Our History
Dominion Business Machines is Canada's oldest office equipment company.
Established in 1902 it has been owned and operated by the Sanderson family throughout the twentieth century and has handled a mix of information technology products that is unrivalled by almost any other company in the world.
Dominion Business Machines originated as Dominion Typewriter Company, a business that arose from the initiative of Telegraph Operator J.J. Seitz who lived in Buffalo, New York.
On a trip to New York City in the late eighteen nineties Seitz noticed recently introduced Underwood Manual Typewriters and brought what were surely the first of these machines into Canada, to Toronto, about 1898.
He started The Underwood Typewriter Company of Canada, selling machines that were
hailed as amazing labour saving devices in much the same way as
the Personal Computer
was presented about eighty years later.
Seitz hired John Charles Sanderson, grandfather of the current owners of the company to help sell and service these new typewriting machines, and sold him the repair and exchange department of the fledgling Underwood organization, a separate company franchised to handle other manufacturers. Established in 1902, this company was called The Dominion Typewriter Exchange.
Located in the heart of Toronto's business district on Adelaide Street East it was moved in the nineteen thirties to a nearby building on Victoria Street, then back to its original location in the 1940's.
In the 1950's the company was consolidated under the leadership of W.D. Sanderson, a son of J.C. Sanderson, who moved it to the Dominion Typewriter Building at 100 Adelaide Street
East in 1958.
In the years that followed the company prospered and became a sales and supply leader for manufacturers such as Olympia, Olivetti, Remington, Smith Corona, Sharp, and of course, IBM.
It achieved many national sales and service awards and accreditations and became one of Toronto's best known business equipment suppliers, providing machinery, service, and rentals to small, medium, and large companies as well as institutions and individuals in Toronto and across Canada.
As office equipment changed throughout the twenieth Century, Dominion Business Machines participated in the introduction in Canada of
Manual Typewriters
Adding Machines
Comptometers
Electric Typewriters
Calculators
Electronic Typewriters
Fax Machines
Desktop Copiers
Personal Computers
Printers
Portable Computers
Laptop Computers
and a variety of networking and information technology
components.
In 1981 the company began selling personal computers, continuing its tradition of introducing new information technologies. These systems, from manufacturers such as Commodore and Sanyo followed the design of the IBM PC and PC Junior. Typical specifications were 4 or 8 Kilobytes of RAM, a single 360 Kilobyte single sided 5 1/4" floppy drive, keyboard,
MS DOS and Wordstar software
During the next 20 years the company continued to sell, service and rent not only personal computers but a wide variety of business equipment in much the same way it does today.
In 1999 it was moved from the downtown core to its present location in
Mississauga, Ontario. Most of its services are now performed onsite, though we also pickup equipment so our Clients experience minimum downtime and inconvenience when new equipment is needed or existing systems need attention.
A leader in business equipment sales and service throughout the past 100
years, Dominion Business Machines is looking forward to continuing its traditon of service to Toronto and Canadian businesses, and a bright future in the 21'st century in
the exciting and fast changing information technology field.
