Data Systems Worldwide history

By 1973 he had invested further funds in Walston and Company, another retail brokerage house, and had proposed a merger between DuPont and Walston.

By early 1974, Perot was defeated by the losses at DuPont and Walston and left Wall Street some $60 million poorer.

In 1975 the company began to aggressively pursue overseas business.

The company paid its first cash dividend in 1976, as its business volume increased for the eighth consecutive year, and it established a full-service corporate data center.

Revenue growth slowed again in 1977 to 13 percent.

EDS maintained that Schaefer filed the suit to avoid payment of more than $1.2 million owed to EDS. In the 1978 out-of-court settlement, EDS paid Schaefer Corporation $2.3 million and retained $1.3 million already paid by Schaefer.

With the purchase of Potomac Leasing in 1979, EDS moved into federal government contract work.

In 1980, the company tailored its FARS accounting software so that it could be used by federal government agencies and recorded its best year in its history, with revenues up 71 percent to $14.8 million.

In 1982 EDS celebrated its 20-year anniversary by winning a $656 million, ten-year contract for Project Viable, to streamline and update the United States Army's computerized administrative facilities and to build a network connecting 47 bases across the United States.

In an attempt to regain its lost lead, Control Data began a new supercomputer development effort and spun the unit off to its employees in 1983.

Since 1984 ETA had soaked up an average of $50 million a year as the company developed its next generation supercomputer, called the ETA-10.

In 1985 the company posted losses of $568 million on revenues of $3.7 billion, and defaulted on a $300 million loan.

In January of 1986 he resigned his position at the head of the company, and Control Data began the process of trying to recover its profitability.

The company marked its 20th anniversary in 1988.

The year 1989 was a blockbuster for CDSI. Contract awards totaled $500 million, paced by a $158-million, five-year contract to support the Department of Energy’s Office of Information Technology Services and Operations.

With this transformation under way, Control Data posted an annual profit in 1990 of $2.7 million on revenues of $1.7 billion.

In September of 1991 Control Data began restructuring its remaining units so that they could attract investment capital and forge competitive alliances with other companies.

Finally, on May 27, 1992, the company announced that it would change its name to the Ceridian Corporation and spin off its computer operations into a separate company, to be called Control Data Systems, Inc.

Other new business in 1993 included contacts with the Justice and Housing and Urban Development departments totaling $28.1 million.

In January 1995, EDS signed a $350 million outsourcing agreement with American Express Bank Ltd. of New York and acquired A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm located in Chicago, for approximately $600 million.

In June 1996, the company was spun off from GM and became an independent company once again, triggering two years of restructuring, including related costs.

By 1997 over 70 percent of the automated teller machines (ATMs) in the United States were manufactured by the company, making EDS the nation's leading designer and supplier of such.

During Alberthal's tenure, net sales grew from $4 billion to $16.9 billion, with a 1998 net income of $743.4 million.

In January 1999, the company announced a joint venture with NCR Corporation, part of EDS's newly unveiled Business Intelligence Services (BIS) group.