ComputerLand was a widespread chain of retail computer stores during the early years of the
microcomputer revolution
The history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a mainframe computer where ...
, and was one of the outlets (along with
Computer City and
Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
) chosen to introduce the
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
in 1981. The first ComputerLand opened in 1976, and the chain eventually included about 800 stores by 1985. After this time the rapid
commoditization
In business literature, commoditization is defined as the process by which goods that have economic value and are distinguishable in terms of attributes (uniqueness or brand) end up becoming simple commodities in the eyes of the market or consu ...
of the PC led to the company's downfall, with most of the retail locations closing by 1990. The company officially ended in February 1999.
History
![ComputerLand Ad July 1977](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/ComputerLand_Ad_July_1977.jpg)
ComputerLand was founded by
William H. Millard. In 1974 he launched a company,
IMS Associates, Inc.
IMS Associates, Inc., or IMSAI, was a microcomputer company, responsible for one of the earliest successes in personal computing, the IMSAI 8080. The company was founded in 1973 by William Millard and was based in San Leandro, California. Their ...
, to build what was claimed to be the first truly integrated personal computers, sold as kits to hobbyists and the rapidly growing numbers of retailers (through small ads in ''
Popular Electronics
''Popular Electronics'' was an American magazine published by John August Media, LLC, and hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com. The magazine was started by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It soo ...
''). The computer, the
IMSAI 8080
The IMSAI 8080 was an early microcomputer released in late 1975, based on the Intel 8080 and later 8085 and S-100 bus. It was a clone of its main competitor, the earlier MITS Altair 8800. The IMSAI is largely regarded as the first "clone" micr ...
, may not have made Millard's fortune, but his resulting experiences with the inexperienced and under‑capitalized retailers did. In 1976 (at the same time as the
Byte Shop
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
was selling its first few
Apples
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
) he asked his Sales Director, Ed Faber (an ex‑IBM Manager), to start a new franchise operation, soon to become ComputerLand.
Faber first designed a pilot store, at
Hayward, California
Hayward () is a city located in Alameda County, California in the East Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of 162,954 as of 2020, Hayward is the sixth largest city in the Bay Area and the third largest in Alameda Coun ...
, with the then-revolutionary concept of providing a "full service" store, offering under one roof all that the customer needed to support their PCs.
[ Advertisement for Preview Opening of a Computer Shack store at 22634 Foothill Blvd, Hayward, CA,] He then moved rapidly to set up franchising. The first franchisee was in Morristown, New Jersey, and was rapidly followed by a chain across the US.
It set a pattern that dominated PC retailing for the next decade. By the time
IBM arrived on the scene, the network of branches, all run by franchisees, had grown to 190 in number. By the end of 1985, when Millard retired, there were some 800 branches (including some 200 outside the US) and he had become one of the computer billionaires.
Most ComputerLand stores succumbed to the predation of the "box-shifters" in the price wars of the latter 1980s, after the peak had passed.
In 1987, Millard sold ComputerLand to
E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co. for
US$200 million.
In 1993, Merisel announced it would purchase the ComputerLand name and all franchise holdings and its Datago aggregation division for $110 million.
The new Merisel ComputerLand unit was operated by the then-president of Computerland's franchise and distribution business,
Martin Wolf
Martin Harry Wolf (born 16 August 1946 in London) is a British journalist of Austrian-Dutch descent who focuses on economics. He is the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the ''Financial Times''.
Early life
Wolf was born in ...
.
The following year, "Vanstar" was selected as the name for the ComputerLand corporate company-owned stores stemming from the Nynex acquisition. (
Pleasanton, California
Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the Amador Valley, it is a suburb in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 79,871 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. In 200 ...
) after the sale of split-off franchisor to Merisel.
In 1997 Synnex Information Technologies, a national distributor of microcomputers and communication, networking, peripheral and storage products, purchased substantially all the assets of Merisel FAB Inc., including the ComputerLand franchise. Synnex created ComputerLand Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Synnex, consisting of the ComputerLand and Datago businesses.
On October 9, 1998, Inacom purchased Vanstar for a reported $465 – $480 million. The resulting company employed nearly 12,000 and was estimated to generate $7 billion in revenue.
The acquisition of Vanstar reportedly added a large amount of debt, and it has been said that Inacom overpaid for a company of that size. Vanstar had 43.26 million shares outstanding at the time the deal was struck, and shareholders of Vanstar received .64 shares of ICO for each VST share in a stock swap deal, thus the issuance of 27.7 M shares of stock effectively more than doubled the number of outstanding shares while also being dilutive to the existing shares. This, plus debt concerns, led to a decline in the price of Inacom's stock.
Inacom
Inacom Corporation (ICO:NYSE) was a large national seller of PC's and services based in Omaha, Nebraska, at one point being the third-largest and most profitable computer distributor in the United States.
Origins
The company created in 1991 from ...
Corporation ceased operations completely in 2000.
Although the corporate ComputerLand ceased operations
anStar many former franchises continue to operate today as independently owned computer businesses under the ComputerLand name.
References
Further reading
*David Mercer, "IBM: How the World's Most Successful Corporation is Managed", Kogan Page 198
*{{cite book , last =Littman , first =Jonathan , title =Once Upon a Time in ComputerLand: The Amazing, Billion-Dollar Tale of Bill Millard , publisher = Price Stern Sloan , year =1987 , location =Los Angeles , isbn =0-89586-502-5
*https://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n=25
External links
ComputerLand in France near ParisCOMPUTERLAND BelgiumChicago ComputerLandComputerLand of Silicon ValleyComputerLand of WoodbridgeComputerLand OttumwaComputerLand SavannahETC ComputerLand
Defunct computer hardware companies
Companies based in Hayward, California
Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Retail companies based in California