Adding color and details from those that were part of the internets creation.
Backstories is the place for submission from those who did the hard work of developing and delivering the services that came from the requirements. Without development and operations, the requirements are just a dream. Jim Hughes called the section “Backstories”.
Although backstories began with a contribution from Jim Hughes, it is a place for people from all areas of IBM IN or business partners to add comments.
If you have factual information regarding your involvement in the IBM Information Network part of the history of the internet you can send submissions to
info@historyoftheinternet.net
Submission requirements:
The file should contain your requested addition to the site as you wish it to be shown. The PDF will be reviewed and if approved will be added to the site in the background section or other webpages at the discretion of the Webmaster.
In addition to your activity at IBM IN, it is suggested that you include your name, when joined IBM IN and one or more of your jobs at IBM IN.
Submissions must be in PDF file format
If you have copyright protected documentation, they must be approved by the copyright owner for republication by Don E Sprague on this website or in a hard copy publication. Approval must be in PDF form.
NOTE: This is a place to collect historical documentation about IBM IN. When possible, include reference to published documentation.
From Jim Hughes
Attached is a document prepared by me that I have requested be added to the website historyofhteinternet.net. I joined IBM FSD in June 1966. I transferred to SPP. Tampa (which became the IBM Information Nework) October of 1980 and retired in July 1996. While in the Network my assignments in order were:, staff, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd line Development Manager. Manager of Network Operations, Manager of Worldwide Product Marketing, Manager of IBM’s EDI Business Unit for 1 year reporting to ASD in Milford CT, Manager of Marketing Support, and Director of Customer Support.
IVANS and the IIN Backstory
IVANS was formed by 21 independent insurance companies in 1982 with it’s HQ
in Tampa. It’s still going strong providing information exchange and value added
services for 38,000 agencies and 600 independent insurance companies. IBM
responded to their RFP for Value Added Network Services for any to any
communications between the independent Insurance companies and independent
agencies. Requirements also included dial connectivity, support of the protocols
used by agency systems, any to any information exchange between companies and
agents and a nationwide connectivity. IIN was selected and awarded the IVANS
contract in 1983.
I joined SPP in October 1980. Between then and the IBM Information Network
in1983, the Business model for IIN was Remote Computing Services (RCS). It was
organized chaos with. competing views of what should be done, indecision
dominated by presentations and a growing population mostly not knowing what
they were supposed to be doing. There was no organization or resource working on
basic business systems like billing and accounting.
When IVANS issued their RFP, IIN Marketing wanted the Network to submit a
bid. I managed the Development organization, and they called a meeting to get my
support before recommending going forward. They knew they had zero chance of
getting approval to bid without Development because the services to meet the RFP
requirements had to be developed. The Marketing Director insisted that Marketing
own and prepare the proposal and didn’t need help from Development. I argued
that they had no experience or competence or understood the scope required as it
was a major competitive RFP requiring a response for applications and services
that didn’t exist and would have to be designed and developed. This was business
as usual in FSD where I had some proposal experience. I finally told the Director if
Marketing owned the RFP and proposal I would not give them any support and
nobody could make me do it and I walked out. Bob Barham and one of his reps
followed me down the hall and begged me to support them. I agreed on the
condition that Development would own and prepare the proposal and that they
commit to keep the Director away from me.
I formed a dedicated full time proposal team and full time proposal manager with
offices together on the 2nd floor. When crunch time came I put John Lee in charge
as acting manager of Development and moved to an office with the proposal team
and led the proposal effort full time. Decisions were made in real time on a daily
even hourly basis. We needed support from many other functions like technical
publications, finance, marketing and operations.
Carroll Roose was in charge of the architecture and functional design of
Information Exchange which was the heart of the proposal. There were a number
of technical challenges like developing Information Exchange when we didn’t
have the CICS skills and resources to do it. How to provide dial up nationwide
service. How to support the non-SNA protocols used by agencies. How to develop
and implement the business systems etc required. The need to implement help
desk, customer support and marketing support for the new services. It would
impact every part of the business. We decided to develop the Information
Exchange prototype for beta testing with IMS while we were hiring CICS folks to
develop the production service. Dick Soucy said he knew of a warehouse of
surplus Series 1s were that could get cheap, so we arranged to get them as the
system to implement dial up and the protocol conversion needed. We just had to
have faith that the billing and accounting and customer support services etc.
needed would follow and be implemented once the company was committed if we
were awarded the contract.
When the technical and financial proposal and supporting documents were
completed, I was called to Greenwich, CT for an executive go/no go meeting.
