Computing Success

On exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution is a solid-state computer of 1957 vintage, the first practical large-scale model ever built. This cybernetic antique served as the guidance system for U.S. ICBMs until 1961 and ticked off more than 300 countdowns. The unit was built by the Burroughs Corp. of Detroit, which, though short on share of market--less than 4% com pared with IBM's 75%--is long on invention, reliability, and lately, profits.

Behind the profits are more efficient operations, specialized production, and a shift from space and defense to commercial work. Moreover, Burroughs' computer operations are now nearing break-even. The company's 1966 sales will probably reach $500 million, net earnings will be close to $28 million, more than half again as much as the total for 1965. The sweet sound of financial success should echo for some time to come.

Arithmometers to Computers. Next year Burroughs will provide U.S. Steel with the first components of its new B 8500 series, perhaps the most advanced and most powerful analytical machine ever built for business. Basic costs for this model are nearly $8,000,000, or $150,000 per month for companies who prefer to lease their equipment. Already customers are queueing up. U.S. Steel will pay $20 million for its souped up version, which will comprise 221 pieces of electronic brainery. The University of Wisconsin has also ordered a B 8500 for $15 million.

The B 8500 is a dream world away from the machine that gave Burroughs its start in St. Louis in 1888. This was William Seward Burroughs' arithmometer, an iron-and-glass adding device. For years Burroughs built purely mechanical adding machines, typewriters, cash registers and check printers. Turning to defense production during World War II, the company developed the Norden bombsight, then began dabbling in computers in 1947, with a small research lab. Burroughs has since developed automated check-reading devices, computers and a new family of moderately priced electronic "business systems" that handle accounting, inventory, payroll, production programming and record keeping for banks or businesses that do not want a high-powered computer system.

Clerk to Chairman. Burroughs "sells more adding machines than ever before," according to Chairman Ray R. Eppert, 64, although it has long since dropped the manufacturing of typewriters and cash registers. The company has capitalized on its years of experience with such hand-operated machinery by applying it to the mechanical aspects of computer technology: punch-card processing, preliminary programming and complex operating instructions. Burroughs paces the industry in providing these essential "software" items along with the hardware --the computers themselves.

Two years ago, Chairman Eppert, who started at Burroughs as a shipping clerk 45 years ago, began looking for a successor, found him in Ray W. Macdonald, head of the company's international sales. Under Macdonald, the company's overseas operations grew to equal its domestic organization. Macdonald, now 54, was appointed president last January, will succeed Eppert as chief executive officer Feb. 1. His expectation: annual sales of $1 billion by the early 1970s.

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