Computer History Museum

Timesharing and Remote Processing Services Meeting Session #4: Business Models: Making Money

<p>This session explored the different business models that TS/RPS companies created in terms of packaging and pricing their services and the reasons for their selection. Topics covered include: &bull; How well these various business models worked &bull; The strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches &bull; Whether the initial approaches were modified after the start of the companies and, if so, how they were changed &bull; What the revenue structure looked like over the first few years &bull; What the principal cost elements were: marketing and sales, development, operations, customer service, management, finance and administration &bull; Whether additional financing was needed and, if so, from what sources &bull; The effect that changes in the hardware performance and pricing on the business models &bull; Sales compensation policies &bull; The approximate amount of revenues earned by various timesharing companies in the mid- to late-1970s</p>

Item Details

Date
2009-06-02 (Made)
Type
Document
Catalogue number
102702886
Organization
Computer History Museum
People
Kenneth Ross (Participant)
Frank Belvin (Participant)
Burt Grad (Moderator)
Thomas Haigh (Historian)
Luanne Johnson (Editor)
Ann Hardy (Participant)
Dave Schmidt (Participant)
Dick Bayles (Participant)
Nicholas Rawlings (Participant)
Rick Crandall (Participant)
Mike Humphries (Participant)
Chris McDonald (Historian)
Doug Jerger (Participant)
Brook, Chris (Participant)
Norm Hardy (Participant)
Myers, Gary (Participant)
Stein, Jeffery (Participant)
Mike Wyman (Participant)
Dick Lowenstein (Participant)
Luanne Johnson (Co-Chair)
Category
Transcript
Oral History
Format
PDF
Credit line
Software Industry Special Interest Group
Extent
42 p.
Place of publication
USA/CA/Mountain View
Language
English
Acquisition number
X5386.2009
Subject
Tymshare, Scientific Data Systems (SDS) 940, Ross Systems, Interactive Data Corporation, On-Line Business Systems, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Timesharing, Keydata, RAMIS, General Electric Information Services (GEIS), Comshare, Service Bureau Corporation (SBC), National CSS, PDP-11, PDP-10
Archive collection
Oral history collection
Archive hierarchy
CHM Oral History Collection