1973 BOL commissioned a book “A view of Venice” with photographs by Lord Snowdon and text by Derek Hart.
May’s edition announced a number of major contract awards, including: DE523 Terminals for Rowntree Mackintosh, Vector Terminals for Unigate, P603 computers for Scottish Widows and DE521/3 data entry devices for Allied Brewery.
1974 In March the disfranchising of manual plus electric typewriters and calculators was announced, these products would be sold through dealers, this meant the closure of a number of branches. However an IDP sales division was established and the creation of Office Product Representative operating within larger territories and selling a wide range of advanced products to customers of a suitable size.
For five consecutive days BOL had full-page advertisements in the FT and Times and half page advertisements in the Daily Telegraph that contained details of major projects completed for blue chip clients.
In December it had been announced that Birmingham IDP had won an order from Kalamazoo for 200 OCR Series 8532 adding-listing machines.
BOL’s involvement in electronic data processing was seen as being beneficial to STAC (Sevizio Tecnico Assistenza Clienti) at the end of 1974 they were employing 737 members of staff had service agreements with 60,000 customers for 122,000 machines and drove over 8M miles in 400 vehicles and generated revenues of over £3M.
1975 In May, 20 years in electronics was marked by two notable events. The Chairman of British Railways Richard Marsh unveiled a canvas at Waterloo station that weighed over 6.5 tons and was longer than a cricket pitch. “The Olivetti Wall” as the canvas was called was designed by the renowned artist Jean-Michel Folon.
Following the unveiling 500 managing directors, senior executives and government officials then attended a seminar at the Royal Festival Hall. Guest speakers included the Director General of the CBI, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Snowdon was amongst the guest.
1976 The message from Mr Francesco Tato MD at the start of the year was “The Customer: Our first priority.
TSB had placed an order for four SP600 computers valued at £112,000. The four SP 600 were used at regional computer centres and would be used to transmit data to London at 9600 bauds.
1978 Was the Company’s thirtieth anniversary in the UK. In that time they had become so established that 90% of the adult British population new who they were. The turnover had grown from £50,000 to over £40 million with a staff of 1600. Over 90,000 pieces of equipment were under service contracts.
In the November Carlo de Benedetti hosted a seminar at Haslemere for General Managers of 26 leading Building Societies.
The MD at the time was Mr Colangelo and he established a Long Service Club for all personnel who had completed more than 15 years.
1979 At the start for the year Mr Colangelo said that the previous year had been one of satisfactory improvement on what was already a positive situation.
The BSC 2030 business computer was launched to supersede the A5 but be compatible with its predecessor’s programmes. The new computer had an integrated printer that made it far less expensive than a video system with stand-alone printer.
Mr Nicola Colangelo left BOL after two years to take charge of Area 2, Keith Walkerden who had previously been MD of Olivetti Australia replaced him as MD.
On the 1st May Olivetti chartered two trains from BR complete with logos to take 800 secretaries to Haslemere to witness the launch of the ET201/221 electronic typewriters with electronic displays. Champagne was served on the outward journey with lunch provide in a marquee, the day was completed with a fashion show.
Alan Watson returned to the UK after six years in Scandinavia to head up CES.
BOL announced that its profit for the previous year were £2.8M of a turnover of £49.5M a 26% increase on `1978.
Continuing with their sponsorship of the arts Olivetti brought one of the four horses of San Marco to London for display at the Royal Academy in August. The only other time when any of the horses have left Italy was when they were removed by Napoleon and later returned under the auspices of the Duke of Wellington. In October the exhibition received Royal patronage with a visit from Her Majesty the Queen, two days later the Queen Mother also visited. Other Royal visitors included Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Alexandra. In all over 100,000 visitors were attracted to the exhibition. Following on from the successful exhibition in London the horse was shipped to New York for a similar exhibition.
By November BOL had reorganised the Data Processing Division into the three account areas: General Industry plus Commerce, Finance and Government plus Service Bureaux.
A major order from Abbey National Building Society for 20 TES501 Word Processors was announced, this was believed to be the largest single order placed on any Olivetti company for WP equipment. The following day, Barclays Bank placed an order for 30 TES401 Word Processors.
During the year 280 advertisements were placed in national and trade press and 46 exhibitions were attended.
A number of products had been introduced over the year including: The BCS2030 and BCS3030 business computers, Copia2000 high level photocopier, The ET221/201 electronic typewriters, Logos7 and 78B plus Divisumma 37 calculators, TES401 full electronic memory typewriter, TES621 screen based word processor, BCS3030 stand alone business computer, TC480 electronic teleprinters and TCV280 IBM compatible VDU.
At the end of the year Olivetti re-entered the mainframe market with agreements with Hitachi of Japan and IPL of Boston USA. IPL produced medium size systems whereas Hitachi addressed the high end. Olivetti Computers (UK) Ltd was established in Sun Street (see below) to sell these computers.
