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Unisys Corporation is an American multinational
information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
(IT) services and
consulting A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...
company headquartered in Blue Bell,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. It provides digital workplace solutions, cloud, applications, and infrastructure solutions, enterprise computing solutions, and business process solutions for organizations around the world.


History


Founding

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 Werner Michael Blumenthal (born January 3, 1926) is a German-American business leader, economist and political adviser who served as United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1979. At age thirteen, Blumenth ...
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 In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...
processor
Windows Server Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a group of operating systems (OS) for servers that Microsoft has been developing since July 27, 1993. The first OS that was released for this platform was Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server. With the r ...
s), 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 Convergent Technologies was an American computer company formed by a small group of people who left Intel Corporation and Xerox PARC in 1979. Among the founders were CEO Allen Michels, VP Engineering Bob Garrow, head of marketing Kal Hubler, and ...
, 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.


Product development and CEO changes

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 The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of D ...
index as the market capitalization of the company had fallen below the S&P 500 minimum of $4 billion. In 2010, Unisys sold its Medicare processing Health Information Management service to
Molina Healthcare Molina Healthcare is a managed care company headquartered in Long Beach, California, United States. The company provides health insurance to individuals through government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. History Molina Healthcare was f ...
for $135 million. On October 6, 2014, after six years as CEO and chairman, Unisys announced that Coleman was stepping down effective December 1, 2014. On January 1, 2015, Unisys officially named
Peter Altabef Peter Altabef (born 1959) is an American businessman and lawyer. He is currently the Chair and CEO of Unisys, positions he has held since 2018 and 2015, respectively. He also served twice as the company’s president. Previously, he was preside ...
as its new president and CEO, replacing Edward Coleman. Paul Weaver, who was formerly Lead Independent Director, was named Chairman.


2020–present time

In February 2020, SAIC announced plans to acquire Unisys Federal, the company’s federal defense contracting operation, for $1.2 billion. The company’s federal customer list included over a dozen military and civilian agencies. As part of the acquisition, Unisys has a licensing agreement with SAIC to continue providing its software to the federal clients. In June 2020, Australia’s Home Affairs’ biometric identification system, built in part through partnership with Unisys, was launched. In June 2021, the company announced the acquisition of Unify Square. Unify Square provides software and services which help companies manage collaboration and communication platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. In November, Mobinergy, a mobile device management software company, was acquired; and in December, Unisys acquired CompuGain, an Amazon Web Services Advanced Consulting Partner. In July 2021, Unisys partnered with Vodafone to help the company boost its IT services. The two launched “Vodafone Digital Factory,” and Unisys helped Vodafone clients with technologies like AI, virtual and augmented reality, and blockchain. In May 2022, the company joined the Plug and Play Enterprise Tech program. This allowed Unisys to source and partner with technology startups to access and use early-stage emerging technology.


Recognition and awards

* In 2018, 2019, and 2020, Unisys was named an overall market segment leader in the NelsonHall Evaluation & Assessment Tool Vendor Evaluation for Advanced Digital Workplace Services. * NelsonHall: 2021 NEAT Assessment, Leader, Cognitive and Self-Healing IT Infrastructure Services * In August 2020, Unisys Corporation reported that for the third straight year, NelsonHall has listed the organization as the regional market sector leader in the Evaluation & Assessment Tool (NEAT) Vendor Analysis report for Advanced Digital Workplace Services. * Avasant: 2021 RadarView – Digital Workplace Services * NelsonHall: 2022 NEAT Assessment, Leader, End-to-end Cloud Infrastructure Services * Everest Group: 2022 PEAK Matrix - Cloud Services, Major Contender - North America and Europe * In 2022, the company was named a Forbes’ America’s Best Employers For Women and a Leader in Advanced Digital Workplace Services Assessment.


