Who invented Office software?
Few people realise that much of the ground-breaking work in computer hardware and software development happened here in post-war UK. I was saddened to read that one of those pioneers, David Caminer, is no longer with us.
1n 1947, one of Britain's biggest companies of the time, Lyons, took the breathtakingly high risk decision to build a computer. Working with Cambridge University, Lyons created LEO, the world's first computer built for business. LEO, as well as being a nice play on words for a Lyons computer, was an acronym Lyons Electronic Office.
David Caminer of Lyons was put in charge of the applications software development and was arguably the first computer systems analyst, and the first to express business procedures as formal systems which could be computerised and managed.
Whilst LEO was physically massive by today's standards, and had only a tiny fraction of the processing power found in a mobile phone, it was nevertheless very successful for its time. One of the first applications developed for it was a payroll for the 1800 staff in Lyons bakeries. Wage calculations which used to take around 8 minutes per employee when done by hand were reduced to just a few seconds of processing time per employee on LEO. Other successful applications included the visionary stock control and ordering system for the company's 180 teashops. Soon LEO was being utilised to run applications for other notable companies including Kodak and the Ford motor company. Lyons established a new company, Leo Computers Limited with Caminer as head of marketing, and it supplied the first Post Office telephone billing system which, at that time, was the largest computer system in Europe.
With IBM entering the market in the mid-fifties, Leo was eventually sold to English Electric which in turn was transformed into the government flagship company, ICL. Caminer meanwhile went on to become the project director for the implementation of the computer and communications infrastructure for the EEC in Luxembourg, and subsequently received an OBE in recognition of his work for the computer industry. In retirement, Caminer was active in both the Richmond Labour Party and the anti-apartheid movement.
David Caminer, 1915-2008
18th July 2008
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.