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Unisys

Unisys: A Journey from the Typewriters Makers to the Biggest IT Service Providers

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Unisys is an American global IT company founded in 1986, having a history with firearms, typewriters, and calculation machines. The company deals in IT consulting, software, and outsourcing services. Unisys headquarter is based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. As an IT company, Unisys specializes in system integration, high-end server technology, cloud management software, maintenance, and support as well as cybersecurity. Unisys is a result of the merger of three different companies, E.Remington, Sperry Gyroscope Company, and the American Airthmometer Company, all three specializing in distinct domains.

The Long Back History of Unisys

The history of Unisys dates back to 1816 when a company named E. Remington was founded by Eliphalet Remington. The company was a manufacturer of firearms. But later, when Remington’s three sons joined the company, they thought of expanding its operations. In 1873, the company tried their hands-on building typewriters and introduced the first commercially viable typewriter, named the Remington Model 1, having the QWERTY layout. Later the company built a new typewriter model in which the typist could use the Shift key to make a letter capital.

During the same time, the American Airthmometer Company (Later renamed to Burroughs Adding Machine) had also got the patent for an adding machine that would only record the final result of a calculation. On the other hand, the Sperry Gyroscope Company was in the business of manufacturing navigation equipment for ships and aircraft.

Unisys
Image Source: unisys.co.in

By 1925 Burroughs had introduced a calculating machine that can also subtract and a billing machine that could perform direct multiplication. The Remington’s, on the other hand, had already introduced a noise-less typewriter as well as America’s first electrical typewriter.

In 1927, the Remington Typewriter Company partnered with the Rand Kardex Corporation, and the merger resulted in the Remington Rand company. This partnership led to the acquisition of many other companies, including the Dalton Adding Machine Company, the Powers Accounting Machine Company, the Baker-Vawter Company, etc., making their way into the computation world. With the acquisition of Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, and the founding of the Engineering Research Associates (ERA), the journey of Remington Rand started as one of the biggest computer manufacturers in the US. In June 1951, Remington Rand manufactured its first computer named Univac I (Universal Automatic Computer), first used by the US census bureau.

In 1955, the Remington Rand and Sperry Gyroscope had a merger, forming the company Sperry Rand. The company in a decade delivered over 100 computers to the military and for commercial use. Some of these computers were also used for weather forecasting by the US government. The Remington Rand in 1955 also introduced the Univac 1103, which was the first computer to use RAM. Finally, in 1986, Burroughs also merged with Sperry Rand, and hence Unisys was formed.

Journey as Unisys

Unisys was a result of a $4.8 billion worth acquisition of the Sperry Rand by Burroughs, one of the largest of its time. The name, Unisys, was selected through a competition with 31000 entries. Unisys is a combination of words united, information and systems. With this merger, the company became the second-biggest computer manufacturing company, having over 120000 employees working for it.

Though the company continued to deliver products to the US government, it saw a steep decline in the number of its customer base for commercial computers. The company was facing a lot of competition and had to cut its employees count too. In fact, the company had replaced three CEOs in seven years.

From Manufacturing to Service Providers

Later, the company decided to shift the business from manufacturing computers to providing IT services and high-end servers. Along with that, the company also started dealing with outsourcing its services, systems integration, and consulting services, etc. In the year 2000, Unisys introduced the UNISYS ES7000 servers.

Along with computers, Unisys was also holding ownership of a medical and healthcare insurance wing, i.e., a company named Medicare. Unisys sold the company in 2010, for a sum of $135 million.

Unisys has always been a big player in the field of IT, and its clients include the various departments of the US government and major names like Dell, Lloyd Banks, Nextel, Swift, and Telefonica, etc. Currently, Peter Altabef is serving Unisys as the CEO as well as the President. Around 22,000 employees are working for the company, and as of 2018, Unisys has $2.83 billion in total annual revenue.