Products and services

Unisys offers outsourcing managed services, systems integration and consulting services, application management and device management software, high end server technology, maintenance and support services, and cybersecurity services. In line with larger trends in the information technology industry, an increasing amount of Unisys revenue comes from services rather than equipment sales; in 2014, the ratio was 86% for services, up from 65% in 1997. The company maintains a portfolio of over 1,500 U.S. and non-U.S. patents. In 2014, Unisys phased out its CMOS processors, completing the migration of its ClearPath mainframes to
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...
chips, allowing clients to run the company's OS 2200 and MCP operating systems alongside more recent
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
workloads on Intel-based systems that support cloud and virtualization. The company announced its new ClearPath Dorado 8380 and 8390 systems in May, 2015. These new systems allowed the company to transition its ClearPath server families from proprietary CMOS processor technology to a software-based fabric architecture running on Intel processors. Unisys operates data centers around the world. * Digital Workplace Services (DWS) ** In March 2022, Vision-Box awarded Unisys two digital workplace solutions contracts to help build automated “SmartGates,” electronic security gates, at New Zealand’s Auckland International Airport and Australia’s 10 international airports. * Cloud, Applications, and Infrastructure (CA & I) ** California State University used Unisys’ CloudForte and Managed Security Services to integrate its hybrid-cloud environment. ** After acquiring Compugain, Unisys furthered its cloud capabilities, including hybrid cloud and cloud optimization, agile cloud migration, cloud-native capabilities, and data governance. ** Cybersecurity *** In November 2020, Unisys updated its Stealth platform to include visualization and dashboard tools to make it easier for an organization to track security in real-time. The new version made it possible for cybersecurity teams to see relationships between all network endpoints, including multiple clouds and edge computing platforms. * Enterprise Computing (ECS) ** Unisys was the first to develop a server architecture that supported four operating environments to run simultaneously on the same computer system in a single virtualized partition. ** In 2013, Unisys won a $650 million Enterprise Computing Center Support contract to support the computer systems used by the Internal Revenue Service. *Business Processes (BPS) **Unisys launched their business process consulting service in 2004. This service called Business Blueprints helped developers create high level models of their own software. **The company partners with Rubicon Technologies to deliver business process solutions.


Partnerships

Unisys’ company partnerships include the following: * VMware * Oracle * British Telecomm * Dell Technologies * Amazon Web Services (AWS) MSP Partner and an AWS Government Competency * Microsoft Azure Expert MSP partner and a Microsoft Gold Partner * Global managed services partner to ServiceNow * Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program as a Google Cloud and Google Workspace Resell Partner


Clients

Clients include Bank ABC, Hershey, the Bank of China, Somos, Henkel, Flowserve, The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), MASkargo (the cargo division of Malaysia Airlines), Nutreco, California State University (CSU), Air India, RAMS Home Loans, and the Georgia Technology Authority. Unisys systems are used for many industrial and government purposes, including banking, check processing, income tax processing, airline passenger reservations,
biometric Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...
identification, newspaper content management, and shipping port management, as well as providing weather data services.


Projects

Additional projects include the following:


Consumerization of IT

A study sponsored by Unisys and conducted by IDC revealed the gap between the activities and expectations of the new generation of "iWorkers" and the ability of organizations to support their needs. The results showed that organizations continue to work with standardized command and control IT models of the past and are not able to profit from the widespread use of newer networked technologies.


Cloud 20/20

Cloud 20/20 is an annual technical paper contest for tertiary students from
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
in October 2009. The contest allows students to explore the possibilities and complexities of
cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...
in areas such as automation, virtualization, application development, security, consumerization of IT and airports. The contest has drawn participation from universities across India, with over 570 institutes taking part in 2009 and more than a thousand in 2010. The contest culminates in an event where five finalists present their papers before a panel of judges that comprise academicians and technologists. Prizes include the latest technology gadgets, internship projects and career opportunities with Unisys.


