Applied Data Research

{{Infobox company

| name = Applied Data Research, Inc.

| logo = File:Applied Data Research logo transparent.png

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| fate = Acquired

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| successor = Ameritech

| foundation = 1959

| founder = Martin Goetz, Sherman Blumenthal, Ellwood Kauffman, Dave McFadden, Bernard Riskin, Robert Wickenden, and Stephen Wright

| defunct = 1986

| location_city = Princeton, New Jersey

| location_country = United States

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| services = independent contract programming

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Applied Data Research, Inc. (ADR), was a large software vendor from the 1960s until the mid-1980s. ADR is often described as "the first independent software vendor".{{Cite web

|title=Prerelational DBMS vendors — a quick overview

|url=http://www.softwarememories.com/2006/02/09/prerelational-dbms-vendors-a-quick-overview

|publisher=Software Memories |date=February 9, 2006 |accessdate=August 5, 2011}}

Founded in 1959, ADR was originally a contract development company. ADR eventually built a series of its own products. ADR's widely used major packages included: Autoflow for automatic flowcharting, which is often cited as one of the first commercial software applications; Roscoe, a remote job submission environment; MetaCOBOL, an extensible macro processor for the COBOL language; and The Librarian, for source-code management.

The company's original office was in a small office building along U.S. Route 206 in Princeton Township, New Jersey.{{cite journal | title=Letter to the Editor: Internal Sorting and External Merging | author-first=Martin A. | author-last=Goetz | journal=Journal of the ACM | volume=8 | issue=4 | pages=649–650 | doi=10.1145/321088.321104 | date=October 1961 | s2cid=3031867 | doi-access=free }} Later during the 1960s, they were part of a data center located on Route 206 across from Princeton Airport. The center was destroyed by fire in 1969 when a light plane crashed into it on approach to the airport, but there were no serious injuries among either the pilot or the workers in the building.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/122433053/ | title=Light Plane Hits Building in Princeton | agency=Associated Press | newspaper=Asbury Park Press | date=November 14, 1969 | page=2 | via=Newspapers.com}} In 1980, the company moved to a facility further along Route 206, that was just north of Princeton in Montgomery Township, New Jersey.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/122249804/ | title=Montgomery: barbecues, brooks before business | author-first=Herb | author-last=Ditzel | newspaper=The Courier-News | location=Central New Jersey| date=January 31, 1980 | page=D-11 | via=Newspapers.com}}

{{Multiple image|total_width=440

|image3=Route 206 and Orchard Road office complex north of Princeton New Jersey.jpg

|caption3=During the 1980s, ADR was headquartered in this office complex off Route 206 north of Princeton – all these as seen in 2023

|image2=Research Park Route 206 and Princeton Airport.jpg

|caption2=During the 1960s, ADR had a data center on this ground across Route 206 from Princeton Airport

|image1=759_State_Road_in_Princeton.jpg

|caption1=ADR's modest first office, at 759 State Road (U.S. Route 206) in Princeton

}}

First software patent

ADR received the first patent issued for a computer program, a sorting system, on April 23, 1968.United States Patent Office, Patent number: 3380029 The program was developed by Martin Goetz.New York Times , June 12, 1968, "Computer Program Patent", p. 69 In this effort, ADR enlisted support of the Association of Data Processing Service Organizations (ADAPSO), which argued that being able to patent software innovations was vital to smaller companies being able to succeed in the market against larger companies, who would otherwise be able to imitate a product and bundle it as a free addition to their other offerings.{{cite news | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/in-new-case-supreme-court-revisits-the-question-of-software-patents/2014/03/28/a3da1c52-ad3a-11e3-9627-c65021d6d572_story.html | title=In new case, Supreme Court revisits the question of software patents | author-first=Timothy B. | author-last=Lee | newspaper=The Washington Post | date= March 28, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140402122525/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/in-new-case-supreme-court-revisits-the-question-of-software-patents/2014/03/28/a3da1c52-ad3a-11e3-9627-c65021d6d572_story.html | archive-date=April 2, 2014}}

ADR IBM lawsuit

ADR instigated litigation in Federal Court against IBMThe Washington Post, April 23, 1969, Dow Jones News Service, "Suit Against IBM Charges Violations", p. D9 with accusations that IBM was "retarding the growth of the independent software industry" and "monopolizing the software industry", leading to IBM's famous unbundling of software and services in 1969. Legal actions against IBM also had the support of ADAPSO.

