Unisys Corp - Early History

The foundation for Unisys Corp. was first laid in 1885 when William S. Burroughs invented the arithmometer, an adding machine that records numbers. The following year, Burroughs incorporated his business as American Arithmometer Co. He obtained a patent for his adding machine in 1892, and five years later, the Franklin Institute awarded him the John Scott Medal. The inventor and businessman succumbed to tuberculosis in 1898; however, his business remained operational, being reincorporated as Burroughs Adding Machine Co. in 1905. The company completed its first two purchases—Universal Adding Machine and Pike Adding Machine—three years later. A machine able to both add and subtract was unveiled in 1911. By 1915, Burroughs Adding sold more than 90 different data processing machines, mainly to accountants. Interchangeable parts allowed clients to customize the machines to suit their needs.

Growth continued in 1921 with the acquisition of Moon-Hopkins Billing Machine. Burroughs Adding Machine launched a direct multiplication billing machine and a portable adding machine mid-decade. By 1945, sales had neared the $100 million mark. To better reflect its broadening product line, the firm changed its name to Burroughs Corp. in 1953. Three years later, Burroughs unveiled its first commercial electronic computer and purchased high-speed computer manufacturer ElectroData Corp. The firm diversified into automated office machines in 1958, developing an electronic bank bookkeeping machine known as the Sensitronic. One year later, the firm's president, John Coleman, reached an agreement with RCA to pool financial resources in an effort to better compete with industry leader IBM Corp. However, Coleman died before his plan was implemented. By the end of the decade, the firm had diversified into magnetic ink and automated check-sorting machinery. Sales neared $400 million.

Burroughs launched the B5000 mainframe computer, which used dual processors and virtual memory, in 1961. Six years later, the firm landed a U.S. Department of Defense contract to build the Illiac IV supercomputer. Cost cutting measures implemented in the mid-1960s were blamed for reliability problems with the B6500 computer. As a result, plans for the B8500 computer were shelved until engineers figured out how to fix the glitches. Burroughs completed the Illiac IV supercomputer in 1972. The $30 million purchase of Graphic Services in 1974 gave the firm entrance to the facsimile industry. The following year, Burroughs paid $8.8 million for automatic typewriters and computer equipment manufacturer Redactron. W. Michael Blumenthal, former Bendix chairman, joined Burroughs as executive vice president in 1979. He hired a new management team, discontinued adding machine and calculator operations, and funneled more resources into the firm's repair services. By the end of the decade, sales had reached nearly $3 billion. Blumenthal eventually took over as CEO.

Burroughs unveiled its A Series line in 1981; the technology would prove to be integral in the firm's future development of the ClearPath HMP System. To bolster its effectiveness against rival IBM in the mainframe industry, the company paid $85.2 million for Memorex and $9.6 million for System Development Corp. The purchases boosted sales by roughly $1 billion. In 1985, Burroughs and Sperry Corp. began merger negotiations. Sperry had been founded by Elmer Sperry in 1910 as Sperry Gyroscope Co., a manufacturer of navigational equipment. In 1955, Sperry merged with Remington Rand, maker of ENIAC, "the world's first large-scale, general-purpose computer" and UNIVAC, the ldquo;world's first business computer." Sperry's product launches in the 1960s included the 1100 computer series and the first multiprocessor computer, the 1108. In the 1970s, Sperry acquired RCA's computer operations and developed a cache memory disk subsystem. Its 2200 Series, shipped in 1986, would also play an instrumental role in the development of the ClearPath HMP system.

Both Burroughs and Sperry believed a merger would allow them to reduce costs and fund increased research and development, both of which were necessary to compete with IBM, which boasted revenues ten times those of both firms. Burroughs borrowed $2.5 billion to finance the merger, and the $4.8 billion deal was completed in 1986 when Burroughs and Sperry formed Unisys Corp., the second-largest computer firm in the U.S. Employees from both companies had agreed upon the name, which was essentially an acronym for "United Information Systems."