Declan Ganter co-founded and led two very different Dublin-based companies. The Matrix Group was one of Ireland’s largest computer sales organisations in the years when the PC trade mushroomed and Unix systems rose to prominence. Sepro Telecom developed the e-Rate billing software for network operators, attracted international customers and won innovation awards.
Descended from a family of clockmakers, Declan began his own career in technical roles, but soon progressed into sales and management positions.
I was an undergraduate studying general science in UCD in 1966. I was fortunate to have a cousin who worked in the university’s computer lab, which was adjacent to the new science block in Belfield, and used to visit her there. It was, at that time, one of only two buildings on the entire Belfield campus. I got to know most of her colleagues in the lab and developed an interest in computers. They alerted me to the fact that IBM had advertised for the position of trainee computer operator and I put in my application.
There were very few alternative computer companies in Ireland at the time. I was called for an ‘aptitude test’ in IBM to determine if I would progress to the interview stage. I was 19 years of age at the time and had little concept of a job interview or, more particularly, what an aptitude test was. I was introduced to Dudley Dolan, the computer manager at Cement Limited, who explained that IBM pre-screened its employees with an aptitude tests and showed me what these looked like. It was most helpful and I always remained very grateful to Dudley for his support.
I passed the aptitude test and went through four or five interviews over the subsequent months. In the end IBM accepted me. I started working there on 15 April 1968, along with Peter Donnelly, who went on to become the country manager in Ireland for both DEC and EDS.
I had not yet finished my degree at UCD so, with the support of IBM, I switched to TCD’s new evening diploma course in computer science. In later years I added a Trinity MSc in business management to my qualifications.
For six years I held different technical roles at IBM Ireland, starting off as a computer operator. The company initially assigned me to its service bureau which processed a variety of applications for many of the country’s medium to large organisations, including the monthly RTE payroll and bills for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. In those days the telephone bill posted to customers’ homes was, in fact, a punch card with a ‘please do not bend’ instruction. People were asked to return this card with their payment.
Training in IBM was on the job, continuous, very professional and somewhat intensive. The work of a computer operator was complex, because the equipment at that time handled few tasks automatically. The job required significant attention to detail, demanding constant concentration and human intervention. Working as an operator on a variety of applications gave me a very sound understanding of business processes and how computers could be applied to them.
The bureau ran two IBM 1401 computers and a variety of punch card management equipment that processed cards before the computers used them. John O’Leary was the manager there. Noel Carroll – a middle distance runner who represented Ireland at the Olympic Games – together with Frances O’Grady managed the ‘punch room’ – similar in concept to a typing pool – where a team of women recorded customers’ transaction data with machines that made holes in cards. The bureau was not yet using magnetic tape.
My job was to take trays of cards with the punched up transactions to a card sorting machine that was programmed with a patch panel. This machine sequenced the cards according to their dates or customer names. They were then fed into a card merging machine, together with a master file of punch cards that held customer information. Again, a patch panel was used to set the appropriate merging instructions, which were unique to each job. The IBM 1401 then read the combined stack, processed the job based on additional pre-programmed instructions using JCL, followed by the application software program, which was a further deck of punch cards. These instructions invoked the job, processed the data on the cards and printed the results. Afterwards we had to unsort all those cards again.
IBM folklore suggests that its punched cards were the same size as dollar bills because, when the company was originally founded in the US, it purchased second hand money counting machines as its original card handling equipment.
After about a year as a computer operator I was promoted to the position of programmer/analyst. I learned Cobol and Assembler for the IBM System/360. Debugging a program was unbelievably tedious. It sometimes required reams of sheets of printed hexadecimal code – essentially a ‘core dump’ of the contents of all the registers in the computer’s memory. We had to wade through these registers, tracing the logic of the program until the discrepancies were found. Then the program had to be changed, recompiled and debugged again.
Subsequent next generation program compilers did all this automatically.
It was around this time that IBM began to sell minicomputers to organisations that could never have afforded a computer before. This was very relevant to the Irish market where the vast majority of business were small or medium size. The importance of the bureau declined after the coming of the System/3 and the single-user System/32 that followed it. These machines used the RPG II language whose compilers seemed very sophisticated in comparison with Cobol. I never programmed in RPG. I moved into systems analysis instead, still working on projects that used System/360 and System/370 mainframes.
When IBM Ireland decided to introduce the Call/360 timesharing service, the company assigned me to Basinghall Street in London, where I learned how to support it. This service utilised a remote terminal based on a golfball typewriter, connected by a leased phone line and modem to a mainframe facility in London. Call/360 users in Ireland included, among others, Brooks Thomas, Bearcat Tyres and Gillette. NET in Arklow also used the service for scientific applications and developed its own software for it.
In 1975 I moved from technical support to a sales role at IBM. At first I sold the timesharing service – Baxter Travenol Laboratories in Castlebar was my first customer – but soon I joined the new general systems division (GSD).
