Arne Sølvberg
email: asolvber@idi.ntnu.no

The Norwegian National IT Plan, 1987-1990: Whence It Came, What It Was, and How It Ended

Keywords: Industrial development, information society, IT education, national IT plan, research funding

des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

During the 1970s, there was a worldwide "waking up" to the increasing impact of computers in many strands of society. Computers transformed the technical fabric of organizations, and they were finally perceived to transform the workings of the whole society. The term "information society" was coined during this period. Information technology was seen as the central technology for increasing productivity, for providing competitive advantage to industry and for providing military might.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, this gave rise to national research and development plans in most of the industrially developed world. For a long time the United States had a number of concerted efforts organized under the umbrella of defense. Japan organized a targeted effort to break the U.S. monopoly on supercomputers and to apply artificial intelligence to further their already world leading automation industry -the so-called fifth generation program. The largest European nations (Germany, France and UK) followed suit and embarked on large national R&D programs that included support for their ailing computer industries. They were quickly followed by some of the technically advanced smaller nations in Europe such as The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark. On the European Community level, the ESPRIT program was organized during the early 1980s.

Initiatives appeared during the early 1980s to organize a similar national support program in Norway. Of importance was the "me, too" argument: all other comparable nations developed their IT competences on a broad scale; therefore, it had to be important, and unless Norway followed suit and invested in IT like the others, we risked falling behind as a society and could soon find ourselves on the garbage heaps of history. An opposing view was that "we are too small," Norway cannot make any difference in the development of the new technology, "let's wait and see" and apply the new technology when it has proven its value elsewhere, and -computers are just a temporary fad, all the fuss will soon be over.

The Norwegian national IT plan emerged as a compromise between many competing views: urgency versus "it's a fad, we're too small," placing the main emphasis on industrial modernization versus main emphasis on supporting a rapid transformation of Norway into a post-industrial society. Common for all of the competing views and scenarios was a need for increasing the IT-competent workforce. There was wide agreement for increasing the number of IT-graduates, and consequently a wide agreement for increasing the country's education capacity in information technology. Unfortunately, it was early when they decided not to establish a leadership having overall control of the program. The different ministries required the direct control of their own IT-budgets. This decision resulted in weak leadership and lack of coordination and overview.

The economic volume of the IT plan was determined during the post-mortem evaluation. The average total annual budget for the three-year period 1987-89 was 1,190 MNOK. This was an increase of 62 percent over the 1986 budget for comparable activities. Measured in "fresh money" this represents an increase over the 1986 budget of a total amount of 1,330 MNOK over the three years (445 MNOK/year). IT plan activities were budgeted also for 1990, as originally planned. The collapse of the IT plan in early 1990 makes it difficult to estimate the activity level, and I have therefore omitted 1990 from the comparisons.

The process of the making of the Norwegian plan has been well documented in Trond Buland's doctoral thesis [START_REF] Buland | Den store planen. Norges satsing på informasjonsteknologi 1987-1990[END_REF]. I was personally heavily involved both in the initiation phase and in the post mortem evaluation. In this paper, I explain some of the reasoning behind the choice of strategy in the initial phase, in particular as far as my own participation is concerned. I relied heavily on Buland's thesis for those parts of the political processes where I did not participate personally.

The Norwegian IT plan emerged in a domestic political climate, which increasingly appreciated the importance of research and technology. The emerging information technology was seen as particularly important. It became the dominant view that change was coming, and as a country we had to prepare. Whether the feeling of change-is-in-the-air warranted special support actions from the government was another issue. By the mid-1980s, the attitude change had been completed. Enough political actors were ready to support technology-based innovation with targeted actions.

The political approach to industrial development was very traditional. They saw industry built on natural resources, capital and labor. The political left favored an interventionist approach of financing new industry, e.g., electronic industry, through public capital, and the political right favored a market-oriented approach. Much of the debate was concentrated on cost of labor and capital.

Neither the political left nor the right had much belief in the possible benefits of investing in research. Both sides were deeply influenced by traditional economic thinking. The political left favored a Keynesian approach to dealing with the economy. The political right trusted the market to stimulate the "right" research in "right" volume. The prevailing view among economists was that one could not find trustworthy correlations between investment in research and economic results for a country. The Norwegian political system was (and still is) heavily influenced by the economists' worldview. Therefore, money for research was viewed more as luxury expenditure than as a factor for increasing the wealth of the country.

