About the Founder
Bryan Gan C.D., 29-years-old, from Penang, Malaysia, the only son of a PC hardware business owner and a very encouraging
housewife appears was prepared from young to become an entrepreneur and IT Professional in computer programming languages
for the Internet.
Graduating from a well-known local Chinese medium Chung Ling High School,
Bryan obtained an honor degree in Computer Science from Universiti Science
of Malaysia (USM), Penang in 2002.
Grew Up With Technologies
In 1985, at a very young and tender age of seven years, Bryan was a lucky
and proud owner of an Apple II computer, costing RM10,000 which his father
gave him as a present to train his inquisitive mind. He played PC games,
following instructions from books using Dbase III software, which encouraged
him into writing software programs.
During the years, Bryan was freely writing programs for himself and many of his friends with a similar computer and went on to
install PCs, carried out trouble-shooting and looked at PC hardware to acquaint himself with the anatomy of computers and how
they worked.
Seeing The Future, Step In
In 1996, in his fifth form year, in secondary school, when 18 years old, Bryan first saw the wonders of the Internet and built
his first website on the world renowned Bruce Lee and the Shaolin martial arts.
He then became a software developer, during his pre-university days, while undertaking his Higher School Certificate course. While
other fellow students were seriously concentrating on their High School coursework, Bryan kept to his books on computing,
programming, C language, Turbo Pascal studies and gathered an insight into computer knowledge due to his keen interest in
computing.
Dot-Coms, Good Exposure
This followed his entry into USM where he met a Korean, during his first year of studies and set up a team to form a dot com
company called i-City.com. Bryan became its first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and took charge of all technical works for the
company.
The company set up software called i-Cash providing online games and maps
connected to houses (part of games, with different homes and roles) and winners
could collect imaginary cash in points. However, the dream of this company was
short lived due to the sudden Bubble Burst on the Internet, which caused many
Internet based companies to shut down, worldwide.
Financial constraints and similar support was not forthcoming from any source for i-City.com to continue with its ventures and
the project was finally abandoned for good.
Zero From Ground Up
Bryan did not just stop there; he went on with web-design projects for local
companies, during his first year at USM. In his second year as a university
student, Bryan was again in communication with a business associate who outsourced
with Bryan to build more than 200 websites for local SMEs. This is when Bryan
got his first e-Commerce system made available to the masses as his most satisfying
endeavor in software development.
He started this research using Object-Oriented Technology for this purpose and the project for the 200 companies and it is still
continuing, till Bryan soon completed his honors degree with USM.
Starting with just two tables, and two PCs, Bryan set up his sole proprietorship company, Comdev Software
(Please also see http://www.comdevweb.com for details) to continue serving these companies for their software and web-designing
needs, with a fellow USM student as his only partner.
Failures But Never Fall
In July 2002, Bryan continued his research in software development technology
and built a new version platform called e-Enterprise, which was planned
for sale to local small businesses. However this project soon became a failure
due to teething marketing problems, such as the acceptance level of these small
businesses and also as Bryan found it unsuitable for global application,
thus this too was abandoned.
Next, Bryan started building the Web Components Platform (WebCP2), wherein, the components framework base was deployed for Object-
Oriented and Component-based development technologies. Its purpose was to enable online outsourcing of web-design solutions
for global customers (not just local based), whereby they could use this framework and complete their web projects within a very
short period, a week as compared with the conservative method which took a month or longer to get a website up on the Internet's
WWW.
Nevertheless, again Bryan found this as another failure as prospective customers could not comprehend the components framework on
how it worked to benefit them. Bryan found that web-designers just simply could not understand how to utilize this framework and
its components, intelligently. He said that the technology was too technical in the software engineering field.
It was sometime in March 2003, when Bryan had a new idea; he decided to convert
the technology into a web builder type solution for end-users (business
owners). The purpose of the new technology was to have a complete product to
sell online for the end-users, without having to worry much about software knowledge
and technology.
In July 2003, this was again found not successful as it was not competitive
enough for global use, in conjunction with other global competitors, so Bryan
decided to further improve his software technology. This also prompted Bryan
to move house to his present new office, in Sept 2003, where he put on his
thinking cap and reviewed again umpteen times, his web-builder software, and
also studied the financial and cost effective needs of prospective local and
global clients.
The Big Break
For Bryan, the big break came between Sept 15th, 2003 and October 15th, 2003 when he discovered using a new product model
called plug-ins which solved all of Comdev's problems to get the most sound, effective and seriously very cost
effective solutions for everyone, locally and globally.
The first of Comdev's four components for incorporation into websites were Photo Gallery, Newsletter, Geo Traffic and CSV
Data Tool. Once up and running on the Internet, Bryan's Comdev found its first client for its Photo Gallery component,
from the United States (US) market.
From version 1.0, Bryan now has improved his components to version 4.1 and continues to work on new components for easy use and
incorporation into websites for web-designers, webmasters, companies and individuals.
Bryan said that the website components sell very well due to specially embedded
original Comdev technology which has become a foundation for all its
components. The US and European Union have become Bryan's Comdev's
best source of its thousands of satisfied clients and customers and it is about
time the local and regional markets too respond for these products, specially
priced with value added benefits.
Ever since than it has been no looking back at all its failures and upheavals, as Bryan's Comdev is now confident that its
components based software for websites is one of the best or if not the best for the global market. The products are cost effective
and reliable and an easy breeze for all, techies, newbies and for the ordinary individual.
When I asked him to give some final words at the end of the interview, he just said in short, "There is no money making machine in
software industry, only hard work pays".
We wish Bryan and his team success and encourage all prospective customers to use his products which will be no let downs for
anyone.
By Gurdial Singh Sandhu
Journalist, Former Reporter for New Strait Times and Bernama
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