1980 In the summer it was announced that BOL’s System Division had won over £10M of orders in the first 6 months of the year, compared with £6M at the same period last year. The Public Sector and Third Party Sales Division (Major Accounts) had already achieved their quota for the year with substantial orders from Central Government and the London Borough of Lewisham.
The opening of a new office in Sun Street off Finsbury Square was announced, this would house 150 staff in 32,000 foot premise. A team from Corporate Identity Milan designed the layout and décor.
Major Accounts won a £12M order from Abbey National for front counter terminals, the contract was won in a tender with eight other suppliers. When Abbey National’s evaluation team visited Haslemere to review the equipment BOL had to offer they were greeted by reconstruction of an Abbey National high street branch complete with the Olivetti equipment.
During the year Olivetti had teamed up with Longines of Switzerland to provide data processing and time keeping for Grand Prix motor racing. Following test in several countries the first official outing was for the US Grand Prix at Long Beech, BOL’s turn came with the British GP at Brands Hatch.
In the summer British Olivetti made Parliamentary history and had their own Act of Parliament. In 1947 the company was registered in Scotland (early newsletter say Edinburgh while September edition says Glasgow), but the head office was in London. British law required the company books and seal to be kept at the registered office, this means that any document requiring the Company seal had to be sent to Scotland adding time and expense.
It made sense to have the seal and books kept at HO. At that time to be able to make the transfer The Companies Act required a company to be wound up and the funds and all properties transferred to a new company. Through a lawyer who was an expert in Acts of Parliament it was arranged to have a Private Members Bill passed through the Commons and Lords. Three readings of the Bill in both houses were required before the Royal Assent was granted on July 17 1980. The whole process took about nine months.
Automotive Products of Leamington Spa ordered two hundred TC800 workstations for installation in their production workshop and administrative offices, this was one of the largest installations of its type in an industrial application. The competitors for this contract were, ICL and Honeywell.
1981 A new range of business computers the BCS2000 range was introduced in January, the range provided a 15 inch (diagonal) screen displaying 1920 characters plus floppy disk storage of 2MB.
January also saw changes to the Company structure reflecting the similarity of DP and systems hardware. The company organisation was:
Also in January the two branches at Whitfield Street and Holborn were closed and the staff moved to Sun Street.
David Maroni, External Relations Director received the Honour of “Cavaliere Ufficiale” (equivalent to an OBE) from the Italian Ambassador for his work in upholding the image of an Italian company.
Keith Walkerden MD was able to report that revenues were up 28.5% and profits up 7% to £3.9M
A five-coach BR “Trainex” toured the country demonstrating the WP system that enabled electronic typewrites to be upgraded to full WP systems.
In April Marathon Mania hit BOL, they had been approached in January to provide the results service for the Gillette sponsored London Marathon. Using a P6060 computer the results of the 5600 runners were calculated. Prior to the start the 7005 runners were given a bar code badge, which was read as the runners crossed the start line. Once all the runners had started the Olivetti mobile control van rushed with police escort to the finish line in Constitutional Hill for the bar coded badges to be collected as the runners finished. The results when printed out were over 140 foot long.
BOL also provided the press office at the Strand Palace Hotel.
The S6000 minicomputer was launched in the summer, this was an entry level product and an extension to the BCS range.
BOL installed 470 TC485 terminals in every local office of the DHSS, these were connected to a SP600 installed in Newcastle, the project was due to be completed by June it actually went live in February.
By the summer Head Office had moved to Putney from Berkeley Square. A new division had been established to distribute Olivetti Peripheral Equipment (OPE) and Olivetti Finance Ltd has been formed in partnership with AMG (UK).
Once again BOL provided the results service for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Olivetti and Longines also sponsored the Ferrari team.
1982 It was announced in February that the results service for the London Marathon that year, when 18,000 starters were expected, was to be provided by a battery of P6060.
The “Elephants “ campaign to promote Olivetti typewriters was launched, the theme was based on the size of the memory you needed.
Further reorganisations of sales division were made at the start of the year with Office Products and WP Division renamed Office Systems reflecting Olivetti’s involvement in the “office of the future”. Major Accounts and Systems were split into two Divisions.
With the launch of the M20 Personal Microcomputer a dedicated division was formed. The M20 (this was also a typewriter in 1920) used a Z8001 CPU, which was similar to the Z80 and ran four operating systems: DOS V2.0, CPM86, CPM80, and PCOS 2.OH. The M20 incorporated an integral keyboard.
At the end of the year the CPS/32 Continuous Processor computer was introduced to the UK market. The computer comprised of duplicate hardware that could be replaced in the event of a failure without interrupting the system.
The “Line One” range of M30/40 minicomputers were launched which were compatible with the P6066 thus enabling existing software to be used. (M30 and M40 were also used as nomenclatures for typewriters.)
The press launch for the new ETS1020 at Putney coincided with the rail and tube strikes, the problem of transporting journalist to southwest London was solved by hiring a boat that went from Charing Cross Pier to Putney. The ETS1020 was fault tolerant and should a failure occur the “service Genie” switched over to duplicate hardware without interruption.