Glassdoor

Glassdoor: The Story Behind the Biggest Online Review Portal for Job Seekers

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Years ago, people were practicing the traditional approach to finding jobs, i.e., through the newspaper classified section, local ads, brokers, or a reference from a friend or relative. But as the internet evolved with time, people started using online job portals, which became the most convenient method for all sorts of job seekers. Today millions of users, both employers and job seekers, can easily connect through such portals. In the same league, when one is looking for a job and gets an offer, they now can look for the company reviews on similar review-based websites, and easily make their mind on taking or not taking the offer. One such leading review-based online portal is Glassdoor.

Glassdoor is a review-based website that lets its users anonymously submit their reviews about a company, their experience, satisfaction with the company, salary, other workplace-related data, etc. This information is publicly available to job seekers, who want to know about the work environment of a certain company. The website also includes the feature to post or search for a job.

The Founders of Glassdoor

The co-founders of Glassdoor include Tim Besse, Robert Hohman, and Rich Barton. Both Robert Hohman and Rich Barton were working for Microsoft. Barton founded Expedia (a Microsoft spun-off company) in 1996, where Hohman was one of the team members. Later, after the spin-off, Barton became the chairman and Hohman the CEO of Expedia.

Glassdoor Founders
Glassdoor Founders: Robert Hohman, Tim Besse, and Rich Barton
Image Source: geekwire.com

On the other hand, Tim Besse met his future partners Hohman and Barton at Expedia only. He joined the company as his first job immediately after graduating from the Case Western Reserve University. Besse worked as the director of the Product Management and Online Marketing for the Asia Pacific division at Expedia.

The Story Behind

Rich Barton had been in the online business industry from before and had co-founded companies like Expedia and Zillow. He had a mind that would ask questions and try to answer them, even if he had to opt for an unconventional path. Going off track, with Expedia, he was providing airline ticket prices to the public and, with Zillow, he was revealing the exact real estate prices for the people. With Glassdoor too, he took an unconventional step.

During a brainstorming session for a new business idea in 2007, Barton and Hohman remembered an incident when Barton had left some employee survey data on the printer. This survey had information about employee satisfaction, their salaries, and reviews of their workplace. Though Barton’s assistant had grabbed that file safely, the two discussed the bad and the good aspects of that information going public. It was the trigger point for their new business idea. The two thought that even if that data had got revealed, it would have not caused any harm to anyone. In fact, if there was such a public platform, where people could submit such reviews of their companies, it would have been helpful for the job seekers to make better career choices.

The Working of Glassdoor

Tim Besse was impressed by the idea and left Expedia to join Hohman and Barton for their new business.  Finally, in June 2008, with an investment of around $10 million, they founded Glassdoor. The concept behind the platform was the anonymous rating of companies by the people who have worked with them. People now had a platform, where they could put their reviews on their experience with a company, how much they got paid, and how satisfied they were while working in it. Glassdoor also enabled the users to post any company-related media on the platform, to make their reviews more authentic.

The Platform uses smart technology and a team of people to filter the original reviews from original people so that the reviews are always trustworthy. With time, the platform started posting their rating for the companies, by averaging the reviews, salaries of employees, rating for the management, culture, etc. Later, based on the rating, Glassdoor started offering the ‘Best Places to Work Awards’ to the top listed companies.

The Journey of the Company in the Past Decade

In 2010, the company added a new feature to the website, i.e. Enhanced Employer Profiles. This new feature allows the users to add content other than reviews on the website. This feature is paid and offers the users to add content like social media links, interview questions, classified, etc. to their account. This paid content became useful for the people who wanted to prepare for a certain company interview. Glassdoor also provided features to submit a job opening for companies.

From 2012 to 2015, the company had raised around $160 million through venture capital. By 2015, Glassdoor had registered over 20 million users, and in the following two years, there were 41 million unique users at the platform. Glassdoor became a unicorn company within ten years of its founding. More than one-third of the biggest companies in the world have partnered with Glassdoor as its corporate clients. It has become the most trustworthy platform for job seekers. Glassdoor has been a winner of the Red Herring North America Award for Social Media Innovation 2013.

