The Best IBM Internal Presentation - EVER!

'Way back in the late '70s, when small computers for business hardly existed, the IBM Corporation took notice and funded two projects, more-or-less at the same time.

The first was the System/23 Datamaster. This was a desktop computer aimed at the small business market. It was a follow-on to the IBM 5100, the 5110 and the 5120. They were small scientific computers that the IBM sales force (literally) “forced” into the small business arena because of their compact size and (relatively) low cost.

The Datamaster was to have a dramatically different development methodology. To cut communication time and improve efficiency, all of the stakeholders (industry marketing, software development, business analysis and hardware development) would all be housed together in a single location: the IBM Boca Raton plant. It was thought that the development cycle could be shortened to (only) about 30 months between inception and delivery. Before this, product development took so long that by the time the product reached the market, the original requirements defining the project changed dramatically.

At the same time, Don Estridge pitched and sold to IBM Managment that he could do the same thing in twelve months with a smaller team and outsourced components. His project, also housed in Boca Raton, yielded the IBM Personal Computer. Don started later but finished only a month behind the Datamaster. Datamaster was announced in July 1981 and the PC in August.

The market spoke (loudly) and the System/23 Datamaster never shipped many units; the PC was just so compelling (and cheaper, and faster) — and a clear winner in the marketplace.

But before we knew how this was going to sort out, a software development team was moved to Boca Raton in July 1978 to join the hardware project for Datamaster which was already underway.

IBM was commited to delivering the best version of general business software for these new products. We were going to make the most usable software in history.

This video is a presentation I made scores of times selling the IBM-developed business applications and development methodology inside IBM. The six applications we were building were Billing, Inventory Control, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Accounts Payable and Payroll. In IBM slang, “BICARGLAPPR” pronounced By-car-glap-er..

The central part of the 33 minute presentation was describing the Human Factors Laboratory we built to test the usability of our software. This was attention that products had seldom benefitted from up to this point. It’s nothing like any other presentation ever made inside IBM; trust me.

This presentation has since passed into legend; an old VHS copy was found recently and enhanced by Jim Leonard (thanks, Jim!) and brought to you here. I hope you’re amused (and maybe educated a little)..

Oh, and one more thing. In this presentation there are two short clips you should absolutely see. One is at 24:28 and the other at 31:22. This story has been around IBM for more than 30 years. It concerns an instruction to "remove the diskette from its protective envelope".

Enjoy!