In article ,
Derek ^ writes:
On 24 Aug 2006 15:22:53 GMT, "Bob Eager" wrote:
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:01:23 UTC, Derek ^
wrote:
Whatever did happen to A.E.I. G.E.C. English Electric, Metro Cammell,
Elliot Automation, Lyons Electronic Office, Marconi ?
GEC merged with Marconi...who didn't collapse until this government..
That wasn't the original "Marconi" it was a re-launching re-branding
marketing exercise involving mostly bought in aquisitions. When I
started work after Uni (1969) a great many ex Marconi engineers
started with me on the same day.
GEC owned the Marconi name since the late 1960's, and some
GEC Companies continued using it. In the late 1990's, GEC
decided that the Marconi brand was better known worldwide
than the GEC name, and so they switched the name to Marconi,
ditching the GEC and GPT names. There were many attempts by
various GEC companies over the years to get the GEC logo
updated to something modern, but Weinstock wouldn't pay the
worldwide costs of doing so.
Elliott and EE merged with ICT to form ICL. Do try and keep up. LEO were
made by EE.
ICT got only the data processing part of Elliotts, which was
mainly the rebadged NCR Elliott 4100 systems. All the rest
of Elliotts (the computer systems they designed themselves
and all the non computing parts of the business) moved into
GEC. I have the slides shown to the workforce when this
happened, and I put some online at
http://www.cucumber.demon.co.uk/geccl/19471972
Following the split into GEC and ICT, GEC were not permitted
to operate in the Data Processing business for 5 years, and
ICT were not permitted to operate in the real-time, process
control, and military market areas for 5 years.
The computing part of Elliotts was renamed GEC Computers
in 1971, and remained in the former Elliott main building
until around 2002. That's also about the time the last
Elliott commercial computer system ceased being on maintenance
(it was used for traffic light control, in Birmingham IIRC).
Some of the Elliott military systems may still be in use.
--
Andrew Gabriel