Draft:Unidata

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Unidata
Founded1973; 51 years ago (1973)
Defunct1975 (1975)

Unidata was a joint venture in the 1970s that pooled the IT capabilities of the companies CII , Philips, and Siemens. The goal was to strengthen the European IT industry and make it competitive with IBM, similar to Airbus in the aviation industry.

History

In 1966, CII was founded as a joint venture between CGE and Thomson Brandt as part of Plan Calcul, an initiative of the de Gaulle government to strengthen the French IT industry . This was also done to overcome US export restrictions on high-performance computers for the French nuclear program. When RCA withdrew from the mainframe computer market in 1971, Siemens lost the supplier for its own 4004 series. At extraordinary expense, its own production was set up within a year. In August 1971, Siemens began talks with CII about a partnership. On January 30, 1972, a first preliminary agreement for cooperation in the civil sector was signed. In April 1972, talks began with the Dutch company Philips to form a joint company, which led to an agreement in September.[1] It was hoped that ICL would join as an additional partner, but this did not succeed.

The contracts between Siemens and CII were signed on January 19, 1973. On July 4, 1973, Unidata was incorporated by Philips in Amsterdam.[1]

During 1973, the various companies in Germany and France were consolidated. CII took over all IT activities of the Siemens French subsidiary, while CII GmbH was absorbed into Siemens AG. In September, CII took over distribution of the Siemens 4004 line in France. On January 15, 1974, Philips introduced the 7.720 (X0) as its first new product. On September 16, Siemens introduced the 7.730 (X1) and 7.750 (X3), and CII introduced the 7.740 (X2).

However, the new alliance did not eliminate the fundamental weakness of CII.[2] While German governmant was still pursuing the dream of a European IT group,[3] the new French government under Giscard d'Estaing initiated the merger of CII and Honeywell-Bull on May 20, 1975. The new French-American company concentrated on the Bull Series 60 family and left the Unidata consortium.[4][5] Philips decided to quit the mainframe business, and officially left Unidata on September 3, 1975.[6] After September 1975, the remaining Siemens business was renamed Siemens Data.[7] Unidata was dissolved on December 19, 1975 and the name was no longer used.[8]

Division of work

The goal of the collaboration was to combine the partners' strengths:

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

The core of the technical collaboration was a newly developed microarchitecture that made it possible to produce CPUs for all three manufacturers from the same basic hardware, with minimal adjustments and custom microcode: the Philips P1000, the CII Iris 80, and Siemens' System/360-compatible hardware.

The development of the small systems (workstation systems/MDT, entry-level systems of the System/370 class) was assigned to Philips. Siemens took over the mid-level models. CII was to concentrate on the upper end of System/370 compatible computers and supercomputers. A series of processors, called X, was planned as a joint development. Philips was responsible for the development of the entry-level models X0, Siemens the X1 and X3 series and XII the X2 as well as the high-end models X4 and X5. All devices were designed to run under the BS2000 operating system. X4 and X5 also supported the CII operating system Siris 8, and Philips systems their X0 OS. On January 15, 1974, Philips presented the 7.720 (X0) as its first new product. On September 16, Siemens then presented the 7.730 (X1) and 7.750 (X3) and CII the 7.740 (X2).

Marketing for the 7.720 emphasized that it also supported Siemens' BS1000 OS.[9][10] However, it could also run under adapted versions of SIRIS 2 or 3 as well as under P1000, if running microcode for the respective instruction set.[11]: Philips P1000, CII Iris 80 and System/370 compatible for Siemens.

Outcome

Siemens was easily able to cope with the loss 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 promised to fulfill its the contracts, but in fact this agreement was terminated by Siemens with the dissolution of Unidata.[12] The X3 line was therefore increased in performance as quickly as possible and the 7.755 model was introduced in December.[13] To compensate for the expected failure of CII/Bull deliveries for the 7.740, a version of the 7.750 with reduced performance was introduced as the 7.748. In the fall of 1976, a proprietary implementation, also called the X4, was announced as the 7.760.[14] The performance class originally planned for the X5 could not be achieved until 1978 with the P1/P3 series, which was developed in collaboration with Fujitsu.[15]

On the CII/Bull side, a decades-long history of repeated mergers and much government intervention followed.[16]

References

  1. ^ a b "Chronology of Unidatata".
  2. ^ "Was wird denn nun aus CII?". Computerwoche (in German). December 11, 1974.
  3. ^ "Erst Unidata, dazu ICL, vielleicht auch einen amerikanischen Partner und dann rund 12 Prozent vom Weltmarkt". Computerwoche (in German). February 7, 1975.
  4. ^ "Draußen vor der Tür". Der Spiegel (in German). No. 29. 1975. 41471442.
  5. ^ "Wenig Überlebenschancen für die Unidata". Computerwoche (in German). May 30, 1975.
  6. ^ "Pech mit weißer Ware". Der Spiegel (in German). No. 49. 1976. 41136325.
  7. ^ "Siemens übernimmt Unidata-Vertrieb". Der Spiegel (in German). No. 39. 1975. 41443644.
  8. ^ "Statt Unidata Siemens-Data". Computerwoche (in German). December 19, 1975.
  9. ^ "Voici premier ordinateur Unidata - Unidata 7.720" (PDF) (in French).
  10. ^ "Wij stellen u de eerste Unidata computer voor: de Unidata 7.720" (PDF) (in Dutch).
  11. ^ Auerbach Guide to Small Business Computers (PDF) (3 ed.). Auerbach Publishers Inc. February 1975. pp. 279–284. ISBN 87769-210-6. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
  12. ^ "Siemens verzichtet auf französische Großrechner". Computerwoche (in German). March 12, 1975.
  13. ^ "Neues Siemens-Modell 7755 mit Cache und Pre-Fetch". Computerwoche (in German). December 19, 1975.
  14. ^ "Laserdrucker und 8-MB-System". Computerwoche (in German). October 22, 1976.
  15. ^ "Statt Offensiv-Taktik - Mitbewerber-Kompatibilität". Computerwoche (in German). November 3, 1978.
  16. ^ "Mit Plan Calcul verkalkuliert?". Computerwoche (in German). August 22, 1975.
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