[SunRescue] Re: Rant on industry employment practices, was RE : 16 MB memory module for Voyager

[scohen - Stephen Cohen]

The quote came to me by way of a fellow UNIVAC employee.  His badge number
was #19 (mine was #44327).  He was telling me about Eckert, Mauchley, and
some of the company's early history.

-----Original Message-----
From: paul at anastrophe.com [mailto:paul at anastrophe.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 2:21 PM
To: rescue at sunhelp.org
Subject: [SunRescue] Re: Rant on industry employment practices, was RE:
16 MB memory module for Voyager


can you provide a citation? Every reference I can find on the web says it  
was TJ Watson senior at IBM, 1943. That in and of itself proves nothing, 
since it's widely reproduced on sites with 'funny' or 'misguided' quotes and

predictions, and no hard references. but i'm really curious whether this 
statement is anything more than apocrypha.

scohen - Stephen Cohen writes: 

>> > "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers"
>> > Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM (1943)
> 
> The quote is accurate but the person is not.  It was uttered by the then
CEO
> of what later became Sperry-UNIVAC.  He was a former chairman of the Joint
> Chief's of Staff, hired upon his retirement from the military.  His vision
> of the computer industry was focused entirely on the federal government as
> the primary customer.  This was later modified to include oil companies,
> airlines, and Boeing. 
> 
> Upon having made this public, IBM promptly developed/released the far
> inferior MARK series and sold the wazoo out if it, mostly to banking and
> financial institutions.  And thus the race was over even before it
started.
> _______________________________________________
> Rescue maillist  -  Rescue at sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
 



 ---------------------------------
Paul Theodoropoulos
paul at anastrophe.net
Senior Unix Systems Administrator
Syntactically Subversive Services, Inc.
http://www.anastrophe.net
Downtime Is Not An Option 

_______________________________________________
Rescue maillist  -  Rescue at sunhelp.org
http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue