From 50 Years Ago: Computer’s Real Enemy

Some results of a national survey on the use of computers by corporate bodies were presented at the recent alumni conference in Bombay of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. The study, restricted to 35 out of the total of more than 100 computer users, was an attempt to analyse the decisions that led to computerisation and its subsequent effects on profitability and managerial effi ciency. Seven of the 35 bodies studied were “universities, non-profit bodies, etc” and so the results would be pertinent to only the remaining 28.

More than 50 per cent of the sampled computer users have had their installations running for over four years, and about 90 per cent for over two years. Of the 35, 27 had experience of unit record
equipment before the introduction of computers. Thus one may assume that the process of computerisation had reached some stability for most of the users, so that generalisations regarding their experiences would be valid. The reasons for deciding to computerise and the impact of computerisation are naturally not independent factors. Most of the corporate bodies had decided — at the
highest level — to go in for computerisation in order to handle the increasingly large volume of data to be processed.