This group was responsible for minicomputer sales and, more specifically, for the System/32. When the System/34 and System/38 arrived, it handled those as well. There had been a corporate GSD for years, but IBM Ireland did not form one until the mid 1970s and did not operate it as a wholly separate division. The lines were somewhat blurred. For example, when I went to Galway as the GSD salesman in the west, I also sold a System/370 mainframe to Thermo King.
Albert Tee was the overall branch manager for mid-range systems. When IBM Ireland created the GSD and it named Joe Rooney as its unit manager.
The GSD division was the first in IBM that focused on selling applications rather than hardware. The corporation had developed its own mid-range applications in the RPG II language, including DMAS for wholesale distribution and MMAS for manufacturers. MMAS was particularly attractive because it had a just-in-time (JIT) purchasing module. The concept of JIT was emerging as a key focus for smart manufacturing processes, but it took a long time before any customers actually installed that particular module.
GSD set up a demonstration facility in its offices in Fleming House with separate screens to show how its applications could support the different departments of a company. This was a really slick way of selling systems, especially to first-time computer users. So the company staged a System/32 roadshow in a large truck that could travel around the country. I was one of the salespeople that it sent out on the road, along with David Leech, Rufus Langley, who subsequently joined SDS, Phil Murphy and Paul Harvey – both later moved on to Digital Equipment Ireland and Paul eventually became its general manager.
When we demonstrated the System/32, we were not selling a machine. We were selling applications. We also tried to explain how the computer worked. We put a hard disk on the sidewall of the roadshow van so that prospects could see an example of data storage technology. One potential buyer asked how it was possible to transfer data from a computer to a wall-mounted disk!
IBM’s regional representative in Galway
The System/34 followed in 1977. This was exciting because it was a multi-user system that was not a mainframe and therefore more affordable (it only cost about £100K!). It came with readymade applications, which alleviated the need to hire expensive IT resources.
After an order was taken, new customers did not usually receive their delivery for 18 months to two years after they signed their contract with IBM. When we sold a system, we had to keep the customer committed. We encouraged them to start knocking walls and building a computer room during the waiting period.
In 1977 I became a regional representative for IBM first in Galway and subsequently in Cork, working from a rented house. IBM needed a computer sales presence in Cork as they were losing business to Telex Computers Ireland, which was run by Rod McGahon, David Fitzgibbon and Peter Ainscough. The Telex System III had specifications that were comparable with IBM’s machines, but it cost about half as much. My mission was to fight off Telex in the west and increase IBM’s footprint in the area.
Part of my strategy was to focus on American companies with production facilities in Ireland. They usually chose IBM computers because their parent organisations were IBM customers. A lot of these companies had located their subsidiaries west of the Shannon. The AT Cross factory in Ballinasloe was one of my US-owned prospects. It was hard to get the responsible manager there to sign a contract, but I persuaded him eventually. I pointed out that, if he placed the order, he would be able to tell his golf club colleagues that he had bought the first computer in Ballinasloe.
Among others, I also sold systems to Baxter Travenol Laboratories (Castlebar), Abbot Laboratories (Sligo), Irish Sewing (Westport), SNIA (Sligo), Thermo King (Galway), GTP (Galway) and a number of companies in the Shannon Industrial Estate, including Kraus & Neimer and De Beers.
It took about 18 months to stop the progress of Telex and to win over all four installations – partly on the strengths of IBM’s computers and partly because the users had found limitations in the Telex alternative.
I bought a house in Cork and discovered, through selling a System/32 to accountancy firm Cooper Magennis, that its managing partner lived next door to me. They were looking for an incomplete records accounting system. I brought him to a similar IBM customer in Glasgow in search of appropriate software and he subsequently installed a System/32 with that software. It was a very successful installation. He gave me contacts in a number of companies in the south, including Cork Examiner, Harrington’s Bakery, Suttons, Murray & Sons and Kellehers (Killarney). All of these installed IBM systems. I even joined the Cork and County Club when he proposed me as a member. This institution had its own restaurant and bar, where business networking took place. Everyone who was anyone doing business in Cork benefitted from being a member.
By the end of the 1970s most of the application software for IBM minicomputers came from partner companies and the focus of the GSD shifted more to partner management. IBM’s mid-range partners in Ireland included Applied Management Systems, Software Development Services and Systems Software, which Michael Kirwan set up in 1975. I got to know this company very well in the 1980s when they eventually became an associate company of The Matrix Group. Systems Software developed pharmaceutical industry applications, initially on the System/34, collaborating with United Drug as its key customer. Later on it added software for retailers and Dunnes Stores became a major user.
I returned to Dublin in 1980 and joined IBM’s large account division under Sean McElwain and Colman O’Sullivan. Most of its customers were in government departments and CDPS became my largest customer.
The industry was changing significantly, driven by the PC products which presented opportunities to set up niche businesses.
Joe Rooney, who I had previously worked with in IBM, had set up one such company, called the Matrix Group. After 11 years in the company I departed from IBM Ireland and joined Joe at the Matrix Group.
Last edit: August 2018
© Declan Ganter 2018