There was extreme nervousness among the executives and their staff about
proposing capabilities we didn’t have. I was exhausted from working 11 and 12
hour days. I arrived in Greenwich late the day before the meeting and was warned
by our lawyer, who called me at the hotel, that the proposal would never be
approved unless I convinced everyone we could deliver. I stayed up till 5am in my
hotel room preparing an “off the cuff” detailed risk assessment, function by
function, with foils and a grease pen. After folks in the meeting (about 25 people)
the next day expressed their fears and worries, the lawyer gave me a nod and I got
up and presented my crude foils, discussing and assessing each risk in depth. After
I finished there was consensus to take the risks and submit our bid.
IVANS responded that we had submitted the best technical proposal but our costs
were 3 times that of the competition. The bean counters had priced our bid on
network traffic without any discussion or review with Development. In IBM,
pricing was a guarded secret, but they panicked when it looked like we lost because
of our costs. We reviewed their pricing with them and decided that network traffic
was the wrong way to price it and computer cycles with Information Exchange was
how it should be priced. We did some very creative and hasty modeling based on a
CICS implementation and worked with Finance to develop the new billing
elements.
Bob Barham and his right-hand man had since left IBM IN and Bob was now
President of IVANS and they were open to us modifying our bid with new pricing
and billing. I flew up to IVANS to explain the changes and why we were making
them. The new billing was based on IE message cycles and on the flight to IVANS
it hit me that we hadn’t accounted for message extensions. I called Jeff Ownley
(who had come on board as lead CICS developer) at home from La Guardia at
midnight and together we invented a billing element and cost for the message
extensions. The next day I got the new pricing and billing including the new billing
element approved in Greenwich and presented the new pricing and billing to
IVANS that afternoon. IVANS accepted our changes and rationale for making
them. Our proposal was now cost competitive, and we were awarded the contract.
There was an article in the NY Times covering our award and we were on the map.
The IIN business model prior to IVANS was an RCS model not a VAN model. On
Feb. 3,1982 a ½ page article was published in the NY Times titled “I.B.M Will
Rent Time On It;s Units”. The leading paragraph was: “The International Business
Machines Corporation yesterday announced its reentry into the remote computer
services business. Under the new service, customers will be able to rent time on
I.B.M computers in Tampa Fla., and have use of more than 100 programs stored on
those units.” There were 2 development departments working on providing
banking and medical office services using IBM industry applications out of
Irving,TX running in Tampa. Kurt Ziegler managed the Architecture organization
and was the major driver of the RCS model. IIN added the Data Centers in Irving
and Cary and small centers in DC and CT as synergistic with the RCS model.
But the IVANS award seemingly changed the IIN business model overnight from
an RCS model to a VAN model.
IVANS gave the Network a focus that didn’t exist before. The whole company was
committed and there could be no second guessing about resources and effort
required to deliver. We had to do pilot tests with IVANS with a skeleton model of
IE developed with IMS. In parallel we brought in the CICS resources and started
developing the production version of IE. We used the BPS mainframe capability to
demonstrate dial up and bysnc protocol support while developing and deploying
the Series 1 Gateway for nationwide deployment.
The rest is history. IVANS, IE, dial up, INPCS, data compression patent, Series 1
Gateway, network expansion., Quantum Leap as well order entry, billing, and
customer support, marketing support, operations and all the support. that was
needed. I killed the Banking and Medical services departments despite being
escalated by the Director in Irving. The resources from these departments were
redeployed to provide startup resources for the new Business System Development
organization. When I became Manager of Network Operation, I transferred the
Data Centers in Irving, Cary, DC and CT back to their labs as there was no synergy
with IIN after the transition to the VAN model. Everything implemented for
IVANS had broad industry application and was foundational to the additional
services and enhancements layered on like multi-level client network connectivity,
PROFS email, the Expedites etc.. IE and dial up became the biggest revenue
producers with IE providing a profit margin of 80%. The IE profit margin was
dumb luck due to our needing in reprice from network traffic to CPU cycles whose
unit costs keep going down exponentially. And these same VAN services were all
applicable industry wide not only domestically but also successfully deployed and
marketed internationally as well. And IIN became the IBM Global Network.
From Syd Heaton.
IBM Information Network/ADVANTIS Introductory Comments
When I was asked and accepted the invitation to become General Manager of the IBM information Network in 1984, I had very little idea what that organization was all about. But as I began to be briefed by the network professionals, I discovered several things. The people in the Network were totally dedicated to its purpose. The mission of the organization was sound, and the solution was needed in the marketplace. Significant software development still needed to be done. And a creative marketing approach was required to introduce the Network and its offerings to the marketplace. And, finally, the financial performance of the network had to dramatically improve, from significant financial losses to significant financial profit for the organization to survive. Incredible technical skills, inter-organizational teamwork, and never wavering focus by the entire management team allowed all these things to happen. These successes allowed the IBM Information Network to grow and eventually merge with a large telecommunications organization from Sears, into an IBM majority owned, stand-alone company called ADVANTIS. And the rest is history.
