Michael Aldrich
Encyclopedia
—
Michael Aldrich is an English inventor, innovator and entrepreneur. In 1979 he invented online shopping to enable online transaction processing between consumers and businesses, or between one business and another, a technique known later as e-commerce. In 1980 he invented the Teleputer, a multi-purpose home infotainment centre that was a fusion of PC, TV and Telecom networking technologies. In 1981 he developed the concept of interactive broadband local loop cable TV for mass market consumer telecommunications.
Aldrich had a 38 year career in the IT industry, 20 years of which were spent as CEO of an international computer company, Redifon/Rediffusion
/ROCC Computers. He retired as CEO in 2000 and became non-executive Chairman[2000-]. He also worked for Honeywell (now Groupe Bull
) and Burroughs Corporation (now Unisys
).
Aside from his inventions and innovations, he is known for his pro bono public service. He was an IT adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher 1981-86, IT adviser to the Confederation of British Industry
January 1982-December 1983, President of the Institute of Information Scientists 1984-85, and Chairman of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations 1989-99. He has had a long, formal association with the University of Brighton
in various capacities since 1982.
, Hertfordshire
, England. He went to school at Clapham College
in London and, in 1959, he won a scholarship to the University of Hull
to study History. In 1960 he became engaged to Sandy Kay Hutchings, a student at Hull Art College, originally named Hull School of Art
, and they married in 1962 just prior to his graduation. They have four children and eight grandchildren.
In 1979, Aldrich invented online shopping by connecting a modified domestic TV to a real-time transaction processing computer via a domestic telephone line. The intellectual basis for his system was his view that videotex
, the modified domestic TV technology with a very simple menu-driven human–computer interface, was a 'new, universally applicable, participative communication medium-the first since the invention of the telephone.' This enabled 'closed' corporate information systems to be opened to 'outside' correspondents not just for transaction processing but also for messaging [e-mail] and information retrieval and dissemination [later known as e-business.] His language of 'impacts competitive trading position', 'using IT for competitive advantage', 'externalises labour costs', etc. became commonplace in the management consultancy industry later in the 1980s. These ideas fed into the Business Process Reengineering
strategies of the 1990s. His concept of information technology as a mass communications medium is a driver for the contemporary IT industry. His definition of the new mass communications medium as 'participative' [interactive, many-to-many] was fundamentally different to the traditional definitions of mass communication
and mass media
and a precursor to the social networking on the Internet
25 years later.
In March 1980 he launched Redifon's Office Revolution. The Revolution was that corporate computer information systems had hitherto been in-house.From hereon consumers, customers, agents, distributors,suppliers and service companies would be connected on-line to the corporate systems and business would be transacted electronically in real-time.
During the 1980s he designed, manufactured, sold, installed, maintained and supported many online shopping systems, using videotex technology. These systems which also provided voice response and handprint processing pre-date the Internet and the World Wide Web
, the IBM PC, and Microsoft
MS-DOS, and were installed mainly in the UK by large corporations.
In 1980 he invented a system he called the 'Teleputer' by connecting a modified 14-inch colour television to a plinth containing a Zilog
Z80 microprocessor running a modified version of the CP/M
operating system and a chip set containing a modem, character generator and auto-dialler. The Teleputer of 1980 could receive terrestrial television, operate as a stand-alone colour PC (at a time when computer screens were mainly mono-chromatic), with a full complement of application software and network with other computers via dial-up or leased lines. The system included two 360 KB floppy disks (later a 20 MB Hard disk), a keyboard and a printer. The name 'Teleputer' later became synonymous with the fusion of computers, telecommunications and television in a single device. There were plans to add video-disks which at the time, in prototype form, were 12 inches. In many ways the Teleputer was the first home media centre concept.
Although the Teleputer had been conceived for mass market home use, it was put into production for business use with the TV tuner removed. There was no consumer electronics market for it (at the time the consumer electronics market was just waking up to the VCR) but it was relatively easy to cost-justify the Teleputer for business networking. It was widely used in the UK and, because a Cyrillic version was made, in the then USSR.
