Selling computers - Part 2

We became agents for Epson, who had started with one Japanese man in the UK. We also went into partnership with a company called Computer Assist which was formed by three ex-IBM engineering specialists. At one point we had 100% of the local market for maintanance of IBM mid range systems.

Epson produced a range of very well engineered computers, designed and built entirely by themselves, but they abandoned PC's to concentrate on printers.

I developed a message switch based on the NorthStar Horizon programmed in 8080 assembler. Our fax service made money, the telex service was less successful. Our competitor was Cable and Wireless, and when they lost their Gibraltar franchise, we sent messages for them before they finally closed.

After selling Opus, Virgin, and Everex Computers, we became an IBM business partner to sell their new PS/2 range.

The S/3x machines gave way to AS400's which we could not maintain, but we acquired an AS/400 model 70 with five racks of DASD giving a massive eight gigabytes of disk storage which consumed 5KW of electricity. It provided disaster recovery services for a bank.