In the history of computing, the term The Seven Dwarfs refers to a group of seven companies that competed with IBM during the 1960s and early 1970s. While IBM held a dominant market share (often referred to as "Snow White"), these seven competitors struggled to maintain a viable presence in the mainframe market against IBM.[1][2]
The "Seven Dwarfs" era represented the height of the mainframe competition before the industry shifted toward minicomputers and personal computing.
Industry consolidation and fates
The group was eventually reduced to the "BUNCH" after General Electric and RCA exited the industry. The following table details the fate of each "Dwarf" and their eventual resulting entities.
During the 1960s and 70s, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) encouraged domestic manufacturers to form strategic alliances with the American "Dwarfs" to acquire the technology necessary to compete with IBM (McGee 2004, p. 112).
Strategic alliances with the "Dwarfs"
While IBM maintained a wholly-owned subsidiary in Japan (IBM Japan), the other American giants entered the market through technology transfers and joint ventures with Japanese firms:
Hitachi and RCA: In 1961, Hitachi entered a technological agreement with RCA. The resulting HITAC 8000 series was largely based on the RCA Spectra 70 architecture, which was designed to be compatible with the IBM System/360.
NEC and Honeywell: NEC partnered with Honeywell in 1962. The NEAC series 2200 was developed using Honeywell technology. When Honeywell later acquired GE's computer division, NEC gained access to the GCOS operating system, which became the foundation for their later ACOS systems.
Toshiba and General Electric: Toshiba utilized GE technology for its large-scale systems. Following GE's exit from the market in 1970, Toshiba eventually pivoted its mainframe strategy toward the ACOS alliance with NEC.
Mitsubishi Electric and Oki Electric with UNIVAC: These firms formed a joint venture with Sperry Rand (UNIVAC) known as Oki Univac, allowing them to manufacture and sell UNIVAC-based systems in Japan.
The "non-aligned" exception: Fujitsu
Unlike its domestic rivals, Fujitsu famously declined a direct partnership with an American "Dwarf" during the initial 1960s boom. Instead, Fujitsu focused on domestic R&D via the FONTAC project. However, they later adopted a "compatible" strategy by investing in Amdahl Corporation (founded by former IBMer Gene Amdahl), which allowed Fujitsu to produce the world's first IBM-compatible mainframes (McGee 2004, p. 145).
RCA's UK collaborations
According to Russell C. McGee, the failure of RCA's computer division was not due to a lack of technology, but a strategic misalignment regarding market compatibility and international partnerships (McGee 2004, p. 110).
McGee identifies several factors that RCA's management failed to navigate:
The "Moving Target": IBM's announcement of the System/370 rendered RCA's Spectra 70 and newly announced "Series" machines obsolete almost overnight. RCA lacked the capital to pivot as quickly as IBM (McGee 2004, p. 118).
Marketing vs. Engineering: RCA management was dominated by executives from the television and broadcasting industry who did not understand the long-term support and software cycles required for mainframe computing.
Failed European Consolidation: While the UK Ministry of Technology hoped for a pan-European "Giant" (combining ICL, RCA's partners, and French firms like Bull), the nationalistic interests of the UK and France prevented a unified architecture from emerging in time to stop IBM's dominance.
The RCA–ICL partnership
In the late 1960s, the British government—acting through the Ministry of Technology (MinTech)—sought to consolidate the UK computer industry to create a viable competitor to IBM. This led to the formation of International Computers Limited (ICL) in 1968.
RCA played a pivotal role in this UK strategy:
The Compatibility Trap: RCA's strategy was to build machines that were "more IBM than IBM," meaning they were instruction-set compatible with the IBM System/360. McGee notes that while this made it easy for customers to switch to RCA, it made it equally easy for them to switch back to IBM if RCA fell behind in R&D (McGee 2004, p. 115).
The UK Failure: The UK Ministry's attempt to merge English Electric into ICL created a "clash of architectures." ICL was forced to support both the RCA-derived System 4 and the domestic ICT 1900 series. This fragmented their resources and weakened the international front against IBM.
Transition to the BUNCH era
The transition from the Seven Dwarfs to the BUNCH occurred primarily because GE and RCA found the massive R&D costs required to compete with IBM's System/360 architecture unsustainable (McGee 2004, p. 110).
Following the 1971 exit of RCA—divesting its customer base and technology to Sperry Rand (UNIVAC). Effectively ending any future RCA-British computer collaborations like the English Electric System 4 derived from the RCA Spectra 70 architecture. The ICL pivoted from "mimicry" to "innovation" with the ICL 2900 Series.
The exit of GE (1970) and RCA (1971) caused a "shock" in the Japanese market, as their partners (Toshiba and Hitachi) were suddenly left without their primary technology sources. This led to the MITI-led reorganization of the Japanese industry into three groups to compete with IBM's System/370:
Group
Companies
Resulting Series
Architecture Influence
M Group
Fujitsu / Hitachi
M Series
IBM S/370 Compatible
A Group
NEC / Toshiba
ACOS Series
Honeywell / GE / GCOS
C Group
Mitsubishi / Oki
COSMO Series
UNIVAC / Independent
Legacy
By the 1980s, the Japanese manufacturers had evolved from "junior partners" of the Dwarfs to become the primary global challengers to IBM, eventually acquiring several of their former mentors. Notably, Fujitsu eventually acquired Amdahl and ICL, while NEC maintained a long-term partnership with Bull (the successor to Honeywell's computer interests).
↑Usselman, Steven W. (1993). "IBM and its Imitators"(PDF). Business and Economic History. 22 (2): 4–5. By the mid fifties, IBM had secured approximately 85 percent of the domestic market, a share it would retain (if we treat personal computers as a separate entity) for the next three decades.
Bibliography
Campbell-Kelly, Martin (1989). ICL: A Business and Technical History. Oxford University Press.
Fransman, Martin (1995). Japan's Computer and Communications Industry. Oxford University Press.
Ceruzzi, Paul E. (2003). A History of Modern Computing. MIT Press.
McGee, Russell C. (2004). My Adventures with Dwarfs: A Personal History in Mainframe Computers. Online Edition.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