The Teleputer was often used with the Online Shopping systems. Most computer systems by their nature are transient but many of Aldrich's systems were transformative. A number were recorded for posterity and case studies have survived. The world's first recorded Business-to-Business (B2B) Online Shopping system was Thomson Holidays
[1981] The world's first recorded Business-to-Consumer (B2C) online shopping system was Gateshead
SIS/Tesco
[1984] The world's first recorded online home shopper was Mrs Jane Snowball, 72, of Gateshead, England in May 1984.
Some of the most interesting B2B applications in the surviving case studies were in the auto industry. Peugeot
-Talbot (1981), then trading as Talbot Motors, installed a system for dealers to locate and adopt both a new car from the manufacturer or a used car from other dealers. Ford (1982) installed systems with ISPs in Brentwood England and Valencia Spain that permitted dealers in many European countries to buy new cars from Ford or transfer existing new cars from other dealers' lots. General Motors
[1985] used systems for selling truck spares. The Nissan[1984] systems were truly revolutionary. They combined car purchase by the dealer from the manufacturer (known in the industry as 'adoption') with car sale and financing to the consumer. The Nissan systems networked credit ratings from outside agencies (mainly UAPT Infolink 1985) and finance provision from either Nissan or other suppliers in real-time as part of the complete consumer purchasing transaction. This is the world's first recorded B2C online shopping for high value consumer durables and a model for the complex internet-based online shopping transactions for consumer durables that followed 20 years later. The Nissan system was copied by other credit rating and finance companies at the time but these systems appear to have been supplied by Aldrich's company under confidentiality agreements and no record is extant.
Aldrich's systems directly changed the holiday, retail, auto, finance and credit ratings industries. Online shopping was an important development for electronic commerce
. E-commerce changed the way the world does business. Both of his B2C systems in Gateshead
and Bradford
were shopping and information services. Bradford Centrepoint [1987] even ran a news service at one point. These systems were pioneering pre-internet systems.
Aldrich's original intention had been to develop a consumer electronics market for IT systems linked to a concept for broadband interactive information processing and cable TV distribution. He had a particular schema for a wired community. He campaigned successfully to change the law in the UK to permit new cable TV technology.
Aldrich articulated and broadcast the ubiquitous business and social potential of his mass communications medium concept of IT and created systems to realise that dream, sold and installed them, and created satisfied clients. Well known in the 1980s in the UK, he was all but forgotten 20 years later. His ideas were copied, plagiarised and patented in the 1990s without acknowledgement. Thomson Holidays reverse-engineered his system (the sincerest form of homage in the computer business) and in the peer-reviewed 1988 report used his language while virtually air-brushing his contribution. Comparing the 1981 original version of the project with the 1988 peer-reviewed version is fascinating. For online shopping he produced both the system and the business rationale for using it. The tie between his online shopping systems and the innovative information systems he created is the concept that videotex was a new, mass communications medium. That was the giant conceptual leap from the world of EDP to modern IT, emancipating computing from corporate information centres, and a precursor to the development of the Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows approaches to universal human/computer interface design for PCs and the Apple iPhone 3G.
The three areas of his work in consumer electronics—online shopping/Teleworking/Telebanking, Home Information Centres and broadband cable TV—and his book, papers and UK Government reports represent a significant contribution to the development of contemporary IT mass communications, consumer information and transaction systems, electronic commerce and e-business. Aldrich's ideas are the basis for Internet home shopping
.In June 2011 an ICM Poll in the UK voted Aldrich's date of birth as the 7th most important date in the history of the internet. There are currently gaps in the surviving records held at the Aldrich Library and it is likely that further information and illumination will be forthcoming in due course because of new academic and patent interest.
He was also an innovator in other areas of computer and information technology including large-scale data capture, mixed media scanning, minicomputer networking, voice response and handprint processing. He patented the world's first static signature recognition system in 1984. He founded ROCC Computers in 1984 after a management buy-out of Rediffusion Computers. The company traded mainly in the UK and Eastern Europe.