In June 2018, Recruit Holdings acquired Glassdoor for $1.2 billion in cash. Currently, Christian Sutherland-Wong is working as the CEO of Glassdoor.

Epic Logo

Epic Systems – The result of Judith Faulkner’s vision to make healthcare facilities more advance

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In this pandemic, every individual realizes the importance of healthcare facilities. More healthcare facilities lower the risk to the patient’s life. Thus, making it an individual part of a human’s life. So, the firms that develop software to enable such healthcare services play an important role. Epic is developing healthcare software since 1979. It is a USA based firm whose developed software is used in most of the hospitals. More than 50% of patients’ medical records in America are stored in the Epic system’s software. Currently, it has offices in many countries, including, Netherland, UAE, Australia, and many more. As well, Epic’s office at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Melbourne, Singapore, and Denmark has significant importance there.

Backstory of Epic

In 1979, Judith Faulkner set up Epic in Madison in Wisconsin. At that time she put an investment of 70K dollars only. She only took help from friends and family to raise the fund and kept it as a private firm in the healthcare industry. Meanwhile, in 2005, the firm shifted its headquarters in Verona. The firm started as a small start-up grew into a large firm over the years. One more interesting thing about Epic is its theme infrastructure. The building of the firm has been designed like Harry Potter’s school building. As well, its cafeteria is designed to mimic the train station.

More about Epic

The firm is best known for developing software called Epic EMR. These are basically electronic medical record software. They are best known for chronicle database management. Other applications of the firm are design for registration, scheduling, and some other patient care purposes. As well, few are best known for clinical systems for emergency patients, doctors, nurses, and other care workers. Apart from that, it is also developing software for a medical billing system, pharmacies, radiology department, and many other hospital-related departments.

Other than that Epic is also active in cloud hosting. Thus, helping clients to maintain servers by themselves. It also provides optimization (Short term) through its very own Boost services. With all such services, the firm is rise as a tough rival to MEDITECH, Cerner, Allscripts, etc. In addition, IBM, McKesson, GE Healthcare, Siemens are other competitors of Epic.

Further exploration

As per the World report, many topmost hospitals use the software service of Epic. Kaiser Permanente, Cedras-Sinai Medical Center, UC Davis Medical center are some of the top medical facility providers that prefer Epic. Also, top hospitals like Johns Hopkins Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, and many Mayo clinics use electronic record systems of the firm. In 2015, Epic became part of a healthcare project with Partners HealthCare.

Controversies and Criticism faced by Epic

Care Everywhere, one of the information exchange software developed by Epic has been accused by many. Because Epic initially not allowed data sharing between non-epic systems. However, it, later on, charge money to transfer essential data to a non-epic system. This cost was as high as 5000$/year to an average size hospital. But later on, per transaction fees has canceled. Yet, customers have to pay a one-time fee to link Epic to non-epic systems. Other than this issue, Epic has faced many problems when its electronic health record system installation causes major failures in the UK.

This incident took place in 2015, where it had become unstable after sharing more than 2.1M health records. Thus, making the loss of 200 million euros to Cambridge University Hospitals NHS foundation trust, UK. Just after one year, Epic got stuck in more controversy due to improper translation causing incorrect medical reports.  Recently, about 90% of Epic’s employees raised a concern about the firm’s role in handling the covid-19 situation. They rigorously expressed dissatisfaction with Epic’s response to deal with a pandemic.

Judith Faulkner-Founder and CEO at Epic

Epic Founder and CEO Judith Faulkner
Image Source: healthcareitnews.com

Well-recognized businesswoman and billionaire in America, Judith is responsible for the re-shaping healthcare sector. In 1979, she built Epic under the name Human Services computing. The firm was set up to provide the service as per the name, i.e., human services computing. Her efforts make her the most powerful woman in healthcare, as per the Forbes 2013 report. As well, she got reorganization as one of the wealthiest self-made women in 2020.

