Service bureau

One writer described the ideal service bureau customer as only needing vanilla: very little customization per customer. The phrasing is catering "to the bell curve of customer requirements."{{cite web

|url=http://blog.peopleguru.com/service-bureau-vs-hcm-technology-provider

|title=Service Bureau vs. HCM Technology Provider |author=Steve Cohen

|date=June 15, 2016}} If strawberry banana is needed, it is important to ask:

:Did they develop their own platform or license or purchase it?

To its customers, a service bureau offers a combination of expertise in technology, process and business-domains. The bureau business model depends on the ability to productize services and deploy them in volume to a large customer base. In the modern context, technology often becomes a key enabler to achieving this scale.

File:Punch card sorter.JPG

Data processing service bureaus were opened by IBM in 1932, first just in major USA cities, then internationally.{{cite web

|url=http://mainframe.typepad.com/blog/2011/09/did-the-us-government-kill-cloud-computing-over-50-years-ago.html

|title=Mainframe - Did the U.S. Government Kill Cloud Computing Over 50 Years Ago?

|author=Timothy Sipples}} The purpose was to provide access to then-state-of-the-art Tab Equipment{{cite journal

|title=early punched card equipment: 1880–1951|doi=10.1109/JPROC.2012.2232513|s2cid=19914979}} rather than own basis.

File:Keypunching at Texas A%26M.jpg

Keypunching (a term that long-preceded "data entry") was often part of what was offered.

File:IBM card punch 029.JPG

As Batch processing systems replaced Tab Equipment,{{cite web

|url=https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/51180/service-bureau

|title=service bureau}} service bureaus, from the mid 1950s,{{Cite web|last=Daines|first=John|date=2002|title=Lyons Electronic Office - The world's first business computer|url=http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/downloads/55575}} could offer this too."...estimating batch processing charges at service bureau sites." {{cite web

|title=Use of synthetic benchmarks for estimating service bureau charges

|year=1976 |publisher=National Bureau of Standards (U.S.) |url=https://archive.org/stream/useofsyntheticbe920cont/useofsyntheticbe920cont_djvu.txt}}

A few decades later, sharing of mainframes via Timesharing was a step forward.IBM's ad was headlined: "This man is sharing a $2 million computer"{{cite book

|title=100 Days: How Four Events in 1969 Shaped America

|quote=... a happy timeshare user .. 'This man is sharing a $2 million computer.'

|isbn=978-1538125915 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

|author=Harlon Lebo |year=2019}}

These concepts already existed - advertising and Ad agencies. Initially newspapers sold space in bulk to print space brokers; they resold the space, but individual customers made their own ads.{{cite web

|title=The Pennsylvania Center for the Book - First Advertising Agency

|url=http://pabook2.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/AdCo.html}}{{cite web

|url=https://theamericanadvertisement.wordpress.com/early-american-advertising-pre-1900s

|title=Early American Advertising (Pre 1900s)|date=4 September 2013 }} Subsequently, the concept of having someone else write your ad took over.{{cite web |title=Advertising History

|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272494431}}

• Management of a national survey of corporate catering (300,000 questionnaires){{cite web

|url=http://www.soft-concept.com/uk/example-survey-service-bureau.htm

|title=Examples of services}}

• A specialized service bureau might be good at doing direct mail, perhaps just for a single target.e.g. car buyers. {{cite web |url=https://goosesocietyoftexas.com/bob-brockman

|title=Bob Brockman}}

::Founded in 1866 as an Ohio business forms printer, in 1927 they began to specialize as printers of accounting forms for car dealers. In the 1960s they added dealership computer services.

Although Landart Systems, Inc (LSI) opened in 1973 as a DECsystem-20-based timesharing bureau that also did computerized typesetting,{{cite magazine |magazine=Hardcopy

|date=January 1983 |title=Printing System Developer won't be Type Set}} it was the 1977 introduction of the Xerox 9700 high-end laser printer which was Landart's subsequent mark of distinction.

The 9700 could accept input via direct computer link or from magnetic tape, thus allowing the next step: a service they called Laserlink."The company, Landart Systems, is offering LaserLink, an interactive timesharing service that combines high-speed Xerox 9700 laser printing, graphics {{cite magazine

|title=Laserlink (Landart) |magazine=InfoWorld |date=March 14, 1983 |page=31

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-i8EAAAAMBAJ}}

"The Laserlink service consists of the Xerox 9700 Electronic Printing System with ..." {{cite magazine |magazine=Computerworld |date=November 22, 1982 |page=51

|title=Interactive Printing Service Combines Xerox 9700, T/S System Formats}}

Founded by John Gilmour, a data processing manager whose Wall Street employer folded, the initial goal was to have the various services needed to perform typesetting, financial computer graphics, word processing and general timesharing under one roof.

Laserlink and another specialty, electronic publishing (which was then uncommon) allowed Landart to advance.

• Business process outsourcing
• Payroll service bureau
• Computer bureau
• Service provider
• Software as a service
• Time-sharing
• Utility computing

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Category:Business models

Category:Office work