History of Norsk Data

The company was founded by Lars Monrad-Krohn, Rolf Skår and Per Bjørge, three computer engineers working at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment which had just built the minicomputer SAM 2.

Two years later the database program Sibas (SIBAS is (tm) of SRS that has full rights to the code developed at the Central Institute for Industrial Research by Olli, Salter, Aschim and Hoffmann) had been completely ported and made available, and the following year a 150-terminal system connected via X.21/X.25 based XMSG and a flight simulator backbone for the F-16 were delivered.

At the peak in 1986 and 1987, Norsk Data had 4,500 employees, 2.5 billion Norwegian krone (NOK) in revenue and was Norway's second-largest company by market capitalization—having increased fifty-fold between 1977 and 1985.

The other company which showed interest for the technology was the Horten-based Norcontrol, which was working on a project for ship automation but needed a computer to run the system.

New investors included Norsk Elektrisk & Brown Boveri (NEBB), Habberstad and Tharald Brøvig Jr.[22] The first Nord-1 was inaugurated on 21 May 1968 and sent to the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH) to have instruments installed.

The first major conflict in top management took place in February 1971 regarding a new organizational structure, with Monrad-Krohn on the one side and Bjørge and Skår on the other.

The issues caused two board members to resign[35] and in June ten employees were laid off after orders were NOK 3 million below budget.

[36] The company was saved by a NOK 6-million contract with the Norwegian Meteorological Institute which ND won in February 1971 in competition with major international players.

[46] The company decided to participate with eighty-seven other suppliers to win a contract with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) for its accelerator.

[47] The first tender was unsuccessful, but a delegation from CERN visited all the European manufacturers, largely out of courtesy as they had a long history of choosing American suppliers.

[49] ND bid sixty percent lower than the prototype supplyer, Digital Equipment Corporation, and ND was only underbid by three manufacturers, all which were found to not meet their technical criteria by CERN.

[57] In the first years, ND sales representatives wore jeans and would present the products to other engineers and computer personnel, with the focus on the technical details.

[58] This changed in the mid-1970s when the company started selling computers to the business sector, where the customer representatives typically were heads of the accounting or warehouse departments.

[64] From the mid-1970s ND started serving a more differentiated customer base and was increasingly dependent on the sales force coming with feedback as to which functionality needed to be developed.

At the time this was based on the strategy that the high profit margins were in the central parts of the hardware while independent software firms were not making money.

ND decided to start a campaign to sell typesetting computers to Norwegian newspapers and developed along with Data Logic GMS-12, later renamed Nortext.

[69] An important contract was signed in the aftermath of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium ordering the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets.

In the end, three of four simulator contenders bid with ND-based systems, combining Nord-50 and Nord-10/S machines,[71] and the contract was awarded to Singer Link.

The government continued to press the issue and promised a large grant to the industry if it merged, but Norsk Data stood on its rejection.

In April 1979 Norsk Data agreed to take over Tandberg's training materials' division and its facilities at Skullerud in Oslo, which would give ample space for expansion.

ND accepted the deal and paid NOK 12 million for 92 percent of the company, the last part being owned by the Industrial Development Corporation of Norway.

[81] Development of the office suit Notis started in January 1978 out of the existing expertise in typesetting and a desire to sell computers to the public sector.

[82] The word processing section was based on a program which had been developed by an employee while working at CERN and this was combined with systems for incorporating tables with figures such as budgets.

[88] Development of the successor to the Nord-50, the ND-500, started in 1978 and had so fundamental changes to the system architecture (was not made from bit-slice components but microprogrammed with a new instruction set) that all software had to be rewritten - except for SINTRAN.

[citation needed] The company's Samson architecture ND-5000 machines employed CMOS gate arrays fabricated by LSI Logic.

[118] During the mid-1980s, the market shifted such that customers went away from purchasing hardware and instead wanted complete systems including software, preferably tailor-made for the industry.

[120] As an increasing number of customers asked for open standard solutions, such as personal computers (PC) and Unix, ND started developing products to meet the demand.

ND had bought several software and hardware companies without a defined strategy, and often without adding new segments to the portfolio, as they often had overlapping products.

[148] With the introduction of standard hardware platforms, computer manufacturers had to deliver unique software portfolios to avoid a pure price competition.

However, the partner divisions had very low margins so the profits were being made in the other business units, and thus receiving the praise of top management.