ICL: A Business and Technical History The Official History of Britain's Leading Information Systems Company

by Campbell-Kelly, Martin

• ISBN13: 9780198539186
• ISBN10: 0198539185
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1990-03-22
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The history of ICL is synonymous with the history of the British computer industry. ICL was formed by a series of mergers in response to the increasing market dominance of the large American corporations, particularly IBM. The struggles between these two giants and the inherent problems and implications of competing with US multi-nationals are examined in detail in Campbell Kelly's wide ranging study. At the time of writing in the late 1980s, the author was given unrestricted access to ICL archives and his lucid account of the company, its set-backs and successes makes for a compelling and informative read. This book, which was Winner of the Wadsworth Prize for Business History (1989), will be of great interest to anyone involved in business or the computing industry.

Table of Contents

Punched Card Machines

Hollerith and the origins, c 1880-1907

The British Tabulating Machine Company, 1907-1919

Manufacturing at home, the 1920s

Heyday of the punched-card machine industry, the 1930s

An interlude: the Second World War, 1939-1945

Pent-up demand, 1945-1949

Electronic Machines, 1950-1954

Computers and the merger, 1955-1958

Computers

The decline of the tabulator, 1959-1961

Negotiations and mergers, 1961-1963

The response to the IBM System/360, 1964-1965

Government relations and the formation of ICL, 1964-1968

ICL and the New Range, 1968-1972

Government launching aid for the New Range, 1973-1975

Rapid growth in a changing market, 1975-1979

Convergence in the 1980s

Summing up: ICL and the evolving information business

Notes

The TMC-BTM agreements

List of Directors

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.