- BUNCH
The group of
mainframe computer competitors toIBM in the 1970s became known as the BUNCH: Burroughs,UNIVAC , NCR,Control Data Corporation , andHoneywell . These companies were grouped together because themarket share of IBM was much higher than all of its competitors put together. [cite web
last=Jones
first=Douglas
title=University of Iowa Department of Computer Science, 22C:18, Lecture 28, Summer 1997
url=http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/assem/summer97/notes/28.html
year=1997
accessdate=2007-09-15] [cite web
last=Hamm
first=Steve
title=Thomas J. Watson Jr.: Junior Achievement
publisher="Business Week"
url=http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_24/b3887022_mz072.htm
date=2004-06-14
accessdate=2007-09-15]During the 1960s, IBM and these five computer manufacturers, along with
RCA andGeneral Electric , had been known as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." The description of IBM's competitors changed after GE's 1970 sale of its computer business to Honeywell and RCA's 1971 sale of its computer business to Univac, leaving only five "dwarfs". Fortunately, their initials lent themselves to a newacronym , BUNCH. [cite web
url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,949693-5,00.html
title=The Colossus That Works
last=Greenwald
first=John
coauthors=van Voorst, Bruce
publisher="Time Magazine"
date=1983-07-11
accessdate=2008-10-09]Where are they now?
;Burroughs & UNIVAC: In September 1986, after Burroughs purchased Sperry (the parent company of UNIVAC), the name of the company was changed to
Unisys .;NCR: In 1982, NCR became involved inopen systems architecture , starting with theUNIX -powered TOWER 16/32, and placed more emphasis on computers smaller than mainframes. NCR was acquired byAT&T in 1991. A restructuring of AT&T in 1996, led to its re-establishment on1 January 1997 , as a separate company. In 1998, NCR sold its computer hardware manufacturing assets toSolectron and ceased to produce general-purpose computer systems.;Control Data Corporation: Control Data Corporation is nowSyntegra (USA) , a subsidiary of British companyBT Group 's BT Global Services.;Honeywell: In 1991Honeywell 's computer division was sold to the French computer companyGroupe Bull .Other mainframe manufacters during the 1960s and 1970s
*
Scientific Data Systems (later known as Xerox Data Systems after its purchase byXerox in 1969) also sold mainframe computers, but with around 1% marketshare, it was not a major factor in the marketplace. Xerox closed the division in 1975, with most rights sold to Honeywell.
* In 1976,Cray Research (a company supported bySeymour Cray 's former employer Control Data Corporation), released theCray-1 vector computer.
*Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was founded in 1957 to manufacture computer components, and made many small computers, notably the PDP series. These computers were classified as minicomputers rather than mainframes, but often competed for the same business.
*Hewlett-Packard (HP) was founded in 1939 and started manufacturing advanced medical equipment. Later HP also produced minicomputers, which competed with mainframe computers.References
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