Unisys

Unisys Corporation is an American multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company founded in 1986 and headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. The company provides digital workplace, cloud applications & infrastructure, enterprise computing and business process services. Unisys was formed in 1986 through the merger of mainframe corporations Sperry and Burroughs, with Burroughs buying Sperry for $4.8 billion. The name was chosen from over 31,000 submissions in an internal competition when Christian Machen submitted the word "Unisys" which was composed of parts of the words united, information and systems. The merger was the largest in the computer industry at the time and made Unisys the second largest computer company with annual revenue of$10.5 billion. Michael Blumenthal became CEO and Chairman. Soon after the merger, the market for proprietary mainframe-class systems—the mainstream product of Unisys and its competitors such as IBM—began a long-term decline that continues, at a lesser rate, today. In response, Unisys made the strategic decision to shift into high-end servers (e.g., 32-bit processor Windows Servers), as well as information technology (IT) services such as systems integration, outsourcing, and related technical services, while holding onto the profitable revenue stream from maintaining its installed base of proprietary mainframe hardware and applications. In 1988, the company acquired Convergent Technologies, makers of CTOS. In 1990, Blumenthal resigned. James Unruh (formerly of Memorex and Honeywell) became the new CEO and Chairman after Blumenthal's departure and continued in that role until 1997, when Larry Weinbach of Arthur Andersen became the new CEO. Joseph McGrath served as CEO and President from January 2005, until September, 2008. On October 7, 2008, J. Edward Coleman replaced J. McGrath as CEO and was named Chairman of the board as well. On November 10, 2008, the company was removed from the S&P 500 index as the market capitalization of the company had fallen below the S&P 500 minimum of $4 billion.