Education and Career

Judith attended Moorestown Friends School for early education. Thereafter, she joined Dickinson College to study Mathematics. She also has a master’s degree in Computer science. Just after completing pf master’s degree, she plunged into entrepreneurship. As a result, established Epic aka Human Services Computing. Faulkner shares a great contribution to keep the firm as a private company since 1979.

AppFolio

AppFolio – A firm that revolutionized the way business grow with its topmost property and investment SaaS applications

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Over the years, Software-as-a-service i.e., SaaS is getting attention from all kinds of businesses. Because it offers multiple benefits over standard software installation methods, previously used in a business environment. There are several firms out there that provide SaaS applications, but a few provide such services to the real estate vertical market. AppFolio is one of such firms that offers SaaS applications and services to many businesses, including the real estate vertical. The firm is most active in cloud-based property management software solutions/services. Also, it works in data analytics for the real estate profession.

In 2006, the firm has started a journey to revolutionize the way of business growth. However, it explores the business by acquiring satisfied customers in a very short duration. Currently, it is active in LA, San Diego, Boston, etc. While it is headquartered in Goleta, California. 

How AppFolio is formed?

The foundation of business is laid on the belief to transform the way a business grows. Keeping in mind the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, the firm opens the office in 2006. After a year, they launched the AppFolio Property Manager as their first product. Soon, it has received a good response in a vertical market. Thereafter, the firm has launched another SaaS application for investment management. It doesn’t stop here, on top of that, it has acquired legal practice management software firm MyCase. However, it then sold in 2020 for 193 dollars to Apax Funds. 

In 2015, the firm has entered into the real estate software business with the acquisition of RentLinx. This acquisition helped AppFolio to get more clients and included its name in a greater listing presence. Moreover, it has acquired WegoWise and Dynasty Marketplace in consecutive years 2018-19. 

Products and services

AppFolio Property Manager offers an all-in-one platform for leasing, accounting, marketing, and management functionality. It is not made for only large size businesses. While it can be used for both professional and personal purposes. Recently, in 2018, the firm has launched its plus version. Apart from that, it has created a SaaS application for real estate investment management too.

Glimpse to masterminds at AppFolio

AppFolio Founders
Jon Walker and Klaus Schauser
Image Source: appfolioinc.com and prweb.com

Jon Walker

He is presently operating as CTO and holds an equal contribution as Klaus to enabling the digital transformation of the firm. As well, he is playing an important role to drive AI and technology vision for it. Before that, Jon leads various top positions throughout his career. Like senior technologist at many prestigious firms. Apart from that, he has dozens of patents on his name. As a matter of fact, Walker has guided world-known software used in 20+ million computers globally.

Coming to his education, he is honored with a B.S. in Economics and Business from Westmont College. Prior to his industrial career, he was active in the teaching profession. He was a professor at several colleges in a computer science subject. 

Klaus Schauser

One of the co-founders of AppFolio has also founded Expertcity. He holds the position as a Chief strategist at AppFolio at present. However, he is also serving as CEO at GoToMeeting which he created too. Apart from that, K. Schauser has also taught CS at California University.

Jason Randall-CEO

AppFolio CEO
Image Source: appfolioinc.com

He is serving as President and CEO at the firm. As well, he is serving as one of the board of directors. J. Randell helped in cultivating the vision of AppFolio and help in making it bigger and successful. Randell joined the leadership team at AppFolio in 2009, and since then he holds many leading positions. His leadership at AppFolio added the company’s name to the list of best places to work in 2020. As well, Glassdoor honored him by including his name in the Top CEOs list. Before starting his career at the firm, he worked at many SaaS application firms like Citrix Online. However, he studied B.S. in environmental studies at the University of California. 

