Small Business and AIS Process

Implementation of an MIS

This is a transcript from the PBS series Triumph of the Nerds, by Robert Cringely. It is a great history of the development of the personal computer and the people behind the companies.
The full version is available online at:

http://www.pbs.org/nerds/transcript.html

"You have to remember what it was like in those days. We did not use the word spreadsheet because nobody knew what a spreadsheet was. I came up with the name visible calculator, or VisiCalc, because we wanted to emphasize that aspect.
VisiCalc hit the market in October, 1979, selling for $100. Marv Goldschmitt sold the first copies from his computer store in Bedford, Massachusetts. After a slow start, VisiCalc took off."

-- Bob Frankston
VisiCalc Programmer
[VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet]
"What it did in our society, it gave people who were obsessed with numbers, whether they were in business or at home, how much am I worth today, what's my stock portfolio worth, how am I doing against budget on this project? It gave them an ability to play with scenarios and change it and say well, what if I do this? So it put people in a sense in control of the thing that lots of people in our society feel is driving them... and that's numbers.
The spreadsheet was every businessman's crystal ball. It answered all those 'what if' questions. What if I fire the engineering department? What if I invest $10 million in pantyhose futures? Look! I'll be rich in under a year and have slimmer thighs at the same time! The Computer says so! The effect of the spreadsheet was enormous. Armed with an Apple 2 running VisiCalc a twenty-four year old MBA with two pieces of dubious data could convince his corporate managers to allow him to loot the corporate pension fund and do a leveraged buy-out. It was the perfect tool for the '80s... the lead decade where money was everything and greed was good. In five years, the PC had gone from a hobbyist's toy to an engine that shaped the times we lived in"
--Marv Goldschmitt
[The first retailer of the first spreadsheet]

Implementation of an MIS
This is a transcript from the PBS series Triumph of the Nerds, by Robert Cringely. It is a great history of the development of the personal computer and the people behind the companies. The full version is available online at: http://www.pbs.org/nerds/transcript.html "You have to remember what it was like in those days. We did not use the word spreadsheet because nobody knew what a spreadsheet was. I came up with the name visible calculator, or VisiCalc, because we wanted to emphasize that aspect. VisiCalc hit the market in October, 1979, selling for $100. Marv Goldschmitt sold the first copies from his computer store in Bedford, Massachusetts. After a slow start, VisiCalc took off." -- Bob Frankston VisiCalc Programmer [VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet] "What it did in our society, it gave people who were obsessed with numbers, whether they were in business or at home, how much am I worth today, what's my stock portfolio worth, how am I doing against budget on this project? It gave them an ability to play with scenarios and change it and say well, what if I do this? So it put people in a sense in control of the thing that lots of people in our society feel is driving them... and that's numbers. The spreadsheet was every businessman's crystal ball. It answered all those 'what if' questions. What if I fire the engineering department? What if I invest $10 million in pantyhose futures? Look! I'll be rich in under a year and have slimmer thighs at the same time! The Computer says so! The effect of the spreadsheet was enormous. Armed with an Apple 2 running VisiCalc a twenty-four year old MBA with two pieces of dubious data could convince his corporate managers to allow him to loot the corporate pension fund and do a leveraged buy-out. It was the perfect tool for the '80s... the lead decade where money was everything and greed was good. In five years, the PC had gone from a hobbyist's toy to an engine that shaped the times we lived in" --Marv Goldschmitt [The first retailer of the first spreadsheet]