The lack of success of the political responses to the economic downturn during the 1970s showed that neither side could come up with a successful formula for turning the tides. Many saw the Norwegian industry increasingly consisting of sunset industries, which would not be able to pay high enough wages as the competition from the third world countries stiffened. This paved the way for other approaches. The lack of success in taming the economic storms of the late 1970s, the stagflation had weakened the influence of the traditionalists and it had strengthened the hand of the "industrial modernizers." During the late 1970s and early 1980s, several government committees analyzed the emerging trends. The recommendations all pointed in the direction of stimulating technological development. This "game changer" was accepted over the complete political spectrum. Therefore, the scene was set for change.

Because of the recent discovery of North Sea petroleum, the Norwegian economy was in such a good shape that the new economic realities were seen later than in many other countries that were less lucky. Most of the other countries were already several years ahead of Norway in their search for remedies. Many of them had already singled out IT as one of the more promising avenues to industrial modernization. Therefore, it was no big surprise that IT became central also in the Norwegian debate. One may say that IT was destined to take a center stage position.

The political and bureaucratic establishments were short on IT-expertise. One important exception was one of the leading conservative politicians, Petter Thomassen. He came from a civilian job as leader of one of the larger regional computer centers of the 1970s. He had published a political debate book in 1980 about data policy, in English translation the title was "Into the DATA-society" [START_REF] Thomassen | Inn i DATA-samfunnet[END_REF]. In retrospect, it seems clear that Petter Thomassen had a very constructive role in developing cross-political support for shaping the IT plan.

The cross-political support for the plan is also evidenced by the fact that there were two changes of government during the plan's life. The initial planning was done under a center-right government, which was replaced by a center-left government in 1986, which in again was replaced by a center-right government after the general election in 1989. Petter Thomassen held central political positions during the whole period. He chaired the Parliament's Finance Committee during the plan's initiation phase in 1984-85, and he was Minister of Industry during the winter of 1985-86, and from early the autumn of 1989.

Phases

Seen in the clarifying light of hindsight, the formation of the national IT plan had four distinct phases: initiation, institutionalization, implementation, and end game. The initiation phase consisted of several initiatives for establishing public support plans for using and developing the new technology. Several ministries proposed support actions for IT-research and IT-education, as well as for modernization in general within their own areas of responsibility. None of the proposals for increasing the general support to IT made it through the government budgeting process. During 1984-85, two new initiatives emerged; one came from a "group of concerned information technologists," and one from the electronic, telecommunication, and automation industry. These two initiatives managed to form a coalition, which mustered wide enough support to bring them to a next phase of institutionalization of the proposal process, which finally produced a proposal that made it through the government budget process.

The institutionalization phase started with the merging of the two initial initiatives. The merging was organized by the government's organization for public funding of technical and industrial research -NTNF. Additional proposals were brought into the planning process, e.g., the previously unsuccessful plans from the ministries. New actors brought into the debate wider societal concerns in addition to the more narrow industrial concerns of the initiation phase. Decision and budgeting for a national IT plan came as the result of political negotiations and harmonization of all of these additional concerns, amid a fierce opposition from the Ministry of Finance ("the Treasury") who in every country is predetermined to oppose any new spending plan. The harmonization resulted in a relatively unfocused "open" plan. Many had contributed, but few of the contributors were given back much of substance.

The implementation was characterized by a "me, too" run for resources. All of a sudden, everybody was deeply involved in IT, and consequently had a right to compete for the relatively modest additional monetary resources that came with the national plan. The management of the IT plan was not able to resist the "stampede." There was a continuous fight among the various stakeholders for controlling the direction and money flow of the IT plan. The national IT "plan" became a "plan by addition." New items were added into the "plan," the proponents hoping to get on the list of worthy money-receivers. The "plan" ended in a way as a listing of a substantial part of Norwegian activity that included IT.

The end game started already in 1989, one year before the end of the IT plan. Labor lost the elections in 1989 to the center-right. We had a change of government philosophy from a "big government planning" to a "small government market driven" approach. The public and political support for the IT plan evaporated during the autumn of 1989, also deeply influenced by the deep crisis in the IT industry of the late 1980s. The minicomputer producers were out-competed by the emerging new players in the field, the PC producers headed by Microsoft. The support program that started in 1987 witnessed a collapse of major parts of Norwegian IT industry already in 1989. The political response was negative: the Norwegian IT plan had not worked. Conclusion: money down the drain, a total fiasco for Government intervention in affairs that should be left to the market. The Minister of Industry established a post mortem evaluation committee in January 1990, one year before the IT plan officially should come to an end [START_REF]EBF): STRAPIT: Strategisk plan for norsk informasjonsteknologi industri fram mot år 2000[END_REF].

