Teleputers Case Studies
Teleputers make frequent appearances in this Archive in other sections. The General Motors online shopping system was mainly a Teleputer system. The Ford online shopping system used Teleputers extensively as did other B2B shopping systems. The Teleputer also featured in many of the Innovative Information Systems.
In this section, an attempt is made to indicate the diverse uses of the product in the UK - from farm management to High Street Bank training, from NHS supplies to life assurance, from manufacturing to a taxi franchise. There is even a retail point-of-sale system. These are just some of the documented uses. There were a very large number of other applications.
The common thread of all the usage is that it was business not private. The Teleputer was a business system. As such its use had to be cost-justified. It wasn’t a casual, discretionary purchase. It was a business investment. As a result the uses were generally projects aimed at doing things that could not be done before and thereby gaining a competitive advantage or improving efficiency and productivity thereby reducing costs and improving margins. The Teleputer pioneered the business use of the networked PC before the invention of the internet.
The use of Teleputers among ROCC computer users was widespread. The Teleputer often went where a terminal was not acceptable including into the home. The Teleputer brought computer-literacy to first-time users and they remained in use for many years.
As a footnote, in 1997, as a result of the BSE crisis, ROCC was involved with building the cattle tracing system for the British Cattle Movement Service. It was commonly called Cattle Passports. Because farmers didn’t have PCs, movement data had to be sent to BCMS by postcard. Someone in ROCC was heard to groan, “Growlink! If only they had sold Teleputers to beef and dairy farmers.”