"The IBM 5150 didn't officially launch in the UK until January 1983. One reason given for this was the company's lack of expertise in managing the complex dealer and distributor network in Europe which, unlike the far-more-homogenous US where IBM had its own retail network and the nationally-known Sears Roebuck to sell through, didn't have any one national name available to it. Nevertheless, IBM was clearly attempting to build some sort of bridge-head in Europe and announced in early 1983 that it would be setting up a factory at Greenock in Scotland in order to manufacture the machine. Kenneth Baker, Minister in charge of Information Technology at the time, said "I warmly welcome the decision by IBM to manufacture their personal computer for the whole of Europe at Greenock. It is further evidence of the company's commitment to this country"[8]. Once IBM did start selling in Europe, the requirements for potential dealers were particularly stringent: they had to sign an agreement which dictated the sort of behaviour that IBM expected of them; they had to agree not to hype the capabilities of the IBM machine not to disparage other companies' products; they had to agree to do warranty fixes no matter where the faulty machine was purchased and they must send two sales and two engineering staff on IBM training courses. At the same time, IBM had the right to undertake spot checks on dealer premises and even to interview staff to check that standards were being maintained[9].
The follow-up to the 5150 - the IBM XT (or "Extended") was released around June 1983, with up to 640K of RAM and a 5.24" Winchester drive, together with PC-DOS version 2, from Microsoft. This wasn't cheap either, rocking in at an expected £4,858 - that's around £15,322 in 2016 prices. By 1984 - only a year later - the press seemed to be fed up with the whole IBM PC and the rise of the clones thing, with Personal Computer News writing that "the most depressing feature of the [1984 Hannover Computer Fair] was the proliferation of so-called IBM PC compatibles. No matter where you turned a manufacturer felt obliged to turn out a micro to nibble at the heels of IBM"[10]. " http://nosher.net/archives/computers/adve_045 Apologies for reading history backwards and assuming all this meant that MS-DOS machines were available in the US before PC-DOS machines. Since the release in a further 16 European Countries was linked to the availability of the Greenock site, that release was presumably even later than the UK. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