In 1970, ADR and Programmatics, a wholly owned subsidiary of ADR, received an out-of-court settlement of $1.4 million from IBM. IBM also agreed to serve as a supplier of Autoflow, which meant another potential $600,000 in revenues for ADR.New York Times , Douglas W. Cray, August 21, 1970, "A.D.R. Trust Suit Settled by I.B.M.", p. 50

The Librarian

A popular ADR product was The Librarian, a version control system for IBM mainframe operating systems. In 1978, it was reported that The Librarian was in use at over 3,000 sites;{{citation

|author=Don Leavitt |title=Software winners' ranks swelling

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=azxRE2HtSRkC&pg=PA2

|volume=12 |date=March 27, 1978 |publisher=IDG Enterprise

|page=2 |issn=0010-4841 |work=Computerworld |issue=13

|quote=The Librarian from Applied Data Research, Inc, Panvalet from Pansophic Systems, Inc. and the Westinghouse Disk Utility from Westinghouse Electric Corp. continue to top the "systems" list with more than 3,000 sites to each of their credits.}} by a decade later that number had doubled."Nearly 6,500 ... (C) 1988. {{cite web

|url=http://www.forthecousins.com/files/ADR_brochure_Librarian.pdf

|title=The LIBRARIAN - Total Control of Your Software Asset}}

Roscoe

Roscoe (Remote OS Conversational Operating Environment, originally marketed as ROSCOE, was a software product for IBM Mainframes.{{cite web

|url=http://www.ca.com/us/products/detail/ca-roscoe-interactive-environment.aspx

|title=CA Roscoe Interactive Environment

|publisher=CA Technologies}} It is a text editor and also provides some operating system functionality such as the ability to submit batch jobs similar to ISPF{{efn|There were capabilities available in ISPF and not in Roscoe; ditto for vice versa.{{cite web

|url=https://support.asg.com/OP/JDT/jdtug/roscoe_rpf_facility_and_ispf_functional_differences.htm

|title=ROSCOE RPF Facility and ISPF Functional Differences

|access-date=2019-05-12

|archive-date=2019-05-12

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190512171523/https://support.asg.com/OP/JDT/jdtug/roscoe_rpf_facility_and_ispf_functional_differences.htm

|url-status=dead

}}}} or XEDIT.

The ability to support 200+ concurrent active users and still have low overhead is based on a Single address space architecture.{{cite web

|url=https://www.arcserve.com/~/media/files/productbriefs/roscoe-ps.pdf

|title=CA Roscoe Interactive (PRODUCT SHEET)

|access-date=2019-05-10

|archive-date=2019-05-10

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190510220501/https://www.arcserve.com/~/media/files/productbriefs/roscoe-ps.pdf

|url-status=dead

}}{{Dubious|reason=NOT for the Operating System, just for those using ROSCOE! .. need better Wiki article for WikiLink|date=April 2023}}

The RPF (Roscoe Programming Facility){{cite web

|title=Step 2 — Create an RPF to Invoke File-AID

|url=http://frontline.compuware.com/Doc/FA/FA101/HTML/ROSCOEUserInst/cwfar10a/iroscoe/Step_2_%E2%80%94_Create_an_RPF_to_Invoke_File-AID.htm

|quote=The RPF (ROSCOE Programming Facility) shown ...

