Page 11 - Remembering ISTEL

Remembering ISTEL

ISTEL - A Brief History

AT&T ISTEL Ltd. is the British information technology subsidiary of American Telephone
& Telegraph Company (AT&T), the world's largest telecommunications group. Originally

established as a subsidiary computer services firm for the automaker British Leyland,
ISTEL quickly went on to provide information technology to other companies in a variety
of industries. After separating from British Leyland, the company operated independently

for a few years before seeking an alliance with AT&T.

Originally called BL Systems, the company was created to provide British Leyland with
reliable, state-of-the-art information technology services. The idea of a separate

information technology company for this purpose was conceived in 1977 by John
Leighfield, who later became the new company's chairman and chief executive. When the
plan was approved in 1978, all British Leyland's mainframe computers were unified in one

data center at Redditch, joined via a microwave communications network--the first such
private network in Europe&mdashø the automotive manufacturing sites. The new center

was finished in February 1979, and BL Systems came into official existence the following
June.

BL Systems was intended to serve the full complement of systems, computing, and
telecommunications needs of its parent company, and was not encouraged to actively seek

commercial activities outside the firm. As early as March 1980, however, BL Systems took
on its first outside client, developing the See Why package, a color graphics, interactive

simulation system, for Alcan Aluminium.

Thereafter, BL Systems quickly established for itself a corporate identity separate from
that of its parent company, with headquarters and staff consolidated at two locations,
Grosvenor House and Coventry.

In November 1980 BL Systems inaugurated the first private videotex service--the
Stocklocator system--for the BL dealer network. This system, later called Infotrac, was
based on a leased-line data communications network. At the completion of its first full year

of operation, BL Systems' revenues stood at a very respectable £25.7 million.

In February 1981 BL Systems served its first foreign customer, Heineken, which used the
company's data center for remote testing while changing its own computer systems. BL

Systems' See Why package won the British Computer Society's Software Innovation award
in October. The following month the company celebrated the installation of its 100th disc
drive. After the first stage of the U.K.'s deregulation of telecommunications, BL Systems

was granted the first Value-Added Network Services license, which permitted the

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