The first project for which evidence survives was to provide a system to automatically read handprinted timesheets for the nationalised railroad, British Rail
with over 100,000 employees, to complete the weekly payroll.[1978]. Regional centres were established throughout the UK. Scanners were used to read timesheets and for other applications. The systems were used for many years.
The largest project was the Siberian Gas Pipeline for Gazprom
[1981-83] where 46 computer systems with 1200 terminals and 240 Teleputers were networked to provide logistics support for the operation of the pipeline. Every aspect of the project was fraught with difficulties,
including political, technical, environmental, technical support, economic and resourcing problems. Some 1500 Russian hardware and software specialists were trained. The system was the most advanced IT system then installed in the USSR. It was used for many years.
The largest European project was the Ford Europe
system [1981-83] for dealers to locate and adopt a car, an online shopping system for dealers in the UK and much of Europe networking to systems based in the UK and Valencia, Spain. The system was used for nearly two decades. The largest UK project, apart from the Inland Revenue [the UK IRS], was the pricing of over 334 million medical prescriptions per annum for the Prescription Pricing Authority[1981-83][now NHS Prescription Services], part of the UK's single provider health system.These systems were used throughout the UK for a decade or more. The most politically sensitive project was probably the cattle passport system for the British Cattle Movement Service
to address the BSE
[mad cow disease] crisis in 1998. There were hundreds of other projects.
The legacy of these projects is somewhat perverse. Leading-edge technology was seen to work well and to be reasonably easy to implement. It may have encouraged others to take risks that were not always justifiable. The 1990s onwards in the UK saw a succession of big, failed IT projects.
in 1984 and he was made a Chartered Fellow in 2004. In 1986 he was invited to become a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute
, the UK's elite management leadership organization. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
. In 2002 he was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Brighton for services to Information Technology.
Michael Aldrich was invited to address an invited audience including British Royalty on 23 March 1983 in Edinburgh, Scotland to mark the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the British Computer Society. The speech was titled 'Computers in the Community.'
In 1987 Michael Aldrich was made a Freeman of the City of London,England. He became a Founder Member of the Company of Information Technologists which became a Chartered City Livery in 1992. The Company's membership consists of senior IT professionals.He is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists
.
Michael Aldrich was a member of the team for the whole term of its existence. He wrote a seminal paper on re-cabling the UK with local loop broadband cable and paying for it without government subsidy by distributing cable television alongside data and telephone services. The panel then wrote a report, published it and the government subsequently changed the law to legalise such systems. By 2007, 12 million UK homes were passed by these high-speed broadband links.
The second report concerned the emerging software and information business and, among other issues, identified the potential power of providers who might control both content and electronic delivery. The third report was a long-range forecast of the potential effects of IT on schools and teaching and it predicted powerful PCs on school desks. The Panel was disbanded in 1986.
hospital in Hampstead, London, England. The TIHR was spun out of the Tavistock Clinic as a charity in 1947. The Tavistock Clinic is a centre of excellence for studying and addressing the clinical behaviour of individuals. The TIHR is focussed on group behaviour.
In 1988 the TIHR had an illustrious history at the forefront of the social and psychological
sciences but was somewhat in the shadows of the world-famous founding fathers who had once worked there or indeed were still working there. These people were approaching retirement and
the TIHR needed to renew itself. The transition of the TIHR was to take nearly two decades.
The 1989-99 period was characterised by the physical relocation of the TIHR from the Tavistock Clinic in Hampstead to its own building in London's City financial district; the stabilisation of the Institute's finances;the 50th Anniversary[1997] celebration that saluted the past achievements while embracing future challenges; the publication of the Tavistock Anthology which served to draw an elegant line under the TIHR's previous achievements; and the development of new lines of research by a talented younger team.
Michael Aldrich left the Council in 1999. He remains a member of the Tavistock Association.
In November 2010 the University of Brighton Business School announced that it would be using the Aldrich Archive for teaching and research.A Michael Aldrich Prize would be awarded to the outstanding e-commerce student on merit each year. The first awards were made in the Summer of 2011.
Michael Aldrich was a prolific writer of magazine articles, conference papers and speeches.
Some have survived. Some are available from commercial publishers. Many have been lost or destroyed.
