The history of PC Solutions
Once upon a time, in 1972, two IBM engineers shed their blue suits and ventured off on their own. That’s the beginning of the PC Solutions story. As Wybrite Inc., Tom Downs and his partner serviced, maintained and leased the enormous IBM machines that read punch cards and generated enough heat to warm a small town. It was a good move, as all through the 70’s the IBM world was stable and business was good and steady.
In the early 1980’s disco was on its way out and so too, it seemed, were IBM punch cards. Through his windshield-sized glasses, Tom could see the rise of micro computers and responded to the changing market by acquiring National Data Products (NDP). Like Wybrite, NDP had a strong reputation for high quality service and technical sophistication. The company’s service department was a leader in micro computers and proved to be a savvy purchase for Tom and his growing team. One of the better assets that came along with NDP was a young engineer named Mark Berndt.
In those days a mouse was still a small rodent and facsimile machines were all the rage, but personal computers were starting to sneak out of the basements and closets of tinkering geeks and made their way to the service desk at Wybrite.
In the early 1990’s Wybrite was still keeping the micro computers humming along and they started networking with early technologies like Token Ring, Arc Net and Nan-Tactic. It was an exciting time for computer engineers, but a frustrating time for businesses because these systems were expensive and painfully unreliable.
The really good years started in the mid 1990’s. Networking built on more reliable standards like Novell and Net-ware pushed out the pioneer software and the explosive growth of personal computers greatly enlarged the market for support. In 1994 most companies were just selling computers right out of the box, or hanging on to their old business of supporting larger systems. In an effort to maintain industry leadership in supporting the new generation of networking systems and personal computers, Wybrite bought a company with a great reputation for service and technology: PC Solutions. By this time a new generation was ready to take the company into the future, so Tom retired 1996 and sold the business to Mark. Wybrite became PC Solutions and for the rest of the decade buying, networking and maintaining computers was a national obsession. It was the golden age of PC Solutions, especially leading up to Y2K. Then came 9-11, the burst of the dot.com bubble and it seemed like everyone had all the hardware and software they needed.
A new decade and a new chapter for PC Solutions.
With improvements in networking technology, PC software and the growth of the Internet, PC Solutions moved beyond mid-range IBM service and equipment brokering to focus on what they had always done well: service, service and service. While many other IT firms closed shop PC Solutions continued to grow.
These days’ engineers aren’t using soldering irons and they don’t need a refrigerator dolly to move a computer across the room. Compared to the old days, today’s laptops and Blackberries look more like gadgets from a science fiction movie and less like the clunky office machines of the past. Wireless networking and cheap digital storage are revolutionizing the way we all do business. Every business is now in the technology business and with this growing importance of technology, businesses have to be very serious about the stability and security of their information networks.
In many ways PC Solutions looks nothing like the early days when Mark and other “geeks” like him actually carried screwdrivers in their pocket protectors. These days much of the work they do is strategic planning and system design. The “solutions” aren’t focused on solving problems that need to be “fixed,” but on building and monitoring systems so they run without a hitch.
Into The Future
As we come to the end of the 2000’s, it’s hard to predict what will happen in the next chapter of the PC Solutions story. What we do know is that no matter what twists and turns the technology takes, PC Solutions will always stay close to their humble beginning in the service department.