Controversies

In 1987, Unisys was sued with Rockwell Shuttle Operations Company for $5.2 million by two former employees of the Unisys Corporation, one a subcontractor responsible for the computer programs for the space shuttle. The suit filed by Sylvia Robins, a former Unisys engineer, and Ria Solomon, who worked for Robins, charges that the two were forced from their jobs and harassed after complaining about safety violations and inflated costs. Unisys overcharged the U.S. government and in 1998 was found guilty of failure to supply adequate equipment. In 1998, Unisys Corporation agreed to pay the government $2.25 million to settle allegations that it supplied refurbished, rather than new, computer materials to several federal agencies in violation of the terms of its contract. Unisys admitted to supplying re-worked or refurbished computer components to various civilian and military agencies in the early 1990s, when the contract required the company to provide new equipment. The market price for the refurbished material was less than the price for new material which the government paid. In 1998, Unisys was found guilty of price inflation and government contract fraud, with the company settling to avoid further prosecution.
Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...
and Unisys paid the government $3.15 million to settle allegations that Unisys inflated the prices of spare parts sold to the
U.S. Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busin ...
for its NEXRAD Doppler Radar System, in violation of the
False Claims Act The False Claims Act (FCA), also called the "Lincoln Law", is an American federal law that imposes liability on persons and companies (typically federal contractors) who defraud governmental programs. It is the federal government's primary litigat ...
, 31 U.S.C. § 3729, et seq. " e settlement resolves allegations that Unisys knew that prices it paid
Concurrent Computer Corporation Concurrent Computer Corporation was an American computer company, in existence from 1985 to 2017, that made real-time computing and parallel processing systems. Its products powered a variety of applications including process control, simulators ...
for the spare parts were inflated when it passed on those prices to the government. Unisys had obtained price discounts from Concurrent on other items Unisys was purchasing from Concurrent at Unisys' own expense in exchange for agreeing to pay Concurrent the inflated prices". In October 2005, the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' reported that the company had allegedly overbilled on the $1-to-3-billion Transportation Security Administration contract for almost 171,000 hours of labor and overtime at up to the maximum rate of $131.13 per hour, including 24,983 hours not allowed by the contract. Unisys denied wrongdoing. In 2006, the ''Washington Post'' reported that the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
was investigating Unisys for alleged cybersecurity lapses under the company's contract with the United States
Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
. A number of security lapses supposedly occurred during the contract, including incidents in which data was transmitted to
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
servers. Unisys denies all charges and said it has documentation disproving the allegations. In 2007, Unisys was found guilty of misrepresentation of retiree benefits. A federal judge in Pennsylvania ordered Unisys Corp. to reinstate within 60 days free lifetime retiree medical benefits to 12 former employees who were employed by a Unisys predecessor, the Burroughs Corporation. The judge ruled that Unisys "misrepresented the cost and duration of retiree medical benefits" at a time "trial plaintiffs were making retirement decisions" and while it was advising them about the benefits the company would provide during retirement. Also in 2007, Unisys was found guilty of willful trademark infringement in ''Visible Systems v. Unisys'' (Trademark Infringement). Computer company Visible Systems prevailed over Unisys Corp. in a trademark infringement lawsuit filed in Massachusetts federal court. In November 2007, the court entered an injunction and final judgment ordering Unisys to discontinue its use of the "Visible" trademark, upholding the jury's award to Visible Systems of $250,000 in damages, and awarding an additional $17,555 in interest. Visible Systems claimed Unisys wrongfully used the name "Visible" in marketing its software and services. The jury found the infringement by Unisys was willful. Visible Systems appealed the final judgment, believing the court wrongly excluded the issues of bad faith and disgorgement of an estimated $17 billion in unjust profits from the consideration of the jury. In 2010, Unisys Hungary terminated the local Workers' Union representative Gabor Pinter's employment contract with immediate effect for raising concerns on the company's practice about the overtime payments and the non-respect of the health regulations in its local
Shared Services Center A shared services center – a center for shared services in an organization – is the entity responsible for the execution and the handling of specific operational tasks, such as accounting, human resources, payroll, IT, legal, complia ...
. According to the verdict of the Labour Court of
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
, Unisys' act was illegal and the Company must reimburse all
damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...
of the Workers' Union representative.


See also


References


External links

* {{Authority control 1986 establishments in Pennsylvania Companies based in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Computer companies of the United States American companies established in 1986 Consulting firms established in 1986 Computer companies established in 1986 Information technology companies of the United States Information technology consulting firms of the United States