Michael Aldrich is an English inventor, innovator and entrepreneur. In 1979 he invented online shopping to enable online transaction processing between consumers and businesses, or between one business and another, a technique known later as e-commerce. In 1980 he invented the Teleputer, a multi-purpose home infotainment centre that was a fusion of PC, TV and Telecom networking technologies. In 1981 he developed the concept of interactive broadband local loop cable TV for mass market consumer telecommunications.
Aldrich had a 38 year career in the IT industry, 20 years of which were spent as CEO of an international computer company, Redifon/Rediffusion
Rediffusion
Rediffusion was a business which distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks. The business gave rise to a number of other companies, including Associated-Rediffusion, later known as Rediffusion London, one of the first companies to win a terrestrial ITV franchise in the UK...
/ROCC Computers. He retired as CEO in 2000 and became non-executive Chairman[2000-]. He also worked for Honeywell (now Groupe Bull
Groupe Bull
-External links:* * — Friends, co-workers and former employees of Bull and Honeywell* *...
) and Burroughs Corporation (now Unisys
Unisys
Unisys Corporation , headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware, is a long established business whose core products now involves computing and networking.-History:...
).
Aside from his inventions and innovations, he is known for his pro bono public service. He was an IT adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher 1981-86, IT adviser to the Confederation of British Industry
Confederation of British Industry
The Confederation of British Industry is a British not for profit organisation incorporated by Royal charter which promotes the interests of its members, some 200,000 British businesses, a figure which includes some 80% of FTSE 100 companies and around 50% of FTSE 350 companies.-Role:The CBI works...
January 1982-December 1983, President of the Institute of Information Scientists 1984-85, and Chairman of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations 1989-99. He has had a long, formal association with the University of Brighton
University of Brighton
The University of Brighton is an English university of the United Kingdom, with a community of over 23,000 students and 2,600 staff based on campuses in Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. It has one of the best teaching quality ratings in the UK and a strong research record, factors which...
in various capacities since 1982.
Personal life
Michael Aldrich was born on 22 August 1941 in Welwyn Garden CityWelwyn Garden City
-Economy:Ever since its inception as garden city, Welwyn Garden City has attracted a strong commercial base with several designated employment areas. Among the companies trading in the town are:*Air Link Systems*Baxter*British Lead Mills*Carl Zeiss...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, England. He went to school at Clapham College
Clapham College
-Background:It opened in 1897 and closed in 1989. Its history falls into three phases: for half a century it was a private school, for three decades it was a publicly supported grammar school and for more than a decade it was a comprehensive school...
in London and, in 1959, he won a scholarship to the University of Hull
University of Hull
The University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
to study History. In 1960 he became engaged to Sandy Kay Hutchings, a student at Hull Art College, originally named Hull School of Art
Hull School of Art
The Hull School of Art was founded in 1861 by a group of 'working men' as a response to a British government circular. The circular was issued by the British Government's Department of Science and Art...
, and they married in 1962 just prior to his graduation. They have four children and eight grandchildren.
Career
Aldrich spent 15 years with Honeywell and Burroughs in the UK in various sales and marketing roles, where he became known as an innovator, before joining the Board of Redifon in 1977.In 1979, Aldrich invented online shopping by connecting a modified domestic TV to a real-time transaction processing computer via a domestic telephone line. The intellectual basis for his system was his view that videotex
Videotex
Videotex was one of the earliest implementations of an "end-user information system". From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television.In a strict definition, videotex refers to systems that provide...
, the modified domestic TV technology with a very simple menu-driven human–computer interface, was a 'new, universally applicable, participative communication medium-the first since the invention of the telephone.' This enabled 'closed' corporate information systems to be opened to 'outside' correspondents not just for transaction processing but also for messaging [e-mail] and information retrieval and dissemination [later known as e-business.] His language of 'impacts competitive trading position', 'using IT for competitive advantage', 'externalises labour costs', etc. became commonplace in the management consultancy industry later in the 1980s. These ideas fed into the Business Process Reengineering
Business process reengineering
Business process re-engineering is the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization.According to Davenport a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome....
strategies of the 1990s. His concept of information technology as a mass communications medium is a driver for the contemporary IT industry. His definition of the new mass communications medium as 'participative' [interactive, many-to-many] was fundamentally different to the traditional definitions of mass communication
Mass communication
Mass communication is the term used to describe the academic study of the various means by which individuals and entities relay information through mass media to large segments of the population at the same time...
and mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
and a precursor to the social networking on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
25 years later.
