Prerelational DBMS vendors — a quick overview
IBM. With BOMP and D-BOMP, IBM was probably the first company to commercialize precursors to DBMS. (BOMP stood for Bill Of Materials Planning, foreshadowing the hierarchical architecture of IMS.) Out...
View ArticleMSA memories — the basics
When I became a software analyst in 1981, MSA (Management Science America) was generally regarded as the leading cross-industry financial software vendor. Its CEO was the colorful John Imlay, best...
View ArticlePrerelational financial app software vendors 1 — a quick overview
MSA (Management Science America). This section got so long I’m breaking it out as a separate post just about MSA. M & D (McCormack & Dodge). M & D was MSA’s archrival in mainframe financial...
View ArticleSetting the record straight
Computerworld got software industry history a bit wrong by implying that John Cullinane innovated packaged software (specifically, they said “packaged application”). Here’s what really happened, as I...
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Software industry hijinks
The approach of April Fool’s Day has me thinking of software industry pranks and other hijinks. Most of what comes to mind is verbal jousting of various sorts that doesn’t really fit the theme. But...
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Enterprise application software, past and present
I recently wrote a long post on the premise that enterprise analytic applications are not like the other (operational) kind. That begs the question(s): What are operational enterprise applications...
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