The Wolfson Signal Processing Centre at Queen’s University Belfast undertook bespoke engineering projects. Fabian Monds was the director and it employed three or four engineers plus a secretary. People from industry or government would come to us with special requests. When I worked there, for example, we worked out a way of using radar to identify cars that were driven up motorway ramps in the wrong direction.
I joined the centre after studying electronic engineering at Queen’s. After a couple of years I started planning a career change. I had seen how the salespeople for technical products spent their days visiting customers and driving around in company cars. I wanted a job like that. I applied to join a test and measurement equipment company, but then I got talking to Ed Vernon, one of the other Wolfson engineers. The two of us realised that there were better sales opportunities in the personal computer market. We saw a chance to join a new industry right at the start and, because of our electronics background, we might have some unique advantages in that industry.
I had never owned a computer, but I had used an Apple II at Wolfson and the secretary there had a CP/M machine that ran WordStar. When we started planning our new business venture in late 1983 and early 1984 the computer business was changing rapidly. A new PC had arrived and it was different from all the other products because it had the three letters I-B-M on the box.
Our first objective was to get a major brand. There were other guys in the Northern Ireland market and we knew exactly what they were doing but, unlike them, we would be starting with no previous computer sales experience or customer contacts. IBM’s dealer vetting process was very strict and we knew that we would not get to sell its systems.
For a while we considered the DEC Rainbow. The hardware was good and its graphics were better than IBM’s but not many people were developing applications for the Rainbow. We realised that without software it would have limited appeal so we looked elsewhere.
In the end we picked a manufacturer that, like ourselves, had no track record behind them. California-based Corona Data Systems was one of the first companies with an IBM-compatible PC. The Rainbow could not run software written for IBM but the Corona could. One of its two models contained a hard disk and sold for about £4,000. The company had a distributor based in Belper in the English East Midlands. Midlectron agreed to supply us under cash-on-delivery terms. We ordered two hard disk machines – one for resale and one for our own use with word processing and spreadsheets.
BIC Systems’ premises in York Street, Belfast
BIC Systems started trading in 1984 from an office on the Antrim Road in Belfast. Our first sale – a single Corona PC with a dot matrix printer, MultiMate and Lotus 1-2-3 – went to a bookmaker. It was one of the first Northern Ireland companies in that line of business to install a computer system.
Other early customers included the University of Ulster and Harland and Wolff.
Magazines and visits to trade shows in England helped us to keep up with the technology and to learn how the market worked. Sometimes we got into new areas at the very start. For example, we were introduced to the Javelin financial modelling product by one of our contacts at the university and sold it to Short Brothers. Javelin was an exceptional product at the time and in 1985 actually beat MS Excel to the Infoworld Product of the Year. We were intrigued by what this software could do and even supplied a review copy to one of the UK magazines.
Ashton-Tate signed a marketing deal for Javelin in 1986. That was when we encountered Ashton-Tate’s dBase II, MultiMate and the Framework office suite which featured a word processor, a spreadsheet, a mini-database and other tools.
PCs were able do more and more things and we wanted customers to know about them. Word processing was still mind-blowing for many people, especially when we showed them how MultiMate came with a spell checker and could integrate spreadsheets and graphics into documents. We started running customer events to show off the power of new applications. Then we got into customer training in a more structured way and were the first company in Northern Ireland to fit out a custom built training suite for PC courses. This opened after we moved to York Street in 1986. Our new premises were in a more prominent location and we put digital signage on the side of the building to attract attention.
Ed Vernon, Desi McGlade and Johnny Convery – the three directors of BIC systems – pictured in 1989.
(Photograph courtesy of Desi McGlade)
Anne Clydesdale joined BIC Systems as training manager. Her background was in computer training and she helped to build up the public perception of the company in this area. Training became a significant part of the business for us.
In 1988 we started working with Compaq. We had approached them four years earlier when they turned us down. Now, in contrast, we had built up a reputation as a PC supplier, sourcing systems from ICL and Honeywell Bull. Those companies were not brand leaders. They gave priority to their large mainframe and mini computers and weren’t seriously committed to the PC marketplace. As a result we revisited Compaq and Compaq realised our potential and that it could build a good partnership with us. All the support services that we wanted and were paramount to running a successful dealership were in place at Compaq. That partnership lasted until 2002 when HP acquired Compaq.
During our first few years the PC market matured rapidly. Sales increased, not only in absolute terms but also in terms of the number of units per sale. By 1988 some users were beginning to install Unix on PCs and to connect them to dumb terminals. We were now selling Tetra‘s Unix-based accounting software as well. We also took on Comfact Turbo, a Unix-based application for motor factor management and sold it to about half a dozen businesses.
By now BIC Systems was well established as a computer supplier to the NI public sector and we had developed a definite preference for focusing on large accounts including Short Bros and University of Ulster.
I stayed with the company right up to the end of 2004, when the business was acquired by BT. I subsequently moved across to BT and I am working there still.
Last edit: November 2018
© Desi McGlade 2018