59 – A Goodbye

We are moving. Yes, WSO2 is moving to a new building.

The move mainly is a result of the phenomenal growth we have had in the recent past.

For many years, WSO2's head quarters has been the No. 59 building on Flower Road, Colombo 07. When we started we were in the BoC merchant towers building. And we moved in to 59 in 2007.

When we moved in, it seemed so large. Four stories, and 80+ seating. But we grew, slowly but steadily. So we go more buildings on rent, 50 and then 58 (about an year ago) in addition. But 59 remained the “home” and the best place to work.

59 is so important in the history of WSO2 as that is the place where the free and open culture flourished in WSO2. We got carom in there, we could play basketball outside and as always there was table tennis and foosball (the two balls extreme version). It was spacey and relaxing. We had a state of the art projector in the lobby where we watched the matches, and it was better than being in the stands. And we had another lobby on the 4th floor. (It was my favorite sleeping spot for overnights those days!)

It was in 59 we created our first Carbon releases. The months long night and day effort to get it out was based form this building. We worked, we ate, we worked, we played, we worked, then ate and then slept and worked form here.

Yes it is true that many people must have spend nights on the couches of 59, having a nap till the early morning crowd come to work, after an overnight marathon of work, and had a wash and got back to work. I myself have done that many a times.

From Carbon to Stratos to SLive that we made happen over the years and to AppFactory in this year, this base building kept going on and was home for us 24x7.

Apart from releases, we had multiples of 36+ hour marathons of work none-stop on various critical support issues from the same building. I could remember at least three of those remarkable marathons. 

Also, we used to have those days where we had fun stabilizing OT - the Druple, MySQL, EC2 and Nginx games to keep the site up and running. I have spent days and nights with OT and infra teams on the same, and it was from this home that we did all those. 

While both in size, volume and quantitatively, as well as form the approach and process we grew qualitatively over the years, the 24x7x365 operation of 59 has always been a key secret of success. It was not just the office building, it was like "home sweet home". 

While we can always brag about the fabulous facilities of the new building - which we will sure do - and worth doing so too, I will always cherish the memories of No 59 in the history and the making of WSO2.