> >BLUE BELL, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Fifty years ago -- on June 14, 1951 --
the
> >U.S. Census Bureau officially put into service what it calls the world's
> >first commercial computer, known as UNIVAC I.
>
>
> UNIVAC's failure was they never took advantage of the leadership they had
in
> the commercial mainframe market and let IBM pass them in public perception
> and reality as "the" computer company within a decade. While Big Blue
> innovated, UNIVAC was still using funny 90-column cards with round holes
as
> its main storage medium when I first worked on their machines in 1970.
>
I respectfully disagree.  The main reason that IBM became dominant is that
it
was ALREADY dominant in date processing with its electro-mechanical punched
card equipment.  IBM historically understood the commercial data processing
requirements better than anyone else and had a lot of marketing muscle.

Of course introducing the first popular integrated circuit computers (non
vacuum
tube also helped.

Regards,

Nick D,

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