The Seven Dwarfs of the Computer Industry
"The Seven Dwarfs of the Computer Industry" is a nickname given to the seven competitors to IBM in the mainframe computer market during the 1960's because their market share was so small in comparison. In the 1970's, after GE and RCA left the business, the remaining firms were nicknamed the "BUNCH" as an acronym for the first letters of the remaining firm's names: Burrough, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell.
NOTE: Scientific Data Systems is listed in the quote from John Markoff in The New York Times below as one of the Seven Dwarfs. However, most lists of the "Seven Dwarfs" include NCR, not SDS. The company was sold in 1969 to Xerox, which closed the firm in 1975.
How It's Used
"Grey and dull it could never be. In the 1970s, ICL painted its computers 'hot tango', a shade of orange, to prove the point.
"A European company that has competed with Big Blue (IBM) and the Seven Dwarfs (RCA, General Electric, Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data and Honeywell) for over 40 years and remains alive and profitable, when some of them have bitten the dust, must have something more than greyness." —no author listed, "ICL has spawned startling innovations but has yet to translate these into market leadership," The Guardian (UK), November 30, 1989. After the acquisition of Compaq, "H-P will look most like IBM in terms of total revenue. Last year the Armonk, N.Y., company had revenue of $88.4 billion, just above the $87 billion of a combined H-P and Compaq.
"The very concept of another computer company as big as IBM startles some observers. 'Did I think that would happen? Never,' said Howard Anderson, a Boston venture capitalist and longtime technology watcher. During the 1960s, the computer industry was characterized as 'IBM and the seven dwarfs' because none of its competitors' revenue was even one-tenth of IBM's. Even last year, it was 81% larger than No. 2 H-P." —William M. Bulkeley, "Computer Megamerger: Will Bigger Be Better? Alphabet Soup: H-P's Attempt To Spell IBM Has Far to Go," The Wall Street Journal, September 5, 2001, p. A14. "The scope of Big Blue's ambition is breathtaking. Executives admit that IBM now sees itself as competing not only for the $1,000bn a year that companies spend each year on IT but also for the billions spent on processes of the kind outsourced by P&G—which last month signed a $400m, 10-year contract with IBM.
"'IBM made a big bet on the 360 series (of mainframe computers) in the 1960s and by the end of it people were talking about 'IBM and the seven dwarfs'. If they get this right, we could have the same thing all over again,' says Charles O'Reilly, professor of organisational behaviour at Stanford business school." —Simon London, "IBM's new chief executive is betting that the company's future lies in the acquisition of a consulting arm and on-demand computing services," The Financial Times (UK), October 10, 2003.
“In December 1968 Control Data filed an antitrust lawsuit against I.B.M., and a month later the Justice Department also sued. Although I.B.M. would lose the suit, the damage had been done, and people in the computer industry would come to speak of 'I.B.M. and the seven dwarfs’: Univac, Burroughs, Scientific Data Systems, Control Data, General Electric, RCA and Honeywell.” —John Markoff, “William C. Norris, 95, Founder of an Early Rival to I.B.M., Dies,” The New York Times, August 23, 2006. "IBM was a target of a lengthy Justice Department lawsuit, filed in 1969, alleging IBM maintained an illegal monopoly in computers, but the Reagan administration dropped the case in 1982. IBM had dominated the computer market since the 1950s with a 70% market share. Its U.S. competitors were derisively known as 'the seven dwarfs.'" —Keith J. Winstein and William M. Bulkeley, "IBM Faces Justice Antitrust Inquiry; Washington Steps Up Scrutiny of Tech Industry With Probe of Mainframe Market," The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2009. Links Related on eAlmanac
The Seven Dwarfs of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937)
The Seven Dwarfs of the 1988 Democratic Presidential Primary
Big Blue (International Business Machines)
Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on the History of IBM and its competition in the 1960's
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