Advanced Computer Techniques (ACT) was a computer software company most active from the early 1960s through the early 1990s that made software products, especially language compilers and related tools. It also engaged in information technology consulting, hosted service bureaus, and provided applications and services for behavioral health providers. ACT had two subsidiaries of note, InterACT and Creative Socio-Medics.
Both writer Katharine Davis Fishman, in her 1981 book The Computer Establishment, and computer science historian Martin Campbell-Kelly, in his 2003 volume From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry, have considered ACT an exemplar of the independent, middle-sized software development firms of its era, and the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota has also viewed the company's history as important.See Fishman, The Computer Establishment, p. 268; Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog, p. 57; and Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, Preface. Fishman portrays Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and its chief executive, Frank Lautenberg, as the exemplar of the large software company of the time. Campbell-Kelly portrays Applied Data Research (ADR) and Informatics General as two other typical software firms of the 1960s. Other oral histories conducted for the Charles Babbage Institute's Software History Center have included ones of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston of VisiCalc, Dan Fylstra of Personal Software, Seymour I. Rubinstein of MicroPro International, and Jonathan Sachs of Lotus Development. Of these three sources, Campbell-Kelly is the least impressed by ACT's characteristics as a company, saying that its renown is owed mostly to its president's flair for publicity.
Founding and early history
Advanced Computer Techniques was founded in New York City in April 1962 by Charles P. Lecht.Fishman, The Computer Establishment, p. 269.Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog, p. 58. It had an initial capitalization of $800, one contract, and one employee. Lecht, in his late twenties at the time, was a mathematician and entrepreneur whose involvement with the computer industry dated back to the early 1950s,Lecht, The Waves of Change, back cover. including stints at IBM and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.Fishman, The Computer Establishment, p. 275.
The new firm's first job was fixing a language compiler on the UNIVAC LARC computer, which was being used by the United States Navy. UNIVAC awarded a $100,000 contract for the work; Lecht hired some programmers and the company's first office was in former servant quarters atop the Plaza Hotel.Fishman, The Computer Establishment, p. 276. The firm was one of 40–50 software companies started in the early 1960s, many of which would go on to be forgotten.
Working on compilers continued to be part of the company's early efforts; its first compiler, for the FORTRAN language, was developed in the mid-1960s. This was followed by a COBOL compiler later in that decade. As the 1960s went on, ACT built a customer list of established companies and developed a reputation for delivering quality work on schedule. In September 1964 the company leased regular office space, the first of several locations it would have during its lifetime, all of which were within greater Midtown Manhattan on or near Madison Avenue. In addition to UNIVAC, early customers for the firm's compiler work included IBM as well as Honeywell.Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, pp. 4–6. The company also developed some of the System/360 utilities for IBM.
With few trained computer programmers available at the time, Lecht hired those with musical, linguistic, or mathematical backgrounds, finding them to be successful at this new activity.Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, pp. 3–4. The firm also did other system software as well as scientific programming projects, including some for the defense industry, and then started doing commercial applications development for large companies such as Union Carbide, United Airlines, Hoffman-LaRoche, and Shell Oil. Lecht fostered a relaxed working environment where dress was informal and hours flexible.Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, pp. 6–7. He instituted a series of weekly reports that all developers had to file detailing their progress; these were communicated to the client, on the theory that "a client can get angry at us, but [they] can't be more than one week angry at us because we told [them] exactly where we were."
Management personality
Lecht was a colorful and flamboyant character with an idiosyncratic sense of style, who went around on a motorcycle and was described as a "showman" by colleagues, customers, and competitors alike. At one point his office and desk were completely covered by silver square tiles. ACT benefited from his flair for publicity: He, together with the company, was profiled in The New Yorker in 1967 and later in industry publications such as Datamation, which once referred to him as "One of computerdom's most flashy characters". Even decades later, a computing historian recalled Lecht as "one of the real characters in the industry, a very, very unusual man." Moderated by Burton Grad. At pp. 5, 6.
