Not many. Continue reading
My recollection of the early years of TSI is a period filled with frustration. However, aside from the abortive attempts to take existing installations and transform existing code into marketable systems (as described here), I can remember only three occasions in which we got as far as meeting with the prospect and did not win the contract. Only two possible explanations for this come to mind: either IBM only told us about the basket cases who were desperate to automate, or I have suppressed the unpleasant memories.
One failure I remember fairly vividly, but I cannot recall the name of the company. Sue and I met with a couple (I don’t remember their names either) who were considerably older than we were. So, they were at least in their forties. They owned a parking lot on Route 75 in Windsor Locks, the home of Bradley International Airport. Their business catered to people who needed a place to stow their cars for a few days while they were away on trips. The airport had its own lot, but at least a half-dozen lots in the vicinity offered shuttle services to the terminals and lower rates than the airport’s lots.
I was very interested in doing a system for them. It seemed to me that we could get it up and running fairly quickly and then pitch their competitors who must, I assumed, have very similar requirements for keeping track of the slot numbers in which the cars were parked and the work schedules for the employees.
It did not work out. I am pretty sure that we sent them a letter with a proposal, but we never heard from them. They might have been put off by the cost, especially if they had read about or heard about PC’s for under $1,000. The other possibility is that the owners were afraid of computers. People born before World War II were, for the most part, completely ignorant of what computers could and could not do. In fact, I am pretty sure that this company was out of business by the time that I started flying a lot in the nineties.
It was probably good that we did not pursue this further. Over the next decade or so, almost all of the parking lots changed hands or were sold to hotels. Even if we had gotten a few installations, the long-term prospects were not good.
My memories of the Laurentano Sign Company are not as distinct. It was (and is) located in Terryville, which is several suburbs west of Hartford. I am not even sure exactly what software, other than fairly standard bookkeeping systems, they were seeking. The business consisted of designing and either manufacturing or arranging for the manufacture of signs of all types for their clients. Signs are probably the oldest form of advertising, but for most agencies they are a negligible portion of the workload. So, our experience with ad agencies did not count for much.
I was quite impressed with the company even though there was almost no potential for selling any custom software that might emerge to other businesses. I am pretty sure that we sent a proposal to them, but we never heard from them.
In 2021 the company is still in business, and it is still in Terryville. It claims to be the largest custom sign company in the world.
The Perri Sausage Company was (and still is) located in New Haven. Every grocery store in the area carries their products. The company’s website claims that its secret recipe is 450 years old.
I don’t think that we met with the company’s representative in New Haven, and he certainly did not come to Rockville. Maybe our meeting was at the IBM office in downtown Hartford.
We really had nothing to offer them. If we attempted to do this project we would need to design a very complex inventory system from scratch. Their products obviously changed in value with age. The guy with whom we met told us what they called sausages that because of their age required to be reworked as a different product. I don’t remember the precise term, but it was reminiscent of “the bloom is off the rose.”
At one point he mentioned that one of the other software companies with which he had spoken had no experience at all with food manufacturing or distribution. I immediately admitted that we did not either. That pretty much ended the conversation.
There must have been other prospective clients that we failed to land. If I think of any, I will add them here.