ICL
ICL was formed
in 1968 by merging the UK's leading indigenous computer
suppliers, English Electric Computers and International
Computers and Tabulators (ICT). In 1984, ICL was acquired
by STC (Standard Telephones and Cables) to form one
of Europe's leading communications and information systems
groups. At the end of November 1990, Fujitsu Limited
acquired an 80 per cent shareholding in the company;
Nortel Networks (formerly known as Northern Telecom)
held the 20 per cent balance. By virtue of two rights
issues in 1993-94 and 1996, Fujitsu increased its stake
to 90.1 per cent.
ICL closed its last manufacturing site in 1996 with
the sale of D2D computer manufacturing business to Celestica
of Canada and de-merger of the personal computer and
server business to Fujitsu. In September 1998 Fujitsu
acquired the 9.9 per cent balance from Nortel Networks.
Fujitsu therefore owned 100 per cent of ICL. In April
2002 ICL was fully integrated into the Fujitsu Group
of companies and became known as Fujitsu Services within
the UK and Europe.
ICL was a
formidable player in the mainframe and midrange market
for many years and enjoyed tremendous success with its
Series 19/29/39 mainframe running the proprietary VME
operating system. ICL also entered the UNIX market in
the 1990’s with a range of UNIX based platforms.
Some of ICL’s
legacy platforms include:
- Series 19, Series 29 and Series 39 Mainframe
- ME 29
- System 25
- DRS20
- DRS300
- CLAN
- DRS6000
Integrating
ICL based Applications
ICL was very successful in the UK and Europe with a
high concentration of its sales in the public sector.
ICL mainframes are still running many mission-critical
applications today for key government departments including
the Inland Revenue. The ICL legacy platforms, as with
many mainframe and midrange systems of the day were
never designed to integrate with other computer systems.
In fact, the only interface to the system was that of
the end-user, through the terminal/workstation devices.
Applications residing ICL legacy systems would have
been written to support specific terminal types, and
the transport of information to and from the terminal
and the ICL system would utilize what is referred to
today as a terminal data stream. This terminal data
stream is the only ubiquitous, non-invasive application
interface provided by a legacy application. MitemView
utilizes this data stream as an application interface.
The common data streams for ICL are known as ICL 7561
and VT, the latter being specific to ICL’s UNIX
platforms, such as the DRS300, CLAN and DRS6000.
This means that applications which run on ICL platforms
can now be integrated, non-invasively and in real-time,
with new applications, whether they are composite applications,
packaged or web-based.
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