Remembering the software pioneers
Ireland's first software company, System Dynamics, was established 50 years ago in April 1968.
Was this a trendsetter for the indigenous software industry that mushroomed in subsequent decades ? Not really. The origins of System Dynamics were quite unique.
The Dublin-based company was born into a computing world that now seems distant and unfamiliar. In 1968 the manufacturers that sold the systems exerted a near-total control over their customers' operations. They not only supplied hardware and software for these installations, but also maintained their equipment, recruited their managers, selected their staff and ran training courses for programmers and operators. The notion that independent software vendors and technical service providers could challenge this dominance was radical and new.
System Dynamics aspired to be an alternative source of computing expertise for the Irish organisations that ran IBM mainframes. Paddy Doyle, its first chief executive, had been systems manager at IBM Ireland. All of its founders had previously worked for the corporation. They had got to know each other in 1963 on an IBM project to develop a reservations system for Aer Lingus. That project was axed in the following year and the development team disbanded. But several of its members stayed in touch until an opportunity arose for them to work together again.
The start-up raised initial funding from external backers. It struggled to achieve its first year revenue target – the figure was £20,000 – and very soon there were sweeping changes in its personnel and on the board of directors. By 1970 Paddy Doyle and all of the original board members had departed. System Dynamics was run by joint managing directors Tom McGovern and Fred Kennedy for the next nine years.
The company was best known for its consulting services and for finding staff with the skills that big IBM installations needed. It also developed customer-specific applications software. As early as 1970, moreover, it set out to design, develop and market a proprietary software product. It even even coined a name for this application. POEMS was intended for factories that wanted to analyse and remodel their production methods.
POEMS never progressed far enough to become a saleable package. But this was the first attempt to create one in Ireland. The project predated the launch of the first Irish-developed software products by several years.