It’s All About Power - Inventing the PC - page 73

industry. These pioneers paid dearly for being there first, but
being unable to raise their corporate banners high enough to
lead the pack. The MCM /70 started shipping in 1974 but did not
sell in the thousands, as the company had hoped. Its cleaned-up
version, the MCM /700, actually sold well in 1975 and created a
fair-sized market niche for personal APL computers, especially
within the education, insurance, and actuarial markets. But
when the dust finally settled on the desks of those at MCM who
survived the stormy days of 1974, the company was stripped
of its enthusiasm and corporate innocence. It was left without
technology champions and visionaries. The new and vibrant
personal computer industry that MCM helped to develop would
end up pushing MCM to its fringes, where the company would
struggle for survival until its end in 1982.
This topic will not provide unequivocal conclusions that ex-
plain what went wrong with a company that in 1973 was flying
high, with a magnificent product praised throughout North
America and Europe for boldly challenging the established fron-
tiers of computing. To the disappointed reader, it can only offer
a possible interpretation of crucial events, pieced together from
facts and recollections, frequently inconsistent, incomplete, and
distorted by time, and recalled with difficulty and emotion by
those who directly participated in them. And so, we begin.
Too much with too little?
The enthusiasm streaming from the events of 1973 induced the
company to set its corporate objectives very high. MCM 's in-
ternal document, Development Policy , authored by Ramer and
marked “Confidential,” defined them as follows:
• to place MCM in a financial position allowing the
Company to explore new technologies, evaluate
alternatives, and produce products of excellent quality and
integrity, to the best of its abilities;