Managing Computers in Large Organizations

Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html
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PERSONAL COMPUTING, NOT PERSONAL COMPUTERS 132
MIPS (mega-instructions per second), and 350 million characters of storage.
This is an awesome box, and it is sitting in a branch office. The terminal hangs
off this box, with high-speed, dual mode printers and local database for very
rapid response time and for personal computing.
At the bottom of the hierarchy, the terminal level, the branch information
processing system has the ability to grow whereas the personal computer does
not. And the system can grow in the same box, for the terminals do not need to
change. They are essentially just a light bulb and a screen. The brains of that
terminal sits in the branch office. We estimate that one MV-4000 can
accommodate 30 to 35 terminals. And, in general, we have three terminals to
one letter quality printer.
These levels—headquarters, region, branch, and terminal—are the fabric
of our communications and data processing capability, and they are all
interconnected. The host complex controls the distributed information system
and the distributed information system controls the branch processing. Users
can reach around it or through it to get to whatever level they want.
From my perspective, the frequently asked question of who owns the data
is the wrong question. We ought to ask who maintains the data. With our
system, who “owns” it is irrelevant, since anybody who wants it and is
approved can get it. This system makes data available to anybody anywhere in
the world. Each machine is individually addressable and assignable and has its
own name, and each user has his or her own sign-on code. The end result is that
one computer communications resource is providing information to
approximately 10,000 terminals. Basically, the hardware is secondary; primarily
what we do is provide a terminal, and the person using that terminal has the
smarts of the computer behind it.
One of the problems we used to have involved gateways. In the past there
was only one way out of a branch office. That was via a teletype system that
was part of our network. Information was passed from functional areas to
communications areas and then out. The new system solves that problem.
Everyone who has a terminal has a gateway out of the office.
One of the most important management issues is that beyond a certain
point you can't pay people more money to do a better job. And people who are
capable of doing a better job won't necessarily stay with a company just for
more money. To solve the problem
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