In March 1980 he launched Redifon's Office Revolution. The Revolution was that corporate computer information systems had hitherto been in-house.From hereon consumers, customers, agents, distributors,suppliers and service companies would be connected on-line to the corporate systems and business would be transacted electronically in real-time.
During the 1980s he designed, manufactured, sold, installed, maintained and supported many online shopping systems, using videotex technology. These systems which also provided voice response and handprint processing pre-date the Internet and the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
, the IBM PC, and Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
MS-DOS, and were installed mainly in the UK by large corporations.
In 1980 he invented a system he called the 'Teleputer' by connecting a modified 14-inch colour television to a plinth containing a Zilog
Zilog
Zilog, Inc., previously known as ZiLOG , is a manufacturer of 8-bit and 24-bit microcontrollers, and is most famous for its Intel 8080-compatible Z80 series.-History:...
Z80 microprocessor running a modified version of the CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
operating system and a chip set containing a modem, character generator and auto-dialler. The Teleputer of 1980 could receive terrestrial television, operate as a stand-alone colour PC (at a time when computer screens were mainly mono-chromatic), with a full complement of application software and network with other computers via dial-up or leased lines. The system included two 360 KB floppy disks (later a 20 MB Hard disk), a keyboard and a printer. The name 'Teleputer' later became synonymous with the fusion of computers, telecommunications and television in a single device. There were plans to add video-disks which at the time, in prototype form, were 12 inches. In many ways the Teleputer was the first home media centre concept.
Although the Teleputer had been conceived for mass market home use, it was put into production for business use with the TV tuner removed. There was no consumer electronics market for it (at the time the consumer electronics market was just waking up to the VCR) but it was relatively easy to cost-justify the Teleputer for business networking. It was widely used in the UK and, because a Cyrillic version was made, in the then USSR.
The Teleputer was often used with the Online Shopping systems. Most computer systems by their nature are transient but many of Aldrich's systems were transformative. A number were recorded for posterity and case studies have survived. The world's first recorded Business-to-Business (B2B) Online Shopping system was Thomson Holidays
Thomson Holidays
Thomson Holidays is a UK based travel operator and part of TUI Travel PLC. The company was founded as part of the Thomson Travel Group in 1965 following the acquisition of three package holiday travel agencies and the airline Britannia Airways by Roy Thomson...
[1981] The world's first recorded Business-to-Consumer (B2C) online shopping system was Gateshead
Gateshead
Gateshead is a town in Tyne and Wear, England and is the main settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. Historically a part of County Durham, it lies on the southern bank of the River Tyne opposite Newcastle upon Tyne and together they form the urban core of Tyneside...
SIS/Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
[1984] The world's first recorded online home shopper was Mrs Jane Snowball, 72, of Gateshead, England in May 1984.
Some of the most interesting B2B applications in the surviving case studies were in the auto industry. Peugeot
Peugeot
Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest carmaker based in Europe.The family business that precedes the current Peugeot company was founded in 1810, and manufactured coffee mills and bicycles. On 20 November 1858, Emile Peugeot applied for the lion...
-Talbot (1981), then trading as Talbot Motors, installed a system for dealers to locate and adopt both a new car from the manufacturer or a used car from other dealers. Ford (1982) installed systems with ISPs in Brentwood England and Valencia Spain that permitted dealers in many European countries to buy new cars from Ford or transfer existing new cars from other dealers' lots. General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
[1985] used systems for selling truck spares. The Nissan[1984] systems were truly revolutionary. They combined car purchase by the dealer from the manufacturer (known in the industry as 'adoption') with car sale and financing to the consumer. The Nissan systems networked credit ratings from outside agencies (mainly UAPT Infolink 1985) and finance provision from either Nissan or other suppliers in real-time as part of the complete consumer purchasing transaction. This is the world's first recorded B2C online shopping for high value consumer durables and a model for the complex internet-based online shopping transactions for consumer durables that followed 20 years later. The Nissan system was copied by other credit rating and finance companies at the time but these systems appear to have been supplied by Aldrich's company under confidentiality agreements and no record is extant.
