Computer World. Матросова Т.А. - 10 стр.

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9
IBM, NCR, UniSys (Sperry-Univac and Burroughs reconstituted), and Honeywell–
and IBM has the majority of the mainframe market.
In the 1970s, the volatile computer industry was thrown into an uproar when the
microprocessor was invented, pointing the way to the relatively inexpensive
microcomputer. Led by the famous Apple II, invented by Steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak at Apple Computer, then by other products from Tandy-Radio Shack,
Commodore, Atari, and Texas Instruments, the microcomputer market has been the
battleground of over 150 different computer manufacturers–among them those two
industrial giants, IBM and AT&T.
IBM introduced its IBM PC (for Personal Computer) in the summer of 1981,
and immediately zoomed to the top in microcomputer sales–not surprising,
considering IBM's long-term presence in the computer industry and its strength as a
marketing-oriented organization. The IBM PC led to several enormous industries,
among them IBM-compatible hardware and «clones», popular software such as that
produced by Lotus and Software Publishing, and telecommunications entities such as
local area networks and on-line-retrieval bulletin boards.
American Telephone & Telegraph, on the other hand, which used to be thought
of as «Ma Bell» or «the Phone Company,» was forced by the U.S. government to
divest itself of 22 local Bell operating companies (regrouped into seven regional
holding companies) and to allow competition from other long-distance telephone ser-
vices, such as MCI and GTE's Sprint, and Allnet Communications. In return, the
government permitted AT&T to enter the computer market. The question in many
observers' minds, however, was whether AT&T could relinquish the habits of a
monopoly and become an aggressive marketing force in a highly competitive
business. The announcement of AT&T's personal computer, the PC6300 (produced
by the Italian office equipment maker Olivetti) in June 1984 was the company's
opening gun. The strategy has been to approach office automation from the
company's historic base in communications, so that AT&T products can be linked
together for both computing and communicating.
In 1987, in an attempt to cut into sales of «IBM-compatible» microcomputers–
computers made by companies other than IBM (such as Compaq) that nevertheless
run IBM-type software and equipment–International Business Machines announced
its line of Personal System/2 computers, most of which significantly improved on
speed and memory capacity.
According to Business Week (April 17, 1987), the top 15 office equipment and
computer manufacturers, ranked in terms of their market value for the year 1986,
were the following: IBM, Digital Equipment, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, NCR, UniSys,
Tandy, Apple Computer, Cray Research, Automatic Data Processing, Pitney-Bowes,
Tandem Computers, Honeywell, Wang Laboratories, and Amdahl.

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