AppFolio at present

In 2020, it received Glassdoors’ employee choice award. As well, it is amongst the fastest growing firms in North America. With innovative products, it has a grown number of customers over the years. Knowing the present market deeply, AppFolio is one of the tech leaders of forthcoming years.

Corning

Corning – How the firm has delivered many life-changing inventions including Gorilla Glass

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Corning, the best-known multinational company that specializes in material science has delivered several life-changing inventions. Particularly, glass and ceramic science as well as optical physics are the main areas of Corning. For manufacturing the best products, the firm has sustained investment in research and development. As well, Corning is popular amongst clients for trust-based relationships and commitment to delivered category-defining products. Display technologies, life sciences, specialty materials, environmental technology, and optical communication, are the foremost business sectors of the firm. Most importantly, Corning is world-famous for its Gorilla glass that finds useful to many smartphone companies. Since 2007, the firm has been working with Apple Inc as one of the main suppliers of the glass.

The backstory of Corning

In 1851, Amory Houghton set up Corning Glass Works in Somerville in Massachusetts. Later on, the firm has moved to Williamsburg, New York. At that time, it started manufacturing glass under the name Brooklyn Flint Glass Works. Once again, the firm has shifted to Corning, New York in 1868. Which later on became its world headquarters as well, recognized as Corning Inc. Meanwhile in 1908, the firm has started the first-ever industrial research lab that further expanded into an R&D facility.

Further exploration of the business

The firm has already acquired a huge market for its well-defined products. But the main turning point in the business of Corning’s business is seen when it started working with Apple. Apple, a giant smartphone firm made a deal with Corning to develop a robust display for its upcoming iPhone. At that time, many other well-known smartphone manufacturers including Nokia adopted the Gorilla glass screen of Corning. This made huge growth in Corning’s business, as well, enabled the firm to explore its R&D division.

Furthermore, the firm entered into manufacturing glass used in LCDs. In fact, the firm manufactures this kind of glass without heavy metals. Thereafter, it plunged into the communications industry with the production of optical fiber. It has started an optic fiber production unit called ClearCurve in 2007. The specialty of this unit was the use of nanostructure technology.

Corning’s contribution to industrial research and development

As of now, the firm has always innovated products that have shown useful results to simplify human’s life.  The firm also shares a major contribution in launching environment-friendly glass known as Lotus Glass. It is specially designed for the improvising performance of LCD and OLED displays.

Corning
Image Source: forbes.com

Recently, the firm has also engaged in research and development on green lasers’ impact on the glass. Likewise, Corning also involved in a research project on mercury abatement, microreactors, silicon, and photovoltaics reaction on the glass. Also, it is one of the supporters of life science research through its unique life science division. Mostly, life science research on stem cell culture products. Many people, unaware of the fact that almost 10% of Corning’s revenue is used for R&D. Apart from that, it has donated 300 million dollars for the expansion of the Sullivan Park research facility.

Other products

Other than manufacturing Glass and optic fiber, the firm has also manufacture ceramic emission control devices. These are generally used in gasoline engines of cars and light trucks.  Nowadays, it is also working to develop similar kinds of devices for diesel engines. Moreover, it is also manufacturing a low expansion glass. Such glass utilizes in space shuttles’ windows and in Steuben art glass.  In fact, Corning supplies all kinds of bulk or finished glass. Last year, Apple announced a 250 million dollars investment in Corning. So, most of the upcoming devices of Apple will be using Corning’s glass.

Wendell P. Weeks

He served in many prestigious positions at Corning. In 2005, he was appointed as Corning CEO while he is one of the board members since 2007. As well, he is one of the board directors at Corning. Wendell put immense efforts to make Corning a bigger and stronger company. Weeks associated with Corning since 1983, from handling financial to general management roles, he also played important role in the optical communication business. During his tenure as CEO, Wendell used acquisition strategy for many of its divisions. Such as Life sciences, Optical Communications, and Display technology. On top of that, he contributed to many innovations including Gorilla glass. Coming to his education, he holds a master’s in business administration from Harvard University.

Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom – Evolution of the business from being government to a private company

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Nowadays, most of the applications run on the internet. In fact, these applications are an integral part of our day-to-day life. Like chilling with Netflix, sending videos and images, connecting with friends online. As well, an internet connection is needed even for getting help from Alexa, Google assistance, and another similar device. However, for all this internet must be fast enough. As technology evolves the leads to many advances in devices. Thus, in such case, needed faster internet connectivity. It means both home and business need more data transfer at a higher speed.

While Deutsche Telekom is the one-stop for all such customer’s needs. Fulfilling the needs of 200+ million mobile users, and about 21 million broadband users, the firm also has over 27 million fixed network users. Started as a conventional telephone company, it has transformed into a new integrated telecommunication firm. Apart from the core business of selling networks and connections, it has also sought new opportunities from time to time. Thus, growing the business all across continents. Germany based firm Deutsche Telekom has its offices in 50+ countries.

About Deutsche Telekom

It is part of a group of leading integrated telecommunications firms on the planet. Primarily, it provides internet connectivity, fixed network, broadband, and other mobile communication services to the customers. As well, it offers IPTV products and ICT solution for small to large size businesses. Whereas, all services come with complete security storage, which is the need of the present world.

Deutsche Telekom
Image Source: asystems.as

On the international level, Deutsche Telekom is known for its efficient networks. In fact, its network solution is sufficient to meet the rising demand for broadband in the upcoming years. As well, it is way intelligent to kick start the new business. We can say it is sufficient enough to power up the entire industry. Like healthcare, the energy sector, the automotive industry, etc.

Services offered

Apart from offering the best service in network sales and connectivity, it also offers cloud-based services. In fact, it plunged into the new business fields as per the future requirements. Like IoT, M2M, and Industrial Internet. Deutsche Telekom is well-known for its wide range of integrated solutions, assist to shape other businesses.

How Deutsche Telekom is formed?

Well, it’s all get started in 1947. At that time, Germany was under the rule of the federal government. For the postal administration, the government created Deutsche Bundespost, which later on became west Germany’s key telephone firm. Meanwhile, in 1989, post office reforms in Germany gave birth to Deutsche Telekom. It was one of the parts of Deutsche Bundespost that were fragmented into three parts. Thereafter, the firm became private in 1996. Prior to that, Deutsche had a monopoly in Germany as a major Internet service provider. However, the firm has witnessed a major transformation in its business structure till 2005. In the same year, it started the Broadband /Fixed Network strategies business unit, out of the merger of its T-Mobile and T-Com units. Later on, this structure was also altered and it launched a new business unit called T-Home.

Triumphs of Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom and its other subsidiaries are working to accelerate innovation in the telecom sector. The launch of the Telecom Infra Project was one of the initiatives to do so. It was introduced in 2016 in association with big IT firms like Facebook, Intel, Nokia, and two others. On top of that, it joined a HAPS Alliance recently in 2020. With this, the firm is assisting to promote high-altitude vehicles for eliminating the digital divide. Recently, the subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile US acquired Sprint this year.

Based on the vision to offer more, the firm never compromised its commitment to sustainable development. For that, it has also started the “We Care for Our Planet” program. This initiative turned out as a milestone for climate and resource protection.

Later achievements under Timotheus Höttges

He is active as the CEO of Deutsche Telekom form 2014. Earlier, he was a member of the board of management at the firm. Timotheus played an important role to extend the broadband and fixed network business in Germany. One of the business segments of Deutsche Telekom, T-Home had dominated the telecom market under his policies. Also, he implemented several strategies to cut down the cost in business.  Well, his experience as a project manager, helped in acquisition strategies of Deutsche Telekom.