Lecht published several textbooks on programming covering different languages. ACT organized a series of seminars for the American Management Association on project management for developing computer applications.Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog, pp. 66–67. The seminars were organized into a 1967 book by Lecht, The Management of Computer Programming Projects, that was likely the first book ever published on the topic.Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog, p. 69. The company also published A Guide for Software Documentation in 1969, compiled and edited by Dorothy Walsh, which was again one of the first of its kind and was cited by a number of other publications in the years to follow. Also
Perhaps the most strangely famous of Lecht's outputs was the album of IBM corporate spirit songs that he had recorded by the Association of British Secretaries in America (for a while all of ACT's secretaries came from England). Entitled Paean, and with album sleeve text bemoaning the loss of the company-mindedness of the 1930s–1950s, it was released via Skye Records in 1969. Also It became a popular giveaway at trade shows such as the Joint Computer Conferences. The title track, set to the tune of "Molly Malone", was adapted in praise of Lecht himself:
Charles Lecht is our leader Ideal idea breeder The source of our strength and the spine of our will
Lecht's book The Waves of Change, which attempted to foretell changes in the computer industry, was serialized in Computerworld magazine in 1977 (a first for a trade publication) and published by McGraw-Hill in 1979. The foreword was written by Gideon I. Gartner, who would soon found the influential information technology research and advisory firm the Gartner Group.Lecht, The Waves of Change, pp. i–vi. Waves of Change sold well and received a positive reception. The books, along with his national speaking and lecturing engagements, bolstered both Lecht's and ACT's visibility within the technology industry.
The eccentricities of the president were balanced by the firm's second-in-command, executive vice-president Oscar H. Schachter, a lawyer who had graduated from Yeshiva College and Harvard Law School and who had a more straight-laced personality.Fishman, The Computer Establishment, pp. 278–279. Schachter was a neighbor of Lecht's who did some legal work for the company during its inception, served on its early board of directors for a few years, and then joined the company full-time in 1966.Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, pp. 1–3. As Schachter later said, "I was kind of the governor ... The person who sat on Charlie, or tried to."Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, pp. 7–8.
While with ACT, Schachter would also become a significant and respected presence in the Association of Data Processing Service Organizations (ADAPSO),Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, pp. 23–25. a rapidly growing industry organization during the 1960sCampbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog, p. 63. and later. Schacter served in a number of roles with ADAPSO, including providing written testimony to the United States House of Representatives. He became chairman of ADAPSO's vendor relations committee in 1980, a body that engaged in discussions with IBM about that company's policies towards independent software vendors. At p. 23.
ACT was ahead of the industry in hiring female executives. There were several at the vice presidential level in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Expansion and diversification
ACT became a publicly owned company in May 1968. The initial public offering was handled by boutique technology underwriter Faulkner, Dawkins & Sullivan, and the stock value increased almost four-fold during the first day of trading, ending with a three-fold gain that The New York Times termed "spectacular". The firm had captured a wave of investor interest in technology stocks.Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, pp. 11–13.
ACT had revenues in the $2.5-3.2 million range during 1968–70.Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog, p. 60. It began a course of diversification beyond consulting and software development by acquiring, in 1969, Rhode Island Lithograph, a printing company in the state of Rhode Island (that was owned by Lecht's brother Danny), and Informatab, a data processing market research company, and by opening Inter-ACT, a training and education arm that wrote computer help manuals that were sold to schools and businesses. During 1968, the company decided to extend its Phoenix presence by opening a real-estate division called Advanced Realty Techniques. Lecht had a goal that ACT be a "supermarket of services for the computer industry".Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, pp. 8–10. As Schachter would later recall, "We did everything."
Software houses of the time tended to suffer from unprofitable contracts, failed ventures, and slowing demand.Fishman, The Computer Establishment, pp. 277–278. During 1971–72, ACT suffered a downturn, showing its first annual losses; Lecht closed several offices and laid off half of the firm's employees, but the firm survived when many others did not. By 1974, its revenues had reached the $5 million mark.
The most important diversification was into service bureaus, which by 1979 accounted for some 40 percent of the company's revenue. These bureaus, which provided their own equipment to handle the data processing needs of clients, were located in New York, Phoenix, Tucson, Edmonton, and Milan, and each tended to specialize in a particular area, such as the Edmonton one reporting on inventory and financial status for the Canadian oil and construction industry. There were also consulting offices for various periods of time in London, Paris, Chicago, and Atlanta. For overseas engagements, the company tended to bring over U.S. employees, especially ones who were multilingual, rather than attempt to hire locally. A compiler for the IBM RPG II language was developed for Olivetti computers, based in Ivrea, Italy.
In 1975, the nuclear theorist and Hudson Institute founder Herman Kahn became a member of ACT's board of directors. Kahn also appeared with Lecht as keynote speakers at the Future Systems Forum. This was a prognostication-focused event that ACT headlined or sponsored for a few years beginning in the late 1970s, and that also featured ACT's Robert Fertig.