Browsing by Subject "Computer software industry"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Orah history interview with Mike Maples
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2004-05-07) Maples, Mike
    After describing his substantial career at IBM where he was involved in display products and then with PCs, Mike Maples talks about joining Microsoft and managing its applications products. He discusses in detail his management philosophy at Microsoft and contrasts it with the IBM approach. He covers Microsoft’s successful recruiting practices and how product decisions were made. Maples also describes how development processes evolved and how Microsoft Office was designed and built. The selection of platform focus and decisions on the release of application program interface information are explained. Finally, he details why he left Microsoft and how he did so in a planned and structured fashion.
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    Oral history interview with John Imlay
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2004-05-07) Imlay, John
    Imlay describes his parents and his childhood, his overcoming awkwardness as a child to become an outstanding public speaker, and his training in technology and management at Georgia Tech. Upon graduation, he worked at Royal McBee, where he sold their LP-30 computer and then sold computers for Honeywell for eight or nine years. One of his clients at Honeywell was a small Atlanta-based company named Management Science America (MSA). He took over MSA when it entered receivership. Considerable attention is given to his work in getting MSA out of bankruptcy and using bankruptcy as a strategic tool of business. He discusses the growth of MSA and how to manage that growth, and some of the business challenges that this presents, including hiring and retaining employees. Some of the other business issues discussed in the context of MSA was managing technology in a rapidly changing environment, doing business in an international marketplace, software piracy, relations to IBM, the role of the trade association ADAPSO, taking the company public, and competitors such as McCormack & Dodge. Other business issues include the acquisition by Dun and Bradstreet and staving off a hostile takeover by Computer Associates. The interview concludes with discussions of how to run the business and maintain a family life while traveling extensively, and what he has done in retirement.
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    Oral history interview with Jonathan Sachs
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2004-05-07) Sachs, Jonathan
    Jonathan Sachs describes his personal and educational background and the various jobs he held at MIT, Data General and Concentric Data Systems. He tells how he started developing spreadsheet programs and how he met and started working for Mitch Kapor. He discusses the development of Lotus 1-2-3 and his role in Lotus Development. Finally, he describes the reasons he left Lotus and some of his activities since then.
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    Oral history interview with Kenneth W. Kolence
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2001-10-03) Kolence, Kenneth W.
    Software industry pioneer Kenneth W. Kolence begins by discussing his time as maintenance and operations head on the UNIVAC for the Navy; his work setting up the operations organization and scheduling procedures for the engineering programming efforts at RCA; his tenure at North American Aviation developing process design and instrumentation time; and his joining Control Data Corporation to work on integrated management and design processes, SW product concepts, and performance measurement tool prototyping. Much of the interview concentrates on Kolence’s co-founding of K & K Associates, which was soon renamed Boole & Babbage, the first software company in Silicon Valley. Other topics include Boole & Babbage’s competition with IBM, and the founding 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference.
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    Oral history interview with Luanne Johnson
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2004-05-07) Johnson, Luanne
    Luanne Johnson, one of the early women entrepreneurs in the computer software industry, describes how she became a programmer and then how she started Argonaut Information Systems, a provider of packaged accounting software products. She discusses how she simplified the structure and programming of the products for easy maintenance and portability and focused on of-the-shelf sales to medium-sized companies. She talks about her many years as an active participant in ADAPSO and then in leading the ADAPSO Foundation and becoming the President of ADAPSO which was renamed as the Information Technology Association of America. She concludes with stories about her consulting career after leaving ADAPSO.
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    Oral history interview with Richard Canning
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2002-08-23) Canning, Richard G.
    In this oral history Richard Canning begins by discussing his work at IBM on computer reliability, and his research and publishing in the field of operations research. The majority of the interview focuses on his role as an early data processing management consultant in the 1950s and early 1960s, and his founding, and leadership on EDP Analyzer, an influential publication offering guidance to corporate data processing managers.
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    Oral history interview with Sam Wyly
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2002-12-06) Wyly, Sam
    Wyly begins by recounting his childhood, and education prior to going to work for IBM’s Service Bureau Corporation, and then joining Honeywell as an area sales manager. He discusses how he left Honeywell to form University Computer Corporation (UCC), a firm that sold computer time, but transitioned into a software services business. Wyly explains his growing focus on computing and telecommunications, his formation of Datran, and his unsuccessful attempt to acquire Western Union. Much of the interview focuses on ongoing developments at UCC, the eventual sale of this firm to Computer Associates, his formation of Sterling Software, its acquisition of Informatics, the sale of Sterling, and his ideas on the future of information technology. Throughout Wyly’s discussion of UCC and Sterling, he elucidates upon his leadership philosophy, and the strategic, technical, operational, and financial management of these firms. This oral history was sponsored by the Software History Center in conjunction with the Center's ADAPSO reunion (3 May 2002).