 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1980 |
| Defunct | 1986 |
| Fate | Acquired by Nynex |
| Products | Office equipment, personal computers |
| Parent | International Business Machines |
IBM Product Center was an American retailer wholly owned by International Business Machines that sold the company's office equipment, which consisted at the time mostly of photocopiers, typewriters and personal computers. The first store opened in 1980 in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [1]
| External video | |
|---|---|
 IBM Product Center commercial from 1984, starring William Bogert |
The Product Center ran concurrent with IBM's Business Computer Centers, which were demonstration and training centers for the company's products established in the 1920s. [1] [2] While these Business Computer Centers were aimed at small and large businesses alike, [1] the Product Centers were aimed chiefly to market IBM's lower-cost office equipment at small businesses and home office buyers. [3]
The Product Centers featured bright red carpet and ceiling speakers that played pop music. Its flagship Philadelphia store in 1981 sold just 17 products: several models of word processors and typewriters, a POS cash register, a dictation machine, a Series III photocopier (the Product Center's most expensive product at the time, which retailed $39,000 [4] —$116,243 in 2021) and the newly-released IBM Personal Computer. The IBM PC proved so desirable that it warranted its own table display in the back of the store. [4] The Product Centers later stocked other companies' peripherals for IBM's machines, such as Tecmar 's tape drive add-ons for the IBM PC. [5]
Three locations had opened by mid-1981, in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and San Francisco. [3] By 1986, there were 81 locations, 13 of which were in California. In April of that year, IBM sold all their stores to Nynex, [6] a company that had spun off from the breakup of AT&T in 1984. [7] IBM cited low sales compared to their independent authorized computer dealers in their decision to sell the locations. The existence of the Product Centers had apparently been causing friction with these independent dealers, though IBM had not participated in the fierce price wars over IBM's products that the dealers were fighting among themselves. [6] In the words of economist Leonard J. Parsons, who had been evaluating the performance of the Retail Centers for a research article in the years before it closed, "IBM decided that it was a technology company, not a retailer". [7] Nynex renamed these locations as Nynex Business Centers and combined their inventory of IBM products with its own telecommunications equipment. [8] [9]
Commodore International was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Machines (CBM), was a significant participant in the development of the home-computer industry in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. The company developed and marketed the world's best-selling computer, the Commodore 64 (1982), and released its Amiga computer line in July 1985. With quarterly sales ending 1983 of $49 million, Commodore was one of the world's largest personal computer manufacturers.
Tandy Corporation was an American family-owned leather-goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Tandy Leather was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store. By the end of the 1950s, under the tutelage of then-CEO Charles Tandy, the company expanded into the hobby market, making leather moccasins and coin purses, making huge sales among Scouts, leading to a fast growth in sales.
Packard Bell Electronics, Inc., was an American computer company independently active from 1986 to 1996, now a Dutch-registered computer manufacturing brand and subsidiary of Acer Inc. The company was originally founded in 1986, after Israeli-American investors bought the trademark rights to the Packard Bell Corporation from Teledyne. The investors wanted to name their newly formed personal computer manufacturing company producing discount computers in the North American markets. In the late 1990s, Packard Bell became a subsidiary of Japanese electronics conglomerate NEC, Packard Bell NEC. In 1999, NEC stopped its North American operations and focused squarely the division on the European market, where it continued to sell PC and laptop under the Packard Bell name. In 2006, NEC divested Packard Bell, and in 2008, the brand was acquired by the Taiwanese consumer electronic firm Acer, in the aftermath of their takeover of Gateway, Inc.
Gateway, Inc., previously Gateway 2000, Inc., was an American computer company originally based in Iowa and South Dakota. Founded by Ted Waitt and Mike Hammond in 1985, the company developed, manufactured, supported, and marketed a wide range of personal computers, computer monitors, servers, and computer accessories. At its peak in the year 2000, the company employed nearly 25,000 worldwide. Following a seven-year-long slump, punctuated by the acquisition of rival computer manufacturer eMachines in 2004 and massive consolidation of the company's various divisions in an attempt to curb losses and regain market share, Gateway was acquired by Taiwanese hardware and electronics corporation Acer, in October 2007 for US$710 million.
AST Research, Inc., later doing business as AST Computer, was a personal computer manufacturer. It was founded in 1980 in Irvine, California by Albert Wong, Safi Qureshey, and Thomas Yuen, as an initialism of their first names. In the 1980s, AST designed add-on expansion cards, and evolved toward the 1990s into a major personal computer manufacturer. AST was acquired by Samsung Electronics in 1997 but was de facto closed in 1999 due to a series of losses.
International Business Machines (IBM) is a multinational computer technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM originated from the unification of several companies that worked to automate routine business transactions, including the first companies to build punched card based data tabulating machines and to build time clocks. In 1911, these companies were amalgamated into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR).
The Deskpro 386 is a line of desktop computers in Compaq's Deskpro range of IBM PC compatibles. The computers feature Intel's 32-bit 80386 microprocessor. Introduced in September 1986, the Deskpro 386 is the first implementation of the 80386 processor in a computer system for sale to the public. It also marks the first time that a major component of the IBM Personal Computer de facto standard was updated by a company other than IBM themselves—in this case, upgrading from the 80286 processor of the Personal Computer/AT.