Aldrich's systems directly changed the holiday, retail, auto, finance and credit ratings industries. Online shopping was an important development for electronic commerce
Electronic commerce
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...
. E-commerce changed the way the world does business. Both of his B2C systems in Gateshead
Gateshead
Gateshead is a town in Tyne and Wear, England and is the main settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. Historically a part of County Durham, it lies on the southern bank of the River Tyne opposite Newcastle upon Tyne and together they form the urban core of Tyneside...
and Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
were shopping and information services. Bradford Centrepoint [1987] even ran a news service at one point. These systems were pioneering pre-internet systems.
Aldrich's original intention had been to develop a consumer electronics market for IT systems linked to a concept for broadband interactive information processing and cable TV distribution. He had a particular schema for a wired community. He campaigned successfully to change the law in the UK to permit new cable TV technology.
Aldrich articulated and broadcast the ubiquitous business and social potential of his mass communications medium concept of IT and created systems to realise that dream, sold and installed them, and created satisfied clients. Well known in the 1980s in the UK, he was all but forgotten 20 years later. His ideas were copied, plagiarised and patented in the 1990s without acknowledgement. Thomson Holidays reverse-engineered his system (the sincerest form of homage in the computer business) and in the peer-reviewed 1988 report used his language while virtually air-brushing his contribution. Comparing the 1981 original version of the project with the 1988 peer-reviewed version is fascinating. For online shopping he produced both the system and the business rationale for using it. The tie between his online shopping systems and the innovative information systems he created is the concept that videotex was a new, mass communications medium. That was the giant conceptual leap from the world of EDP to modern IT, emancipating computing from corporate information centres, and a precursor to the development of the Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows approaches to universal human/computer interface design for PCs and the Apple iPhone 3G.
The three areas of his work in consumer electronics—online shopping/Teleworking/Telebanking, Home Information Centres and broadband cable TV—and his book, papers and UK Government reports represent a significant contribution to the development of contemporary IT mass communications, consumer information and transaction systems, electronic commerce and e-business. Aldrich's ideas are the basis for Internet home shopping
Home shopping
Home shopping commonly refers to the electronic retailing/home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as HSN, QVC, eBay, ShopNBC, Buy.com, and Amazon.com, as well as traditional mail order and brick and mortar retailers as Hammacher...
.In June 2011 an ICM Poll in the UK voted Aldrich's date of birth as the 7th most important date in the history of the internet. There are currently gaps in the surviving records held at the Aldrich Library and it is likely that further information and illumination will be forthcoming in due course because of new academic and patent interest.
He was also an innovator in other areas of computer and information technology including large-scale data capture, mixed media scanning, minicomputer networking, voice response and handprint processing. He patented the world's first static signature recognition system in 1984. He founded ROCC Computers in 1984 after a management buy-out of Rediffusion Computers. The company traded mainly in the UK and Eastern Europe.
High-profile IT projects
In the 20 years from 1978 to 1998, Michael Aldrich and his team undertook many high profile projects which in many ways created the company's reputation. A number of case studies have survived. It was not unusual for the times that there were high profile IT projects; what was unusual was that a small UK IT company of 500–700 people became involved in high profile, high value, high risk and technically difficult projects. What is even more unusual is that there is no evidence to suggest that the projects were anything but very successful.The first project for which evidence survives was to provide a system to automatically read handprinted timesheets for the nationalised railroad, British Rail
British Rail
British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...
with over 100,000 employees, to complete the weekly payroll.[1978]. Regional centres were established throughout the UK. Scanners were used to read timesheets and for other applications. The systems were used for many years.
