Unidata

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Unidata

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founding 19th January 1973
resolution 19th December 1975
Seat Munich , Germany

In the 1970s, Unidata was a joint venture to bundle the IT activities of the companies CII , Philips and Siemens . The aim was to strengthen the European IT industry and to make it competitive with IBM, similar to what Airbus did in aviation.

history

In 1966 the CII was founded as part of the Plan Calcul , an initiative to strengthen the French IT industry by the Charles de Gaulle government , as a joint venture between CGE and Thomson Brandt . This was also done to overcome US export restrictions for high-performance computers for the French nuclear program. The withdrawal of the RCA from the mainframe market in 1971 Siemens lost the supplier for its own 4004 series . Within a year, the company set up its own production facility with extraordinary effort. In August 1971 Siemens started talks with CII about a partnership. On January 30, 1972, a first preliminary contract for cooperation in the civil sector was concluded. In April 1972, talks began with the Dutch Philips to establish a joint company, which led to an agreement in September. ICL was to be won as a further partner, but this did not succeed.

The contracts between Siemens and CII were signed on January 19, 1973. On July 4, 1973, Philips in Amsterdam was incorporated into the contract.

During 1973 the various companies in Germany and France were consolidated. CII takes over all IT activities of the Siemens regional company in France, while CII GmbH is absorbed into Siemens AG. In September, CII takes over sales of the Siemens 4004 line in France. On January 15, 1974, Philips presented the 7.720 (X0) as the first new product. Then on September 16 Siemens the 7,730 (X1) and 7,750 (X3) as well as the CII the 7,740 (X2).

However, the cooperation did not eliminate the fundamental weaknesses of the CII. While German politics was still following the dream of a European IT group, the new French government under Giscard d'Estaing brought about the merger of CII and Honeywell-Bull on May 20, 1975 . The new French-American company is concentrating on the Bull Series 60 family and is leaving the Unidata consortium. Philips decides to give up the mainframe area and officially leaves the Unidata community on September 3rd, 1975. As of September 1975, the remaining Siemens business operates under the name Siemens Data . The company was dissolved on December 19, 1975 and the expensive name Unidata was no longer used.

Task sharing

The cooperation should combine the strengths of the partners:

  • Philips its development and manufacturing experience in semiconductor technology
  • Siemens started the production of peripheral devices, in particular magnetic memories (tapes, disks) and the first laser printers
  • CII should provide the architecture, the software development and the overall project management.

The core of the technical cooperation was a newly developed micro-architecture that made it possible to create central units for all three manufacturers from the same basic hardware, with minimal adjustments and an adapted micro-program: Philips P1000, CII Iris 80 and S / 370 compatible for Siemens.

In detail, the development of the small systems (workstation systems / MDT, entry-level systems of the / 370 class) is assigned to Philips, Siemens takes over the medium-sized models, CII is to concentrate on the upper end of the / 370-compatible computers and supercomputers. A series of central units called X was planned as a common development line. Philips takes over the development of the entry-level models X0, Siemens the series X1 and X3 and XII the X2 as well as the top models X4 and X5. All devices are intended for operation under BS2000 , X4 and X5 additionally under the CII operating system Siris 8, X0 for Philips systems. On January 15, 1974, Philips presented the 7.720 (X0) as the first new product. Then on September 16 Siemens the 7,730 (X1) and 7,750 (X3) as well as the CII the 7,740 (X2).

consequences

Siemens could easily cope with the discontinuation of the X0 model after the end of the alliance, as there were practically no sales and the 7,730 could be used as a replacement. At the upper end, CII officially guaranteed compliance with the contracts, but in fact this agreement was already terminated by Siemens with the dissolution of Unidata. The performance of the X3 line was therefore increased as quickly as possible and the 7.755 model was presented in December. To compensate for the foreseeable failure of the CII / Bull deliveries for the 7.740, a version of the 7.750 with a reduced performance is presented as the 7.748. In the fall of 1976, another implementation called X4 was announced as the 7.760. The performance class originally planned for the X5 could not be achieved until 1978 with the P1 / P3 series, which was developed in cooperation with Fujitsu.

A decade-long history of repeated mergers and many state interventions followed on the part of CII / Bull.

Web links

Commons : Unidata  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Unidata history , accessed on August 23, 2014.
  2. ↑ What will happen to CII? In: Computerwoche , December 11, 1974; accessed on August 23, 2014.
  3. ↑ First Unidata, then ICL, maybe also an American partner and then around 12 percent of the world market . In: Computerwoche , February 7, 1975; accessed on August 23, 2014.
  4. ↑ Outside the door . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 1975 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Little chance of survival for the Unidata . In: Computerwoche , May 30, 1975; accessed on August 23, 2014.
  6. ↑ Bad luck with white goods . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 1976 ( online ).
  7. ↑ Siemens takes over Unidata sales . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 1975 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Unidata has its name for itself . In: Computerwoche , March 14, 1975; accessed on August 23, 2014.
  9. ↑ Instead of Unidata Siemens data . In: Computerwoche , December 19, 1975; accessed on August 23, 2014.
  10. ↑ Siemens does without French mainframes . In: Computerwoche , March 12, 1975; accessed on August 23, 2014.
  11. ↑ New Siemens model 7755 with cache and pre-fetch . In: Computerwoche , December 19, 1975; accessed on August 23, 2014.
  12. ↑ Laser printer and 8 MB system . In: Computerwoche , October 22, 1976; accessed on August 23, 2014.
  13. ↑ Instead of offensive tactics - competitor compatibility . In: Computerwoche , November 3, 1978; accessed on August 23, 2014.
  14. ↑ Miscalculated with Plan Calcul? In: Computerwoche , August 22, 1975; accessed on August 23, 2014.

Coordinates: 48 ° 10 ′ 37.2 "  N , 11 ° 35 ′ 32.2"  E