EDP and the Disenchanted

by Felix Kaufman


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Abstract

Electronic data processing (EDP) has been evaluated through rumor and gossip, and in management literature almost from the moment the first user pushed the start button. Over a period of two to three years, observations, gossip, and surveys have blended with prejudice and hastily drawn conclusions to form a general impression of the relative success and failure of EDP. One can hardly escape observing a certain note of disappointment in the evaluations he hears and reads. The author of this article have been most interested in this disenchantment and have continuously compared the generally emerging picture with his image of EDP. Accordingly, he attempts to put some of the success and failures of EDP into a more reasonable perspective. He does this on the basis of his own experience, which includes seeing new EDP situations every week, intermittent but frequent contact with a variety of operating installations, continuous contact with all of the principal manufacturers and other observers, and on a never ending examination of a constantly increasing volume of literature.

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