Initiation 1984-85

The IT plan was first budgeted by the Government in 1987, which was made public early autumn of 1986. Prior to this, there had been a long process of establishing coalitions that had enough political power to release public money for a national support program of sufficient size. As is usual in these kinds of processes, there are different interests and different worldviews and these must be consolidated and harmonized through negotiations.

Three "networks" emerged during the initiation phase: one very informal "network" of Ministry bureaucrats, one formal and institutionalized network of electronic industries, and one informal and loose network of IT professionals.

The bureaucratic network was a loose and informal coalition of bureaucrats in several key ministries who agreed on the importance of information technology as a central force in shaping the post-industrial Norway -the information society. Many of the ministries had large IT stimulus programs in their own areas of responsibility, but there was no coordination among the many programs. The bureaucratic "network" was not in any way organized, and consisted of people who knew that they shared opinions about the importance of IT, and who were local drivers for modernization through IT within their own areas of bureaucratic responsibilities.

The industry network was organized by the interest organization of Norwegian electronics industries, EBF -Elektronikkindustriens Bransjeforening (in Norwegian). The leaders of EBF emerged as very active and forceful spokespersons for the modernization of Norwegian industry through increased application of IT.

The IT professionals' network grew out of the Department of Computer Science (IDB -Institutt for Databehandling (in Norwegian) at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH -Norges Tekniske Høgskole in Norwegian). NTH in 1996 became part of NTNU through a reorganization of the academic institutions in Trondheim.

Together with my good colleague Professor Reidar Conradi, I had a central role in the network of "concerned IT-professionals" as was the informal name of the network.

Much of the following describes how this network was formed and how it operated. For an extensive and "balanced" description, the reader is referred to Buland's doctoral thesis [START_REF] Buland | Den store planen. Norges satsing på informasjonsteknologi 1987-1990[END_REF].

The Ministerial Support Plans

Several of the different ministries had their own IT plans, in many cases plans of considerable size. The central ministries were for Industry, Education, Culture & Science, Administration & Consumer affairs, and for Communication. The latter was responsible for the telecommunication sector as well as for roads and railways.

IT-interested bureaucrats from these ministries produced a number of initiatives starting in the early 1980s, some of them successful, some of them not. The Ministry of Education initiated in 1984 a support program for increasing the use of IT in elementary and secondary schools. The Ministry of Communication worked with plans for modernizing Norwegian telecommunication. The Ministry for Administration was working with a national plan for IT and developed a first proposal in the autumn of 1984, a proposal that was presented for the other ministers early 1985. The proposal was for a program of 750 MNOK over six years with 350 MNOK for education, 300 MNOK for research, and 50 MNOK for public administration [START_REF] Buland | Den store planen. Norges satsing på informasjonsteknologi 1987-1990[END_REF]. The Ministry for Industry worked through NTNF -The Norwegian Research Foundation for Technical and Natural Science research -to develop a plan for microelectronics research and innovation.

The activities of the various ministries lacked coordination. A first attempt to produce a coordinated proposal came in late 1984, when the Ministries for Industry, Communication, and Culture & Science (responsible for universities and research) produced a common proposal for an IT support plan of 300 MNOK over two years. There were two major items in the plan, one for supporting IT education and one for supporting IT research. In spite of all the good work done by the bureaucrats, concrete result were lacking in the government's budget for 1986. Nevertheless, all of these proposals and programs together provided a fertile ground for developing a proposal for a national support program that could win a final political approval for the 1987 budget.

Education: A Major Concern

Organized education in IT started at the Norwegian universities during the early 1960s. Teaching was seen as a service for the established subjects. The teaching load was draconic, the research resources were slim, and IT gained in importance. At NTH we started in 1978 an IT specialist education, which became an instant hit with the students. The Computer Science Department (IDB = Institutt for Databehandling) had ten to twenty times as many applicants as we had available places. The industry was crying out for more and more graduates. There were, however, no signs that we would be given more resources by NTH. The situation was also very discouraging at the other universities. IT education was to a large degree seen as a "cash cow", bringing in money, but being used for research by the established academic disciplines, not for IT research.

