I've been reading an interesting book by Georgina Ferry -
A Computer Called LEO: Lyons teashops and the world?s first office computer.
It's the true story of a company called J Lyons & Co that, at one point in the middle of the last century, managed an empire of over 200 hundred tea shops around Britain. They also produced teas, cakes and ice creams - I remember their green and gold tins of syrup. The company's no longer a going concern having been sold to Allied Breweries in 1978 and then gradually sold off in small pieces by its new owners.
Lyons were probably the first business to use a computer to manage their ordering and manufacturing and they went on to sell versions of their machine to other businesses. The computer, named LEO was produced 'in-house' with most of its components and its programming language being developed by Lyons staff.
It's incredible to think that if history had been different, Lyons might have gone on to compete with the computer giants of today. Unfortunately the company, whose primary business involved selling tea and cakes, were unable to bear the cost of developing LEO or able to field enough personnel to work on the project. Nor were they able to match the levels of investment with American I.T. companies such as IBM.
