almost nothing, they didn't complain when each $1 option turned out to be about $2.5 million.