At IDB, we became increasingly worried by the lack of relevant IT research in Norway. In most other technically developed countries large R&D programs for IT were underway. Unless Norway did similar investments, it stood the chance of being left behind, using yesterday's technology for solving tomorrow's challenges. At IDB, we tried to make the case for increased public investment in IT education and research both internally and externally, but to no effect. The internal budget fights at the universities made it very clear that it was unrealistic for a new discipline to "wrestle" enough money away from the established disciplines. Increasing the availability of external research resources seemed to be the only hope to survive "in style."

At IDB we came to the conclusion that our best chance was in trying to make available more public resources for the IT field as a whole, in the hope that some of the money would trickle down to us. In 1982, we decided to increase our efforts on the national political scene. This was to the dismay of the leadership at NTH, but we decided to go ahead in spite of that. We had lost belief in NTH's willingness to support us in our efforts to find more resources for IT as a discipline. NTH was willing and able to support increased resources for IT as a support for already existing disciplines, but there was much internal opposition to expand the resource frames for the discipline itself.

"The Group of Interested Information Technologists"

There was no hope that on our own we could make available enough money, neither for our local needs nor for what we thought that the country ought to have for IT R&D. We needed powerful allies. The obvious candidates were the companies who could not find enough IT-graduates. The discrepancy between demand and supply of IT graduates could be observed in the late 1970s, to become severe around 1984-85. Industry complained that the lack of enough graduates inhibited their growth and undermined their competitive positions. For the university, having the IDB department team up with industry was a perfect win-win situation. The objective was clear: to organize a government sponsored IT plan for investment in R&D, comparable to those of other countries.

The first step was to investigate whether there was any chance of broad support for an initiative in this direction. The idea was favorably received when we presented it at a panel debate in Trondheim early 1984. We developed a sketch for an investment plan of around 400 MNOK/year over three to five years. I wrote a letter to Petter Thomassen, who I knew professionally, and who at the time chaired the Parliament's Finance committee, enquiring whether he thought that the idea had a chance of surviving politically. He encouraged me to continue with the initiative, indicated that 400 MNOK/year was a lot of money, and gave me the good advice of thinking about those who we would have to recruit in order to get political support for finding the money. The sketch was developed during the next months, and this first plan was (somewhat humoristic) called DATAKUP -skisse til nasjonalt KunnskapsUtviklingsProgram i DATAteknikk (English: sketch of a national knowledge development program in data technique). The next step was to form a group of likeminded people who were in positions to influence the wider technological and industrial environment. Based on the DATAKUP sketch, we (at IDB) took an initiative to form an informal "Gruppe av interesserte informasjonsteknologer" (English: Group of interested information technologists). The group was established in June of 1984 and it consisted of ten persons, including myself as its informal chair, and my good colleague at IDB, Assoc. Prof. Reidar Conradi who served as the group's secretary. The members of the group were leaders of central IT-companies and of the IT operations of some of our largest companies.

The group further developed the original sketch into a DATAKUP plan of 800-1,200 MNOK over three to five years, strongly profiled towards knowledge development, for education and industry, in a "technology-push" fashion.

STRAPIT -the Electronic Industry's Plan

The Norwegian electronic industry faced a similar situation as we did at the universities. Their foreign competitors enjoyed large infusions of public money for IT research and development. The lack of similar funds from Norway was a threat to their survival. Norway had at the time several domestic IT equipment producers who enjoyed commercial success, e.g., Tandberg Data produced computer terminals and Norsk Data had been very successful with their mini-computers.

The electronic industry was small, counting only 13,000 working places, and was vulnerable, and might not able to follow up on the rapid technological changes of the times. The CEO of Tandberg Data, Ralph Høibakk, was chair of EBF (the interest organization for the electronic industry), and launched a planning process for the future of the industry. The initiative was called STRAPIT -Strategic Plan for Norwegian IT industry towards year 2000 [START_REF]EBF): STRAPIT: Strategisk plan for norsk informasjonsteknologi industri fram mot år 2000[END_REF]. The final proposal had a volume of 2,800 MNOK over five years. It was primarily an innovation plan for the electronic industry and was based on a market-pull philosophy.

The EBF chair Ralph Høibakk agreed to be a member of "the group of interested information technologists," together with the then chair of EBF's research committee, Helge Christensen. They were also members of the STRAPIT board. The personal overlap between the two groups secured that the DATAKUP and STRAPIT initiatives were kept on track, and supported each other rather than competed. The two initiatives found a natural separation of tasks. DATAKUP concentrated on basic research and education, and STRAPIT concentrated on industrial issues, both for the IT industry and for the wider Norwegian industry as users of IT.

