The Day After - Inventing the PC - page 129

7
The Day After
For MCM , the ramifications of Kutt's departure were difficult
to predict. On the one hand, the power struggle was over and
the first MCM /70 computers equipped with ordinary power
supplies had begun to leave the manufacturing plant in Kings-
ton en route to distributors in Canada and the United States.
Furthermore, the development of the MCM /700 - a cleaned-up
version of the model /70 - was under way. On the other hand,
the company's financial situation was desperate, its workforce
wounded by the events of 1974 and reduced by resignations
and layoffs. And, most devastating of all, with the departure
of Kutt the company had lost a visionary and a dedicated entre-
preneur whose understanding of the computer and electron-
ics industries, and of the educational and consumer markets,
was unrivalled at MCM . Soon, the company would be facing a
powerful competitor - IBM - and Kutt's experience and intim-
ate knowledge of IBM 's marketing and corporate culture could
have at least partially compensated for MCM 's scarce marketing
resources. But he was never to return.
MCM needed a new corporate leader who, in the short term,
would quickly re-structure the company's operations to increase
the MCM /70's sales to a level that would bring some financial
stability to the company. In the long term, Kutt's successor
would need to build a research and development infrastructure