Haddock Corporation is an American consumer electronics and information technology consulting business based in Wichita, Kansas, which operated four Haddock Computer Center retail locations in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa. Founded as a software company, Haddock has been an Apple-authorized dealer and computer repair shop since 1984, the year the Macintosh computer was released. Company founder and CEO Richard Haddock served on Apple's reseller advisory board for over ten years. He is a member and one of the founders of the Apple Specialist Marketing Corporation.
A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features.
The Eazy PC is an all-in-one IBM PC compatible computer manufactured by Zenith Data Systems (ZDS) starting in 1987. This small-form-factor XT-compatible system has some unique features, such as using a non-Intel CPU. The Eazy PC was designed to be a simple, cost-effective computer for the home. This was a departure for ZDS, who had historically avoided the retail consumer market to focus on customers such as businesses, universities, and government agencies.
Blue Chip Electronics, Inc., later Blue Chip International was an American computer company founded by John Rossi in 1982. Founded to develop peripherals for Commodore home computers, the company in 1986 began selling low-cost IBM PC compatibles.
The PCradio was a notebook computer released by International Business Machines (IBM) in late 1991. Designed primarily for mobile workers such as service technicians, salespersons and public safety workers, the PCradio featured a ruggedized build with no internal hard disk drive and was optioned with either a cellular or ARDIS RF modem, in addition to a standard landline modem.
OCR Systems, Inc., was an American computer hardware manufacturer and software publisher dedicated to optical character recognition technologies. The company's first product, the System 1000 in 1970, was used by numerous large corporations for bill processing and mail sorting. Following a series of pitfalls in the 1970s and early 1980s, founder Theodor Herzl Levine put the company in the hands of Gregory Boleslavsky and Vadim Brikman, the company's vice presidents and recent immigrants from the Soviet Ukraine, who were able to turn OCR System's fortunes around and expand its employee base. The company released the software-based OCR application ReadRight for DOS, later ported to Windows, in the late 1980s. Adobe Inc. bought the company in 1992.
DTK Computer is the name for international branches of Datatech Enterprises, a Taiwanese computer manufacturer. Founded in 1981, the company was an early supplier of peripherals for IBM PCs as well as PC compatible motherboards. In the late 1980s, the company switched to developing complete systems under the DTK name as well as serving as an OEM for motherboards and cases, as bought by other small computer companies and systems integrators. The company was little-known in its own time but performed well in the marketplace. DTK was the 10th and 11th biggest personal computer manufacturer in the world in 1991 and 1992 respectively, according to Electronics magazine.
3D Microcomputers Wholesale and Distribution, Inc., often referred to as 3D Microcomputers or 3D Micro, was a computer company based in Markham, Ontario. The company was among the top five personal computer vendors in Canada in the mid-1990s. The company was partially owned by Hong Kong–based computer manufacturer PC Chips for several years; many of the parts for 3D Micro's computers were of overseas origin.
The Personal System/2 Model 30 and Personal System/2 Model 30 286 are IBM's entry-level desktop computers in their Personal System/2 (PS/2) family of personal computers. As opposed to higher-end entries in the PS/2 line which use Micro Channel bus architecture, the Model 30 features an Industry Standard Architecture bus, allowing it to use expansion cards from its direct predecessors, the PC/XT and the PC/AT. The original PS/2 Model 30 is built upon the Intel 8086 microprocessor clocked at 8 MHz; the Model 30 286 features the Intel 80286 clocked at 10 MHz.
Amdek Corporation was an American computer peripheral and system manufacturer active from 1981 to the mid-1990s. The company was renowned for their standalone computer monitors compatible with a wide array of systems from the early microcomputer era to the personal computer age. According to PC World in 1994, "Amdek was once the name in PC monitors. Chances are the monochrome monitors most of us used once carried the Amdek label." In the early 1980s, the company was majority owned by the Roland Corporation's Taiwanese subsidiary; in 1986, after a brief period of independence, the company was acquired by Wyse Technology, a maker of computer terminals, who continued the Amdek brand into at least 1995.
The Personal System/2 Model 25 and its later submodels the 25 286 and 25 SX are IBM's lowest-end entries in the Personal System/2 (PS/2) family of personal computers. Like its sibling the Model 30, the Model 25 features an Industry Standard Architecture bus, allowing it to use expansion cards from its direct predecessors, the PC/XT and the PC/AT—but not from higher entries in the PS/2 line, which use Micro Channel. Unlike all other entries in the PS/2 line, the Model 25 and its submodels are built into an all-in-one form factor, with its cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor and system board occupying the same enclosure. IBM oriented the Model 25 at home office workers and students.
Cumulus Corporation was an American computer peripheral and system manufacturer active from 1987 to 1993. Based in Beachwood, Ohio and started by Tecmar founder Martin Alpert, the company set out to exclusively manufacture expansion products for IBM's Personal System/2 (PS/2) family of computers—mainly RAM expansion cards. It later released cross-platform CPU upgrade cards and memory expansion cards for other platforms besides the PS/2. Beginning in 1990, the company began trading as Cumulus Computer Corporation and began releasing complete systems of their own. Initially a success story for the tech industry in Cleveland, a botched stock launch in 1992 proved disastrous for the company's ailing cash flow situation, and in 1993 the company was liquidated amid massive debt to suppliers and lenders.
The MAD-1 is an IBM PC–compatible desktop computer released by Mad Computers, Inc., of Santa Clara, California, in 1984. The computer was noted among the technology press for its unique, modular design and its 80186 microprocessor, the latter seldom used in PC compatibles. It received positive reviews but sold poorly and was pulled from market a year later.
