A Bit of History Here

I knew nothing about Canon prior to my joining before 1974. (long ago lei?).

Canon then was a brand being distributed nationally by Guthrie Trading Sdn Bhd. In 1974, there were 4 products, namely calculators, cameras, photocopiers and micrographics. Digital stuffs? nobody knew shit about these things.

Our chief then was Steven Wong and his gangsters Victor Chan, Christie Low, Richard Wong, Wendy Ng and myself. That's about all the people doing the Canon business in this country. Liew probably was still catching spiders somewhere in some schools.

Guthrie Trading also have other agencies like Kanebo, Vat69, KitKat, Livita, Kjeldsons Butter Cookies. Kind of fun then when you can buy staff prices of those other brands.

Some years later, Multi-Purpose Bhd has some grand plans to go international (sogoshosha sp?) and among other things, went to acquire Guthrie Trading, changed the name to Mulpha Trading and took over the spoils. Tan Kwoon Swan was the really big man then before he went to jail in Kajang.

Canon Electronic Typewriters came in, in 1982 and beat the shit out of the then competitions IBM, Adler, Olivetti. Liew then was in Olivetti, saw fit to jump ship and join our winning team. He later became the best salesperson. Lucky for him then, because I was already being promoted to Area Sales Executive.

Hey, would you look at this link?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K2n0YFjGrw

Facsimiles were now available. Then came printers, the next big thing.

The big change came in 1987 when Canon came in direct and Japanese bosses started appearing. Steven Wong then was the General Manager and Jack Lim the Managing Director. Our chairman then was Mr Kawamura. You could only see him smile or laugh either outside the office or outside office hours.

For those of you who may want to know where some of managers have moved on.

Steven Wong. General Manager in CMMSB and now a director in Fotokem.

Larry Poon. GM in CMMSB and now runs Avaxx, one of the 2 distributors for Nokia.

Goh Kheng Peow, instrumental in the listing of Compugates and now runs it.

Ralph Tay, boss of TechnoNiche, distributor for Samsung.

Yan Yoke Ping, country manager for HP IPG Group.

Andrew Lee, country manager for JOS Distribution.

I am sure there are more. I am getting a little tired now... shall come to add some more to this post later.

Kindly note that accuracies of people and events are not guaranteed as I am now on the doorsteps of Alzheimer's house.