FastLane Technologies
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FastLane Technologies, Inc was a small Canadian software company originally based in Ottawa, Ontario. On June 29, 2000, it was purchased by US-based Quest Software for $100 million USD.
FastLane's first, and at that time only product was an interpreted programming language called FINAL!! (FastLane Interpreted Network Application Lanugage). FINAL (the exclamation marks were eventually dropped from the product name) was a high level language targeted at administrators of medium to large scale Banyan VINES networks (Banyan later became known as ePresence). Its primary benefit was the ability to automate repetitive network administration tasks without requiring extensive programming experience. The language syntax was based largely on a combination of both C/C++ and Pascal.
FastLane was originally founded by David Seguin, Eric Kitchen, and Andy McAfee in 1993. Andy McAfee's interest in the company was acquired early in the company's history by the remaining two partners. In 1996, Newbridge Networks (which was later acquired by France-based Alcatel) and Celtic House (a VC firm associated with then-Newbridge CEO Terry Matthews) had acquired a 49% stake in the still privately owned FastLane. Part of this capital investment deal included moving company headquarters from Ottawa to Halifax, Nova Scotia. This move was in part to gain acceess to the cheaper labour market, and in part to take advantage of tax breaks offered by bringing new high-tech jobs to the city. Pundits at the time speculated that the deal was driven by close personal ties between Terry Matthews and then-Nova Scotia premier John Savage. At the time of the move, FastLane had only half a dozen employees.
By this time FastLane had expanded it's product line to include complete software products developed in the aforementioned FINAL language. The first of these products was Flyte (later renamed DM/Flyte) - a Banyan VINES to Windows NT 3.51 migration tool - the company's first foray into the Microsoft product arena. Other products of this era included what was then caled the Phoenix Domain Reconfiguration Tool for Windows NT. Due to a trademark dispute with Phoenix Techologies, this product was later renamed DM/Manager. Other notable early products included Virtual Administrator (later renamed to DM/Administrator), and Reporter (DM/Reporter).
By the time of the acquisition by Quest, FastLane had expanded to approximately 200 employees. The Halifax and Ottawa presence survived the acquisition, and those locations continue to play an important role in that company's product development cycle today.
