40 Years History of Informatics and That We Are Part of

On March 29, 1984, my father opened his first computer company in the state of São Paulo. That was where my relationship began with an industry that was still taking its first steps in Brazil.

Since then, I have witnessed more than four decades of transformation: from the first microcomputers and Brazil's market-reserve era to the Internet, corporate networks, servers, virtualization, Data Centers, and Cloud Computing.

Many of the technologies listed below have disappeared. Others evolved and remain with us today. For those who lived through this transformation, each name brings back a memory.

1984–1990 — The First Microcomputers

Market Reserve, Sinclair ZX81/82, TK85, Apple II+, CCE MC4000, Unitron, Cobra computers, green phosphor monitors, dot-matrix printers, 8" and 5¼" floppy disks, BASIC, Videotext, modems, and the first PC-XT computers.

It was a time when computing was still a world for relatively few people — and practically everything had to be learned through hands-on experience.

1990–2000 — PCs, Networks, and the Arrival of the Internet

PC/AT, 286, 386, 486, and Pentium. BBS, fax, CD-ROM, Windows 95, Novell NetWare, IBM S/390, AS/400, SNA, IPX/SPX, TCP/IP, Frame Relay, VPN, SonicWall, Cisco, Lotus Notes, Oracle, SQL Server, and the arrival of commercial Internet access in Brazil.

It was during this decade, in 1995, that Rukam was founded, continuing a relationship with technology that had begun many years earlier.

2000–2010 — Enterprise Infrastructure Matures

IBM, Compaq, and Dell servers, storage systems, 3Com switches, Windows 2000/2003, Linux, ADSL, VPN, Citrix MetaFrame, Terminal Services, Exchange Server, and Arcserve became part of increasingly large and complex corporate environments.

The Internet became firmly established within businesses, and IT infrastructure began to play an increasingly important role in their operations.

2010–2020 — Virtualization and Data Centers

VMware ESX, Hyper-V, Windows Server 2008/2012/2016, Citrix, dedicated links, Wi-Fi, VoIP, increasingly powerful servers, and progressively more virtualized and integrated infrastructure.

It was also during this period that Rukam expanded its presence in the enterprise hardware market, increasingly working with servers, storage systems, networking equipment, and Enterprise components.

2020 Onward — Cloud, SSD, and Hybrid Infrastructure

Cloud Computing, AWS, Azure, Proxmox, Blade servers, SSDs, NVMe, and hybrid environments became part of an infrastructure landscape that continues to evolve.

In 2021, this journey entered a new chapter: Rukam's e-commerce operation began offering thousands of Enterprise infrastructure equipment and components.

From 1984 to Today

A lot has changed since those first computers.

But one thing has remained: the curiosity to understand how technology works and the determination to solve problems.

That represents more than four decades following the evolution of computing and 31 years of Rukam.

Today, part of all this accumulated knowledge is being organized and shared through Rukam University.

Because we don't know this history only from books. We were part of it.

Winsley de Oliveira
Founder of Rukam
A life dedicated to technology.