Chasing the Bouncing Ball

In the shifting world of corporate status symbols, even the humble office typewriter has a place. These days, the machine that secretaries envy is the IBM Selectric, a "single-element" typewriter that replaces the familiar semicircular bank of type keys with a removable bouncing ball of type.* The machine is symbolic of the extraordinary bounce of IBM itself, which has dominated the office typing business for the 15 years since the Selectric was introduced. This year IBM will hold an estimated 65% of the $600 million office electric typewriter market. The company's hegemony has drawn the attention of the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust division. Yet for the first time, IBM also faces competition from manufacturers who have learned that profits follow the bouncing ball. It has taken competitors as long as ten years to engineer their way past the thicket of patents that IBM erected around its invention. Since last summer, however, five companies have entered the single-element field. At least one more is expected. Chief among the rivals is the Royal Typewriter Co., a division of Litton Industries, whose new offering is called the 5000. Other brand names are Remington (a Sperry Rand division), Triumph-Adler (another Litton subsidiary), Italy's Olivetti and Sweden's Facit. A Japanese entry is still to come.

Less Labor. Together, the competitors have so far wrested 7% of the market away from IBM. Royal and some of the others even claim to have eliminated a minor but noticeable problem with the Selectric: "the flick." When two keys are hit in quick succession, the Selectric occasionally prints the second one as a hyphen. It is a problem that IBM puts down to changes in heat or humidity.

Secretaries find single-element typewriters faster, and the machines have fewer moving parts to maintain. From IBM's point of view, of course, their real attraction is profitability. Less labor is involved in the manufacture of the Selectric, yet it sells for a premium price --$630-$840. All of IBM's new rivals sell in the $650-$700 range. Now, though the company denies it, IBM appears to be withdrawing gradually from the ordinary electric typewriter market. It is a move that in the long run may help spell the end of the familiar, jammable typewriter. Another innovation may hasten that change in the future: Xerox Corp. has produced a further revolutionary design in typing equipment. The Xerox 800 is a machine that prints letters from a whirling disc printer called a "daisy wheel." Its advantage is that when attached to a computer it will print while moving either backward or forward across a page, thus offering even speedier typing.

* Briefly the typewriter keys activate a mechanism that rotates a nickel-plated plastic ball on which letters and numerals are raised. Tilted to the proper angle for each character, the ball strikes the typing surface, then moves on.

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