}}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{efn|Not to be confused with another RPF, "Rob's Programming Facility ... developed by Rob Prins ... of the ING Bank in Amsterdam" systems programming group, which subsequently "stopped using ROSCOE" for system/administrative tasks.{{cite web

|url=http://www.prince-webdesign.nl/images/downloads/rpf200guid.pdf

|title=RPF User's Guide Version 2 Release 0.0}}}} is a scripting language with string processing capability.{{cite book

|title=ROSCOE Handbook |publisher=Applied Data Research |quote=SR00-20-20}}

Compass

ADR bought Massachusetts Computer Associates, also known as Compass, in the late 1960s.Rosemary Hamilton, "Computervision turns believer after Compass helps convert software", Computerworld, July 14, 1986, [https://books.google.com/books?id=tQOdtdJmVSsC&pg=PA20 p. 20]

Datacom/DB and IDEAL

File:Insyte_Datacom_logo.jpg

ADR later purchased the Datacom/DB database management system from Insyte Datacom and developed the companion product, IDEAL (Interactive Development Environment for an Application’s Life), a fourth-generation programming language.

Dispute with Nixdorf

ADR licensed DATACOM/DB to TCSC, a firm which sold modified versions of IBM's DOS/360 and DOS/VS operating systems, known as Edos. When, in 1980, Nixdorf Computer bought TCSC, Nixdorf sought to continue the licensing arrangement; ADR and NCSC went to court in a dispute over whether the licensing arrangement was terminated by the acquisition.{{citation

|author=Marcia Blumenthal

|title=ADR asks ruling on Datacom rights

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vpGNJfMmFswC&pg=PA76

|volume=14 |date=August 18, 1980

|publisher=IDG Enterprise |page=76 |issn=0010-4841

|work=Computerworld |issue=33}} ADR and Nixdorf settled out of court in 1981, with an agreement that Nixdorf could continue to resell ADR's products.{{citation

|title=ADR, Nixdorf Companies Settle Marketing Dispute

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tC-9SVw6TZYC&pg=PA78 |volume=15 |date=April 20, 1981 |page=78

|issn=0010-4841 |work=Computerworld |issue=16

|last1=Enterprise|first1=I.D.G.}}

Acquired, twice

ADR was sold to Ameritech in 1986 and was kept intact as a subsidiary.

In 1988 Ameritech sold ADR to Computer Associates (CA). Computer Associates had a reputation for mass dismissals within companies it took over; this was the case with ADR as well, as some 200 employees from the Montgomery facility were let go on the morning of October 19, 1988.{{cite news | url=https://njbiz.com/the-swift-and-traumatic-firings-at-applied-data-research/ | title=The Swift and Traumatic Firings At Applied Data Research | author-first= Theresa | author-last=Petronico | date=November 21, 1988 | publisher=NJBiz.com }}

Computer Associates subsequently integrated the company into its Systems Products Division and new Information Products Division.[http://purl.umn.edu/41470 Applied Data Research, Software Products Division Records, 1959-1987], Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Roscoe was marketed as CA-Roscoe, and The Librarian became known as CA Librarian.{{cite news | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dPu-_QBrLB4C&dq=%22computer+associates%22+%22CA-Librarian%22&pg=PA37 | title=Computer Associates: News ... | work=Computerworld | date=October 8, 1990 | page=37 | type=Advertisement }}

Notes

References

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20061004024027/http://www.softwarehistory.org/history/Goetz1.html www.softwarehistory.org – Martin A. Goetz, "How ADR Got Into the Software Products Business and Found Itself Competing Against IBM" (1998)]
[http://purl.umn.edu/107328 Oral history interview with Martin Goetz], Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.
[http://www.softwarememories.com/category/companies/applied-data-research// Software Memories] – Some basic facts about ADR

Category:Defunct software companies of the United States

Category:Software companies established in 1959

Category:1959 establishments in New Jersey

Category:Companies based in Princeton, New Jersey

Category:Information technology consulting firms of the United States

Category:Software companies disestablished in 1986

Category:Defunct companies based in New Jersey

Category:Electronics companies established in 1959

Category:CA Technologies