Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
22 LEO, one of the first
commercial computers,
built for the Lyons catering
company, 1950s.
boom period yet experienced. These circumstances were congenial
to the development of a powerful computer industry, particular with
the large amounts of Cold-War military investment available for
research and development. Involvement with such funded research
led Presper Eckert and John Mauchly to leave the Moore School of
Electrical Engineering, and start up the first American computer
company, responsible for producing UNIVAC, the first computer
to achieve a high public profile. Such funding was also crucial in
persuading companies such as IBM, already the leader in office
technology, to enter the computer market and in allowing them
to develop complex technological solutions outside the short-term
demands of the market. The entry of IBM into the computer market
in the
s confirmed that one of the principal uses of computers
would be as business machines, a fact already suggested by the
takeover of Eckert and Mauchly's company by Remington Rand,
the company originally responsible for mass-producing the type-
writer in the nineteenth century. The rise of IBM as a computer
manufacturer is well documented. Though a comparative late-
comer, IBM used its considerable experience in branding, selling
and research and development to dominate the computing industry.
This dominance was such that, in the '
1950
s, it was characteristic to
refer to the relation of IBM and its competitors as that of 'Snow
White and the seven dwarfs', reflecting the comparative size of the
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