© 1959 by British Computer Society
Electronic Computers as Tools for Management in the United States of America: 1956
1 M.I.T., cambridge, Mass., USA, 2 The Metal Box Company Ltd., London, UK
This article, to be published in two parts, surveys American developments in the manufacture and application of data-processing equipment for business purposes. The first part covers the situation in early 1956 and is based on a survey made by the second author for The Metal Box Company Limited, and on information received by the first author at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The second part, to appear later in this Journal, describes conditions in 1958. American experience has many lessons for British readers and we think it useful to record what the equipment manufacturers and users were thinking and doing in the "early" period of 1956. This benchmark will permit a later comparison of actual results with plans. Hopes and plans can then be put into their proper time perspective. Reference is made first to developments in 1954 and 1955 and this shows that the spring of 1956 was the beginning of a series of developments. The first three American computers for business data processing had been installed in the autumn of 1954, one at the General Electric Company at Louisville, Kentucky, and two at insurance companies on the east coast.