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end later, as were the even higher models 85 and 95. There were also a few special
models aimed at military or scientific use, such as model 44 for scientific comput-
ing. There were so many models it was hard to keep track of them.
In retrospect, this concept of a family of computers turned out to be a brilliant
business strategy. It switched the computer business model from one-time leases
or purchases to long-term recurring revenues. The clients could start at the low end
and expand as needed without expensive reprogramming or even much lost time
during the transition.
It was the S/360 that led to the aphorism that “nobody ever got fired for choos-
ing IBM computers.” The S/360 led to multiyear, multiproduct engagements that
would make some companies continuous IBM customers for more than 40 years.
This kind of brand loyalty was unheard of before the S/360 and remains the envy
of almost every other company in the world.
Competitors and some software gurus criticized the operating system as being
less sophisticated than others, and it was also thought that the hardware should be
improved. Even so, the S/360 was the most successful computing line in history
and one of the most successful products of any kind in terms of brand loyalty and
recurring revenues.
One of the S/360 engineers, Gene Amdahl, left IBM to found a rival company,
Amdahl, in order to compete with the System/360. The Amdahl line of computers
was compatible with the S/360 and could run the same software. But the Amdahl
computers had advantages in being less expensive. They also had some innovative
technical features, such as air-cooled chips that did not need expensive chilled
water-cooling systems. At its peak, Amdahl had about 8% of the U.S. mainframe
market.
As the S/360 line continued to grow and evolve, Amdahl partnered with Fujitsu
and eventually withdrew from the U.S. mainframe market but continued in Japan.
Other competitors such as RCA and even Russian companies tried to build
competing hardware to match the S/360 line, but none were especially successful
and none could overtake IBM's market share.
The Turing Award
In 1966, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) issued the first Turing
Award for contributions to computing and software. This award is named after
Alan Turing, one of the chief theorists of computer and software design. (Turing's
accomplishments were described in earlier chapters.)
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