Tölvumál - 01.06.1982, Síða 8

8
TÖLVUMÁL
meet. AT&T from the American telephone
system, which has had the communications
sales to themselves - and IBM being in-
volved in the satellite project SBS, and
thus has dared to penetrate new territor-
ies, AT&T with their large resources will
now take a step into the computer market.
Was this the aspects - which will make
the US more competitive compared.to the
Japanese threat - that made the Reagan
administration stop the legal process
against IBM and AT&T in order to create
a sound competition that will make it
almost impossible to neglect this field?
Now, how is the situation if we take a
closer look at our own backyard.
Beyond doubt, the newly established com-
pany, Ericsson Information Systems, is
the giant. Their concept keeps them among
the giants in the word processing field,
and having a good image from both the
Ericsson Telephone systems and the Alfa-
skop terminals, there is but optimism for
the future. The company employes 4000
people with a turnover of 3 billion Skr.
The issue proclamed when the company was
established will bring them among the top
10 companies in the Future Office area
within the next 5 years.
Likewise succesful - though much smaller
- is Norsk Data. They have been capable
of adapting to different niches and crea-
ted a profitable company, which has been
well received both on the English and Swe-
dich Stock Exchange. Norsk Data shares
have in the recent years been worth gold
in Norway.
In the same way like Norsk Data, Christian
Rovsing in Denmark has been able to find
niches within the communications field,
with special emphasis on the military sec-
tor, and Rovsing has succeeded in obtain-
ing a great number of high-scale orders
from NATO last year. Among the strong com-
petitors were heavyweight Americans.
Queing up behind the companies I just men-
tioned is Dansk Data Elektronik. They have
built up an economieally wéll founded and
interesting production within the micro
computer field similar to what Mycron achie-
ved on the Norwegian market.
In peripherels the Kongsberg Vápenfabrikk
is. strong with highly advanced graphic
design systems, whereas Tandberg Data,
also in Norway, owned by Siemens, has de-
veloped particularly competitive and er-
gonomically interesting terminals.
For many years Facit in Sweden has been
specialised on the printer side, while
Luxor the past years has managed to get
the ABC 800 well into the market.
Each of these companies has fine possibi-
lities for strong positions, and when speek-
ing of the future it is my hope thnt they
will not end up like the caracter in one
of Storm P's sayings: When I was young
the family predicted that nothing much
would become of me, but there I fooled
them, nothing at all became of me".
TOP US COMPUTER COMPANIES REVENUES (MILL. $)
1 980 1979 1978 1977 1976
IBM (1) 21367 (1) ' 18338 (1) 1 7072 (1) 1 4765 (1) 1 2717
NCR (2) 2840 (3) 2404 (4) 1932 (3) 1574 (6) 1100
CDC (3) 2790 (4) 2273 (5) 1867 (4) 1513 (5) 1331
Digital (4) 2743 (6) 2032 (6) 1437 (6) 1059 (7) 736
Univac , (5) 2552 (5) 2270 (3) 1807 (5) 1472 (3) 1430
Burroughs (6) 2478 (2) 2432 (2) 2107 (2) 1844 (2) 1630
Honeywell (7) 1634 (7) 1453 (7) 1294 (7) 1037 (4) 1428
Hewlett Pack. (8) 1577 (8) 1030 (8) 657 (9) 402 (8) 335
Xerox (9) 770 (12) 475 (17) 236 (15) 209 (22) 120
Memorex (10) 686 (9) 664 (9) 570 (8) 405 (9) 310
Wang (11) 682 (23) 410 (26) 198 (28) 135 (32) 97
Data General (12) 603 (10) 540 (11) 380 (12) 255 (17) 161
Texas Instr. (14) 562 (14) 425 (16) 204 (20) 160 (41) 66
Amdahl (19) 394 (21) 300 (15) 321 (17) 189 (26) 93
Datapoint (21) 364 (26) 252 (26) 162 (35) 103 (39) 68
Tektronix (24) 286 (30) 195 (34) 126 (38) 100 (45) 62
MDS (26) 278 (29) 198 (27) 153 (23) 146 (16) 162
Prime (27) 268 (38) 153 (46) 94 (46) -
Nat. Semicond. (32) 245 (50) 110 _ _ _ _ _ _
Apple (47) 165 (74) 75 (100) 12 - - - -
Source: DATAMATI0N