The company was founded in 1979 in Stockholm, Sweden as a software development company aimed at the market of personal computers that was evolving in those days.
In 1985 the company specialized in computer aided design – CAD – and changed its name to “cadett” to make this specialization clear to the market. The development of “elNett”, an electrical design software, started.
At the same time in the German city Mönchengladbach the company MG-Data GmbH was founded to develop and market the electrical design software MG-CAD.
In 1986 at a fair in Birmingham, England, cadett and MG-Data met for the first time. The result was that the further development of elNett and MG-CAD merged into a joint venture.
The Scandinavian version of the resulting software was marketed under the name cadett ELSA. The somewhat different German version was still sold under the name MG-CAD.
The cooperation was continuously intensified and in 2003 the two companies finally merged under the name cadett.
The two national software versions that then existed were replaced with one single multi-lingual and multi-standard software called cadett ELSA.
Some of cadett’s major milestones are listed below.
| 1979 | The Swedish company is founded and publishes its first catalogue of in-house developed microcomputer software. |
| 1982 | The company extends its business to also include computer hardware. |
| 1985 | The CAD business in Sweden is started. |
| MG-Data GmbH is founded in Germany, introducing MG-CAD 1.0 (later cadett ELSA). | |
| 1986 | The name of the Swedish company is changed to “cadett ab”. |
| 1987 | cadett ELSA 2.0 is introduced in Sweden. In Germany the software is called MG-CAD 2.0. |
| 1988 | cadett a/s in Norway is founded. Norway has since then been a major market for cadett. |
| 1990 | The deliveries of cadett ELSA 3.0 begins. It has a new revolutionary Integrated Design Environment. |
| 1992 | cadett ELSA 3.8 is an enhancement in functionality to a seldom seen degree. One of the new features is automatic wire numbering directly in the drawing sheets. First in the World! |
| 1994 | In cadett ELSA 3.85 a new revolutionary technology is introduced: The OnLine Engine! |
| 1995 | Network support is introduced with cadett ELSA 4.1. |
| 1996 | cadett ELSA 4.15 is our first product supporting Windows NT. By doing that we are moving to the platform where we still reside. The Windows 7 and 10 of today are in fact updated versions of the original Windows NT. |
| 1997 | All hardware related business is discontinued. Since this point of time, 100% of the business is related to software for electrical design. |
| cadett ELSA 5.0 is presented, The deliveries start February 1st 1998. This version introduces a new user interface based on Windows. | |
| 1999 | cadett ELSA 6.0 with Dynamic OnLine is shown for the first time. This is another technological break-through. The lists can be edited and the circuit diagrams are automatically updated accordingly! |
| 2002 | cadett ELSA 7.0 is yet another mile-stone in the development of the product. |
| A completely new Catalogue introducing client/server technology and a new Drawing Manager, combined with a new user interface, enhances the performance of the software drastically. | |
| 2003 | cadett acquires MG-Data GmbH in Germany and opens an office in Jülich, Nordrhein-Westfahlen. |
| cadett GmbH and cadett ab becomes sister-companies, both 100% owned by cadett Holding AB. | |
| cadett ELSA 7.5 is the first cadett ELSA available in several product levels. Professional and Basic are the first two. | |
| 2004 | cadett ELSA Start is introduced. This new complete electrical design product has an extremely competitive pricing. |
| cadett ELSA View is introduced, a low-cost product only for viewing with no editing capabilities. | |
| cadett ELSA 7.7 introduces extended symbol related functionality, and a large number of other features. | |
| cadett decides to use the new product AutoCAD Electrical as a new platform for cadett ELSA. | |
| 2006 | cadett’s introduction of AutoCAD Electrical has made cadett the by far largest supplier of AutoCAD Electrical in Sweden, larger than all competitors combined. |
| cadett GmbH becomes VAR (Value Added Reseller) for AutoCAD Electrical. | |
| cadett makes a sales record. | |
| 2007 | The deliveries of cadett ELSA 10.0 with the biggest news in many years are started. |
| Multiple concurrent users in the projects are now possible. Another new feature is super projects where multiple sub-projects can be connected to one another. | |
| cadett makes yet another sales record and decides to start a product development subsidiary in India. | |
| 2009 | A long line of new features are introduced in cadett ELSA 12.0, some of which have been developed in India. |
| The entirely new Symbol Insert Tool was however mainly developed in cadett’s Malmö office in southern Sweden. | |
| Hyper Dynamic Contact Mirrors was one of the features that the Indian department contributed with. | |
| 2010 | 25 years with cadett ELSA was celebrated with a new version numbering system as cadett ELSA R30 was presented. |
| Support of Windows 7 and 64 bit operating systems is introduced. | |
| 2011 | The first version of the Option Handling Module – “Made in India” – is introduced in cadett ELSA R31. |
| 2012 | cadett ELSA Enterprise is introduced. |
| Thin Client Support is a major break-through for performance, stability and remote access. Working effectively with only a standard internet connection to the server suddenly becomes a reality when the bandwidth requirement is reduced with 99%. | |
| 2014 | cadett is awarded an Autodesk ISV contract as an Independent Software Vendor. The contract makes cadett a Distributor of well-known Autodesk products as AutoCAD Electrical and AutoCAD P&ID, bundled with cadett ELSA. |
| cadett makes the biggest profit ever. | |
| 2015 | As the 30th anniversary of the first cadett ELSA version is celebrated, the cadett ELSA R35 increases performance and stability to the highest level this far. |