1983 BOL made a small profit in 1982, which was offset by the losses of Olivetti Computers Ltd, this was despite BOL’s revenue increasing by 20%. For the first time TV advertising was used by the Company to promote the M20, in the 40 seconds commercial, the M20 was shown to be superior to competitor’s microcomputers.
Upgraded versions of the SP600 were available supporting multi-keyboards.
The Football Association had purchased a SP6000 to maintain player’s details plus their disciplinary records.
Rediffusion purchased 600 Line One systems for their high street TV rental outlets, this was the first major order for Line One equipment outside the financial sector.
BOL was once again at the forefront of sponsorship of the arts, with the display of Cimabue’s Crucifix at the Royal Academy. Cimabue was the father of the great school of Italian painting. The Crucifix was badly damaged by flooding in Florence in 1996 and was restored seventeen years later. Olivetti’s world tour of the Crucifix included Paris, New York, Madrid and Munich.
Western Trust and Savings Bank were supplied with the first CPS/32 to be ordered in a contract valued at £200,000, the system was installed in May.
Shell was running a pilot trial to test automation of their retail outlets using M30/40 minicomputers.
BOL in conjunction with BR, GLC-Wandsworth Council, the Manpower Services Commission and the youth employment agency had agreed on a refurbishment design for East Putney Railway Station (opposite HO) called the “Piazza di Putney”, this had taken two years to obtain agreement and was expected to be completed in a further year.
In April BOL had a private exhibition at the Italian Trade Centre called “Your future in the Making”. The expo displayed all the product ranges in a conceptual office of the future. I was personally involved in networking electronic typewriters and WP stations via a 10M Ethernet, complete with “standard thick yellow coax cable”.
For the third consecutive year BOL provided the results service for the London Marathon, where 19,000 runners participated. The British Grand Prix also continued to benefit from the Olivetti results service.
April was a busy month for the Company with the opening of the new warehouse at Bradville Milton Keynes. The 89,500 square foot building also housed electronic data preparation and the electronic laboratory.
The organisers of the Wimbledon Tennis tournament invited BOL to provide an experimental system comprising ETS1010/1020 and WS580 screen based terminals. This equipment provided a results service and “order of play”. The data was for the use of the press and BBC, players and club members. The WS580 was normally fitted with a keyboard as it was an entry device, but for Wimbledon a specially programmed chip replaced the keyboard.
The M10 portable computer with a liquid crystal display was shown at the Compec ’83 Exhibition.
At the end of the year BOL sponsored a concert at the Barbican Centre to celebrate the birth of Anton Webern in 1883.
At the end of the year Alan Watson took over Major Accounts.
1984 In April Vincenzo Mancuso took over from Keith Walkerden as MD, Mancuso came from Corporate Head Office where he was responsible for Area 1. Keith Walkerden took over responsibility for the Far East, South Africa and Canada.
A new division called Corporate Software and Product Management was formed to support Major Accounts.
The Institute of Directors was the venue for the world press launch of the M24/21 Personal Computers that were IBM compatible. Unlike their predecessors they had separate keyboards.
The M60 minicomputer was launched at Brocket Hall, this computer was described at the time as being “leading edge technology in the middle range of hardware”.
Two £1M plus orders were announced one for Amex for 74 cash ATMs and the other from Telephone Rentals for the new TE530 electronic telex terminal. The terminal found favour with users as it had a tactile keyboard with editing facilities similar to the ETS range of typewriters.
The British Museum was the home of the latest art exhibition organised by BOL “The Treasures of San Marco” in all 41,000 visits saw the display. Royal visitors included HRH Princess Margaret, The King of Spain and the Queen of Greece.
Poetess Pam Aires composed an ode for the Praxis45D, the last verse read:
“So now, before I type an ode
I gaily flick from mode to mode
Setting in my madcap ways
New line formats ever day
Discovering with new bravado
Electronic Eldorado
The joy of Praxis knows no bounds
And only costs four hundred pounds.”
Major Accounts Sun Street won a £2M contact from Lloyds Bank for ET225 typewriters, at the time this was the largest bulk order for electronic typewriters in Europe.
In September a joint venture “UNIX Europe” was set up between Olivetti and AT&T, the new company also had their HO in Putney near to BOL’s HO. UNIX Europe provided software support and distribution, plus training and licensing agreements.
A further agreement between Olivetti and AT&T was announced, aligning the two companies as strategic partners.
The Olivetti ‘luggable’ M21 was shown at COMPEC together with the M24 and M10.
Fortronic Information Systems who had previously only distributed Wang Computers in Scotland agreed add the AT&T 3B to its range.
The Barbican Centre was the setting for the European launch of the FileNet Document Image Processor. FileNet was the first image processor to incorporate integrated document storage and retrieval using optical technology. The optical disks stored in a “Juke Box” could store the equivalent of 1,700 five-drawer filing cabinets.