Syd Heaton, former GM of IIN and Chairman and CEO of ADVANTIS
NOTE from Don Sprague. This submission is also found on the first page.
From Jim Hughes
IBM the Internet and Cloud Computing
In February 3,1982 IBM announced the IBM Information Network as it’s
reintroduction into time-sharing with Remote Computing Services based on
a nationwide SNA network targeting the business market providing time
sharing-services for business applications and generalized programs like
financial services, programmer tools and text editing running on IBM
mainframe computers in Tampa.
In February 13, 1984 Prodigy was announced as a joint venture between
IBM, Sears, and Trintex. Prodigy was also based on an. SNA backbone
network and targeted the consumer market. It provided an online portal
with access to a wide range of news, consumer information and services,
original features, games, bulletin boards etc. and communication between
members. Connectivity was provided by a nationwide network with
regionalized Series1 Systems managed by IBM mainframes with x.25
dialup connection. In 2001 it was acquired by SBC Communications, now
AT&T.
The IBM Information Network’s Remote Computing Services strategy didn’t
materialize as the business model changed to Value Added Networking
with the award of the Insurance Value Added Network Services contract
and implementation in 1983. The nationwide VAN network included
non-SNA protocol conversion and dialup through Series1 systems
deployed at network nodes. Any to any information exchange was provided
for companies and trading partners. Many features like email and other
enhancements were added and the Network expanded and became a
successful international business with its VAN services successfully
implemented and marketed globally. Both Prodigy and the IBM Information
Network were precursors to the business and consumer services provided
through the Internet today.
Today’s services are processed by Server Farms implemented by providers
like IBM. A Server Farm is a very large collection of servers that can be
clustered or distributed. Server Farms can be used to provide time-sharing
services where clients share physical server resources or cloud computing
where each client has their own dedicated virtual server managed by a
hypervisor. Connectivity is normally through the Internet.
Hari Arora became responsible for the IBM Server Farm in1998. The
Server Farm consisted of many diverse clustered systems from PCs to
mainframes including non- IBM systems like Linux. All communication was
done through large shared Internet pipes managed and distributed by a
Director. Servers were dedicated to clients based on their requirements.
Some clients used a server for applications shared by their trading partners
and or users. Services evolved into today’s Open Hybrid IBM Cloud
Computing with clients owning dedicated virtual servers managed by a
hypervisor.
IBM was a leader in the evolution of time-sharing from concept in the 50’s,
to experimentation with MIT in the early 60’s, to providing time-sharing
services in the 60’s and early 70’s through its Service Bureau Corporation.
It was forced to sell SBC to Control Data as settlement of a lawsuit in 1973
and was out of the time sharing business at that time. IBM was also a
pioneer of cloud computing technology with it’s VM Operating System in
1972 (which managed multiple systems operating concurrently on S/370
mainframes)and deployment of a Server Farm with Internet connectivity..
So IBM was a leader in providing nationwide networking delivering
business VAN and consumer services, time-share services (which gave
birth to cloud computing), and cloud computing technology. And IBM was
also a very major player and leader in the evolution of the Internet. In 1987,
IBM teamed with MCI and Merit resulting in the transformation of National
Science Foundation’s NSFNET into the world wide web we have today
From Victor Saxe
I just wanted to update things about the IBM/IN IBM team in Tampa.
I joined Strategic Planning Project (SPP) in July 1981, before we were announced and renamed the IBM Informaton Network. I came knowing I was going to be named a Customer Assistance Manager.
After managing Customer Assistance for 2 years, I became the first Systems Engineer on the IBM team working for Barbara Bateman. The only Marketing Representative on the team was Jack Connors. We worked from Tampa and made many trips to IBM locations in White Plains, Dallas, Atlanta, Raleigh, Washington, etc.
After my last trip to Dallas in January 1984 and when getting ready to fly to Washington, I burst the aneurysm in my brain on January 23rd. After brain surgery and some rehabilitation, I was still having some memory problems.
I came back to work on the IBM team. John Creighton was now the new manager. My doctors didn’t want me to travel for a while, but I was able to do most tasks from my office in Tampa. Around the same time, Jack Connors passed away and Vern Stokes and Don Sprague were moved the IBM team. At that point, I was moved to be an assistant to Lew Wallace in Administration.