Computer
p. 65 · Read in the full issue
coup imminent
With a possible initial computer coup in the New Hebrides imminent, the world’s largest computer com pany, IBM, is most evident in New Caledonia and Tahiti within the Islands area.
IBM has been, so far, unsuccess ful at marketing its computers in Fiji and Papua New Guinea but its Paris subsidiary, Compagnie IBM France, is actively operating out of a Noumea base.
The first data processing equip ment in New Caledonia was installed by IBM France in 1963 at a time when the branch office for the region was in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was a small unit record equipment for a family and retirement fund.
Since then, IBM’s business has developed steadily in New Caledonia and French Polynesia, two territories where the economy has grown very quickly in the past years, owing to the nickel boom in the first one, and the activities of the Nuclear Experi ment Centre in the second.
At the start of the war in Cam bodia, the branch office was moved to Noumea which was becoming the
main centre of activity of IBM France in the area.
Computers in New Caledonia and Tahiti now include several main frame 370 series and System 3s, rang ing from the smaller System 3 model 6 to a 256 K 370 model 145 in stalled at Societe Le Nickel for busi ness applications and technical computing.
Other main users are government, banks and other financial institutions, power plants and commercial com panies.
All DP equipment can be mar keted and maintained in New Caledonia and Polynesia. Systems and customer engineers are sent from France under a limited term contract.
They are selected according to their knowledge of the systems in stalled or to be installed, thus pro viding customers with the same quality of assistance that can be expected everywhere else in the world.
Office products in New Caledonia and Tahiti include all types of type writers, magnetic tape typewriters, comppsers and dictating equipment.
Six compospheres (memory com posers) will be installed in Tahiti in the near future. Maintenance is provided by local staff, trained either in France or locally, with the help of IBM Australia.