The largest project was the Siberian Gas Pipeline for Gazprom
Gazprom
Open Joint Stock Company Gazprom is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company. Its headquarters are in Cheryomushki District, South-Western Administrative Okrug, Moscow...
[1981-83] where 46 computer systems with 1200 terminals and 240 Teleputers were networked to provide logistics support for the operation of the pipeline. Every aspect of the project was fraught with difficulties,
including political, technical, environmental, technical support, economic and resourcing problems. Some 1500 Russian hardware and software specialists were trained. The system was the most advanced IT system then installed in the USSR. It was used for many years.
The largest European project was the Ford Europe
Ford Europe
-History:Ford of Europe was founded in 1967 on the merger of the British and German divisions of the Ford Motor Company. The original Ford Transit range of panel vans launched in 1965, was the first formal co-operation between the two entities, simultaneously developed to replace the German Ford...
system [1981-83] for dealers to locate and adopt a car, an online shopping system for dealers in the UK and much of Europe networking to systems based in the UK and Valencia, Spain. The system was used for nearly two decades. The largest UK project, apart from the Inland Revenue [the UK IRS], was the pricing of over 334 million medical prescriptions per annum for the Prescription Pricing Authority[1981-83][now NHS Prescription Services], part of the UK's single provider health system.These systems were used throughout the UK for a decade or more. The most politically sensitive project was probably the cattle passport system for the British Cattle Movement Service
British Cattle Movement Service
The British Cattle Movement Service is the organisation responsible for maintaining a database of all bovine animals in the United Kingdom...
to address the BSE
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy , commonly known as mad-cow disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. BSE has a long incubation period, about 30 months to 8 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of...
[mad cow disease] crisis in 1998. There were hundreds of other projects.
The legacy of these projects is somewhat perverse. Leading-edge technology was seen to work well and to be reasonably easy to implement. It may have encouraged others to take risks that were not always justifiable. The 1990s onwards in the UK saw a succession of big, failed IT projects.
Profession
Michael Aldrich became a Fellow of the British Computer SocietyBritish Computer Society
The British Computer Society, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in Information Technology in the United Kingdom and internationally...
in 1984 and he was made a Chartered Fellow in 2004. In 1986 he was invited to become a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute
Chartered Management Institute
The Chartered Management Institute is a professional institution for managers, based in the United Kingdom.In addition to supporting its members, the organisation encourages management development, carries out research, produces a wide variety of publications on management interests, and publishes...
, the UK's elite management leadership organization. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is a professional body representing librarians and other information professionals in the United Kingdom.-History:...
. In 2002 he was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Brighton for services to Information Technology.
Michael Aldrich was invited to address an invited audience including British Royalty on 23 March 1983 in Edinburgh, Scotland to mark the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the British Computer Society. The speech was titled 'Computers in the Community.'
In 1987 Michael Aldrich was made a Freeman of the City of London,England. He became a Founder Member of the Company of Information Technologists which became a Chartered City Livery in 1992. The Company's membership consists of senior IT professionals.He is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists
Worshipful Company of Information Technologists
The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists , aka the Information Technologists' Company , is the 100th Livery Company of the City of London...
.
Information Technology Advisory Panel 1981–86
In 1981, at the beginning of the IT age, the British Government assembled a team of six UK IT experts, on a pro bono basis, to provide high-level advice to the government. This team was known as the Information Technology Advisory Panel. It reported to Prime Minister Mrs Margaret Thatcher and was located in the Cabinet Office adjacent to 10 Downing Street in London, England. In its five-year existence it produced three reports for publication by the government. Little else is known about its activities.Michael Aldrich was a member of the team for the whole term of its existence. He wrote a seminal paper on re-cabling the UK with local loop broadband cable and paying for it without government subsidy by distributing cable television alongside data and telephone services. The panel then wrote a report, published it and the government subsequently changed the law to legalise such systems. By 2007, 12 million UK homes were passed by these high-speed broadband links.
The second report concerned the emerging software and information business and, among other issues, identified the potential power of providers who might control both content and electronic delivery. The third report was a long-range forecast of the potential effects of IT on schools and teaching and it predicted powerful PCs on school desks. The Panel was disbanded in 1986.
