Details

Type

Text

Title

Dodge, Frank oral history

Contributor

Dodge, Frank, Interviewee

Johnson, Luanne, Interviewer; Editor

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Date

1986-05-16

Place of Publication

Boston, Mass.

Extent

24 p.

Description

Frank Dodge describes founding McCormack & Dodge in 1969 with his partner Jim McCormack and how their decision to attempt to sell their Fixed Assets software product through direct mail advertising enabled them to become profitable after an initial struggle to find a market niche during a recession. He talks about their gradual internally-financed growth and how their decision to provide training classes to their customers at their Boston location allowed them to avoid the expense of on-site installation support. He describes the role that their customers played in encouraging them to offer annual maintenance services for a fee. He states that IBM's unbundling of software costs from hardware costs had virtually no impact on their business and that the biggest challenge they had to overcome in the early years was the resistance of data processing managers to software that wasn't developed in-house.

Category

Transcription

Subject

Dodge, Frank; McCormack and Dodge; McCormack, Jim; M&D; John Keane and Associates; Mail order software; IBM unbundling

Collection Title

Oral Histories Online

Accession Number

102702123