Equal makes rich

There are generic terms that originally designate a product or brand, only to come to stand for the products of various manufacturers in their entirety. Like Tempo handkerchiefs or the equivalent Kleenex in the USA. This still applies - after 40 years - to the IBM PC. Decades ago, the term "IBM-compatible" was also important when third-party suppliers launched PCs on the market.

Today, IBM no longer builds PCs and those who want to use the legendary ThinkPad as a laptop buy from Lenovo. First the PC division was sold to Lenovo in 2004 and ten years later the x86 server division as well. The fact that SAP software can now run on a PC was neither planned nor foreseen or intended at the beginning of the PC era.

Let us remember

At that time, there was the Apple II Plus with two floppy drives, Texas Instruments, Rockwell or DEC and others for the professional sector. For the private user, there were already Commodore, Atari, Radio Shack or Sinclair. Not to forget suppliers like Xerox, to whom we owe the mouse as an input instrument, among other things. In a quiz, probably 80 percent would guess Apple as the inventor. The operating systems and hardware were different including BIOS, the bus systems and other components.

This meant that the customer base for standard programs was limited to individual hardware suppliers, and in some cases even to product lines. This was also the case in the mainframe sector, but it was normal to create programs individually for a customer. As is well known, changing this was the reason for SAP's success story. 

Back to the IBM PC: Originally, the project of an own PC was not designed for the long term. The margins were low and the target market at the time did not (yet) correspond to the company's own clientele. But the existing suppliers - especially Apple - had to be kept at bay. So IBM started with the IBM-PC 5150 model, using components from the market, the graphics chip was weak and the PC-DOS (bought from Microsoft) was quite basic. Nevertheless, this is where the magic happened: for example, it was the "killer application" Lotus 1-2-3, which performed better as a spreadsheet than the competition on the Apple II. That was more important in offices (from the point of view of that time) than beautiful graphics. And: These customers were already served by IBM sales.

The use of mass-produced components due to the speed of the project also helped with market penetration. Many manufacturers could buy and assemble the same components. Since the operating system PC-DOS from IBM could also come as MS-DOS from Microsoft, the new standard was born and the triumphant advance of the PC that we know began.

PC for R/3

As PCs and operating systems became more powerful, they also became an alternative for R/3 customers. Before that, mainframes such as IBM z/OS or IBM AS/400 or later IBM System i5, eServer and iSeries were the basis for ERP customers. In addition, there were the various Unix derivatives. Windows NT and the subsequent MS operating systems were added. Since the drivers were still very different at the beginning, SAP set up a certification here that ensured that the NT computer configurations ordered worked with SAP R/3. 

Without cost-effective standardized computers, the triumph of SAP R/3, mySAP ERP and the like would not have been possible. The freedom to choose hardware without major changes to the ERP saves resources that can be put into customizing the solution or simply make the overall solution more affordable.