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations 1989-99
Michael Aldrich became a member of the Council of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations[TIHR] in 1988 and was elected Chairman in 1989, a post he held for a decade. TIHR was then located at the Tavistock ClinicTavistock Clinic
The in London was founded in 1920 by Dr. Hugh Crichton-Miller, a psychiatrist who developed psychological treatments for shell-shocked soldiers during and after the First World War. The clinic's first patient was, however, a child. Its clinical services were always, therefore, for both children...
hospital in Hampstead, London, England. The TIHR was spun out of the Tavistock Clinic as a charity in 1947. The Tavistock Clinic is a centre of excellence for studying and addressing the clinical behaviour of individuals. The TIHR is focussed on group behaviour.
In 1988 the TIHR had an illustrious history at the forefront of the social and psychological
sciences but was somewhat in the shadows of the world-famous founding fathers who had once worked there or indeed were still working there. These people were approaching retirement and
the TIHR needed to renew itself. The transition of the TIHR was to take nearly two decades.
The 1989-99 period was characterised by the physical relocation of the TIHR from the Tavistock Clinic in Hampstead to its own building in London's City financial district; the stabilisation of the Institute's finances;the 50th Anniversary[1997] celebration that saluted the past achievements while embracing future challenges; the publication of the Tavistock Anthology which served to draw an elegant line under the TIHR's previous achievements; and the development of new lines of research by a talented younger team.
Michael Aldrich left the Council in 1999. He remains a member of the Tavistock Association.
University of Brighton
Michael Aldrich first became involved with the then Brighton Polytechnic in 1977 when he was sponsoring student employees for degrees in electronic engineering and computer science. Under the sponsorship, employees were paid to attend college full-time for degrees. In 1982 he joined the governing body of the college, became Chairman and then Founding Chairman of the University of Brighton. In all he served 17 years on the governing body of the institution, 11 years as Chairman[1987-1998]. He retired from the Board of Governors in 1999. In 1990 he was responsible for appointing Professor [later Sir] David Watson as the first Vice-Chancellor[1990-2005]. A particularly talented leadership team developed the new university and for 1999 the University was declared 'University of the Year' by the London 'Sunday Times' newspaper. In 1992, Aldrich became Founding Chairman of the University's Foundation a fundraising body. The Aldrich family has been a longtime benefactor of the University. In 1995 Michael and wife Sandy began the Aldrich Collection of Contemporary Art which, by 2009, had grown to more than 300 works dating back over 100 years. The works have been created mainly by former students and artist professors at the University's highly rated Faculty of Art. The works are also held in web-accessible digitised form to provide a permanent virtual gallery. In 1996 the University named its new business, bio-sciences, engineering and technology library the 'Aldrich Library.' In 2002 Aldrich relinquished the chairmanship of the Foundation and remains a Trustee. In 2008, Michael Aldrich agreed to donate his IT papers for the period 1977-2000, the Aldrich Archive, to the University for teaching, learning, scholarship and research. Much of the first part of the archive which relates to technology and events has been digitised and is web-accessible. The second phase of the archive project was launched in 2010. It will gather and digitise material relating to the people who built and used the systems.In November 2010 the University of Brighton Business School announced that it would be using the Aldrich Archive for teaching and research.A Michael Aldrich Prize would be awarded to the outstanding e-commerce student on merit each year. The first awards were made in the Summer of 2011.
Publications
- 'Videotex-Key to the Wired City' Aldrich MJ. Quiller Press, London 1982.ISBN 0 907621 12 0
- 'Cable Systems' Aldrich MJ, co-author, HMSO London 1982.ISBN 011 6308214
- 'Making a Business of Information' Aldrich MJ co-author HMSO London 1983.ISBN 011 6308249
- 'Learning to Live with IT' Aldrich MJ co-author HMSO London 1986.ISBN 011 6308311
Michael Aldrich was a prolific writer of magazine articles, conference papers and speeches.
Some have survived. Some are available from commercial publishers. Many have been lost or destroyed.