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Working in the Systems support area of IBM Europe's network centre, Eric wrote PL/I programs to optimize the use of network resources, saving a £64K transatlantic line in his first year. He then worked on an "I/O interface" serving the ordering system for Office Products in Europe, discovering his ability to bridge between the creative genius behind the interface and the programmers who had to use it. This interpretation and liaison role became a continuing thread through his later career.
He then transferred to the IBM World Trade Systems Aids Centre near London, initially as an APL programmer. The task was to modify configurators and other programs from the USA to make them meet the needs of Systems Engineers in the rest of the world. He quickly realized that this approach was doomed -- it took three weeks to modify and test, by which time US programmers had produced the next release. The solution was to build an online delivery system compatible with HONE in the US, and assign programmers to Los Angeles to build in the requirements of the rest of the world. This led him into VM/370 systems programming, setting up a HONE-compatible system to distribute programs worldwide, and taking charge of the testing and shipping processes.
The next enhancement was a move to graphical terminals, and Eric transferred to the Los Angeles team to look after non-US interests. He produced a Help system for the new environment, and teaching materials to assist country systems managers migrate to it. He delivered courses for Oceania (in Canberra) and Latin America (Rio) using these materials.
After completing the Los Angeles assignment, Eric became project leader of the HONE Europe team in Havant, which provided the online environment delivering the programs he had worked on. This was managerially an interesting task, as HONE Europe was being transferred to the Netherlands, and his team were threrefore responsible for handing over their jobs. Because of IBM's full-employment policy, this was not a financial threat, but was hard on the emotions of a committed team.
Eric's next job was in the team generating new activities to replace HONE. The initial goal was to set up a voice tie-line network for Europe, but this posed security risks (with a few inter-location links, an interceptor does not have a sorting problem in finding IBM traffic). He served on an IBM Europe task force to devise a security strategy for telephony, and wrote up its conclusions. This provided an early introduction to digitization and encryption technologies, at a time (1978) when even leased-line modems were flat out at 9600bps.
Eric had been using e-mail since 1975, but the network carrying it had few nodes in Europe. This presented an opportunity for a new international service based at Havant, and he developed the Business Case. That was accepted in 1979, and Eric handled the implementation to the point where it could be handed to production. He then joined the IT Centre to work on Service Levels, measuring performance and coordinating activities to enhance it. This led to another security task-force, setting standards for the protection of key business data.
Eric had always admired the "can-do" spirit of IBM UK Laboratories at Hursley, so leapt at the chance to transfer to the IT Centre there. Here he learnt from expert VM system programmers, and again found himself in the role of translator between technical geniuses on those depending on their work. He continued his focus on IT strategy and service levels, culminating in the first online survey in IBM outside the USA.
