Brief historical review

   2002 - Until today

In the 2002, the economic situation of the country suffers regional phenomena (crisis Argentina) and also local (decomposition of the financial system) that disable the maintenance of a stable commercial activity. 

In front of this scenario, we return to our roots and we recapture with bigger dedication our professional task as Tecnological Advisory and Consultant and through a new undertaken (Etchegaray Consultants & Associates) based fundamentally on the recruiting of my personal services, to those that I incorporate if the work it requires, other human resources of excellent technical quality, for the most part been formed technically by me, or that they worked for some of my companies. 

From this new independent position, I work for customers of diverse origin (local as international) such as companies, multinational organisms, rulers current or former rulers interested in being re-elect.

 Also by the middle of 2002, and as answer to the necessity of services and products demanded by the important portfolio of customers existent from Softec, and for the determination of a majority type of companies survivors of small size (Pymes), we also organize a new company that allowed to assist that existent portfolio of customers, and to begin to develop new market with products and adjusted solutions to the reality of the PYMES. This undertaken is TecnoPyME.

   1998 - 2001.

From final of 1998 until final of the 2001, the economic-financial situation of the country (Uruguay) it suffers a process of very quick deterioration, changing to such a point that the company Softec, such which was outlined it becomes not profitable. 

To this situation, are added other derived problems of important accidents occurred inside the organization and also personally to their Director, determining then that, at the end of the 2001, Softec stops to operate definitively.

   March 1990 - 1998

In March of 1990, the conditions were given to generate an important growth in Softec, to which I would have to make an important economic personal contribution and exclusive dedication. To take this plan ahead, it was necessary that I left my activity at Banco Comercial, to which I renounced voluntarily. 

From 1990, until the present time, I design, I advise and I direct technological companies, of small size (3 to 5 people) and medium size (5 to 25 people) and I have also fulfilled consultancy in companies of big size (Government Companies, Multinationals, Banks) and deep re-engineering companies of medium size. 

So that I can develop simultaneously several activities or special projects, I should coordinate and to supervise work with technical personnel hired by project, allowing this way me, to assist several areas without maintaining a oversized, heavy and expensive structure. 

I think that inside the technological Uruguayan market (reduced, changing and very competitive) it is highly risky to maintain companies with a heavy infrastructure. This vision of the market, added to our technical profile, they motivate us to support all the activities or business that they are undertaken, additionally to the rest of the technicians.

In Uruguay, it is very frequent that the lack of financial resources to pay to the technical personnel's honorarium involved in a project, cause the failure of the same one or its non termination. My profile has always allowed to take all the projects that I have begun, ahead still with reduced budget, because I have been able to develop, when it has been necessary, the task of other members of the team that they have left the projects.

During my professional activity, I have executed different technical tasks, as consequence of the philosophy of chamaleonic organization that I profess in the companies that I manage and of the continuous negotiation between the aspirations of an ideal structure and the reality of the limitation of resources.

Consequently, I have great experience in the execution of technical tasks, control and personnel's executive technician supervision, management and supervisors' coordination of the different areas inside a technological company. 

I also preach the philosophy of "Quality's Circles", fomenting periodic meetings (according to the company's size) between Direction and Managements (or Supervisors) to analyze the march of the projects in course, and sporadically with the whole personnel of a Department, to confront the reports of the Managements, with the reality. 

These practices, they have given me excellent results, and allowed me to correct the direction quickly when I have warned that the original plan didn't achieve the outlined managerial objectives. Later on, in "deployed Activities" we offer a detail of the developed works. 

In the years of commercial peak technology (1990 - 1995), we develop a company organization based on specialization for activity. The volume of business was of such a magnitude that allowed that with an exclusive activity it was possible to maintain an only company with good levels of profitability. It was a moment of "creation of specialized companies". It was so, we form a company specialized in the representation and equipment wholesale (Infotec S.A.) through a network of distributors, and we maintained Softec as a reseller to sale to final users. 

At the end of 1998, the globalization, added to the important reduction of margins of profitability in the technology commercialization and the internet use as an excellent tool for business, communication and training, forced us to accomplish a deep re-engineering in our companies, eliminating the duplicated structures and maintaining at the lowest possible level the operative costs.

Together with the other changes, it also changes the managerial culture. The crisis makes that the market accepts then, a commercial outline where oneself company develops historically independent activities as the sale wholesaler and also to the detail. Then, we decide to close Infotec S.A., and to unify the whole activity in Softec.

   1985 - March 1990

In 1985, with the appearance of the operating system MS-DOS 2.11, and the incorporation of the processors Intel 8088, and 8086 in the production of the personal computers (substituting the Z-80), the PCs (personal computers) they began to be perceived with other "future" in the history of the technology's world.

For then, we already integrated the select and reduced group of professionals with experience in the operating systems, special applications as WordStar and Lotus 1-2-3 and development applications tools like dBase II and GWBasic. 

Until I retire from Banco Comercial in March of 1990, I worked part-time in Softec, as System Development Manager, fundamentally in commercial applications, coordinating the programmers and generating and documenting all systems.

   1983 - 1985

When I graduate in February of 1983 as Analyst Programmer at the Faculty of Engineering, we think that our best expectations were in the incipient market of the business programming applications for micro-computers or PCs, for the one which practically didn't exist prepared professionals in Uruguay.

However, contrary to what happened in the world, in 1983, the Uruguayan technological market, didn't believe in the potential of the micro computers or personal computers for the business, and therefore, there were not opportunities in big companies, interested in developing solutions based on these equipment, and less in hiring technical personnel specialized in them.

To acquire experience in the area of the technology, there is to be working continually inside her. The companies that were in this field, only hired personal with experience and also, recently it had been created this professional career.

Finally, in micro-computer's area, there were not companies interested in developing the market (mainframes meaning more money to win) and therefore it was difficult to enroll r to an organization interested in that profesional profile.

With this panorama, I took the only possible way. Maintaining my work at Banco Comercial that allowed me to live, I founded my own company, Softec, oriented to develop software business solutions based on micro-computer hardware. There I invested all my personal savings acquiring the first micros that arrived Uruguay: NCR Decision Mate V.