One item of the STRAPIT report was concerned with forecasting the future size of the electronic industry segment in Norway. Three different scenarios were painted, one of low growth, one of medium growth and one of high growth. These numbers were to play a decisive role in the following political struggle, which was leading up to the decision on whether to form a national IT plan.

The two groups presented their reports during the summer of 1985. The scene was set for the next part of the initiation phase, the institutionalization, which was leading up to the political decision.

It was clear to everybody involved with DATAKUP and STRAPIT that NTNF had to play the major role in transforming the two initiatives into one plan, which had sufficient industrial and political backing. Late spring/early summer 1985, prior to the publishing of the DATAKUP report, I contacted the new Director of NTNF. He was the retiring rector of NTH, professor of Electrical Engineering at NTH and familiar with the electronic industry and telecommunication. In the preceding years, I had much to do with him on the reorganization of the IT education at NTH. I proposed that he should take the DATAKUP and STRAPIT initiatives, merge them into one NTNF initiative, and present a proposal to the political establishment. He immediately saw both the needs of the country, and the possibilities for giving NTNF a leading role in the implementation of a national IT plan.

The traditional role of NTNF was to handle industrial research and innovation on behalf of the Minister of Industry. The ministry and NTNF worked closely together. NTNF established a group of six representative persons to merge the existing proposals into a common plan for NTNF to propose to the Minister of Industry. The group was chaired by Reidar Kuvås, who was a central person in Norwegian electronic research and industry, and was an "NTNF-insider." Three others (including the secretary Helge Kildal) had been deeply involved with STRAPIT. Then there was the CTO of the Norwegian Tele-monopoly (Televerket), and I, who represented the "Group of interested IT-technologists." The technical-industrial bias was undisputable.

The NTNF group was established in February 1985 and delivered its proposal in May 1985 after only three months of work. It was easy to agree within the group on the main elements of the proposal, which consisted of five sub-programs for Education, Equipment procurement, Knowledge development, Product development, Applications & Dissemination. It was a plan for industrial modernization.

It soon became very clear that a single Ministry was not strong enough to win a budgetary fight with the Ministry of Finance on a proposal, which required "fresh money". The economists in the Ministry of Finance did not believe that investment in technological research was worth the money. A broader alliance of Ministries was necessary in order to overcome the resistance from the ministry of Finance, and find "fresh" money. The industry political perspective was too narrow for finding sufficient support. A wider perspective of bringing the whole society into the information age was necessary in order to forge a strong enough alliance. The vision of "the information society" subsumed the vision of "industrial modernization."

In the course of the next five to six weeks after the NTNF plan was proposed, the "bureaucratic network" managed to work out a sketch for a four-year plan, which was supported by five ministries, and which was presented to the government's budget conference at the end of June 1985. The proposal contained the five subprograms of the NTNF proposal; but it had widened its rationale enough to get the support of all five ministries in a plan, which still was focused on industrial modernization.

The vision of "the information society" brought new actors into the negotiations, and increased the budget dimensions of the proposals to levels beyond what was possible. The Ministry of Finance was very clear in demanding that no "fresh money" should be given, and that an IT plan would have to be constructed within the ordinary budget frames of the participating ministries. During the spring of 1986 the fight among the different ministries for the directions of the programs, and for the "fresh money" for the furthering of the different causes, brought little progress in the planning. Nothing much happened over the winter, to the increasing frustration of the people behind the two main initiatives, DATAKUP and STRAPIT.

At NTH we were disappointed with the lack of tempo. We tried in vain to reawake our network of "Interested information technologists." I had been contacted by NTNF after the NTNF report and requested whether I wanted a role in the next phase. I had declined. The indications were that an IT plan would become reality. I saw an important role for NTH in IT education and research, and wanted to be on the receiving side of the money flow. I now regretted that I had not chosen to have a more active role. Whether this would have had any positive effect is, however, more than doubtful when judging the powerful political forces that were in play.

The center-right government was replaced by a center-left government in May of 1986. The new government was positive to motivated politically support programs for selected industrial sectors, while the center-right was generally skeptical to such exercises. The new Minister of Industry took immediately initiative to continue and speed up the planning process. The deadline for having a proposal for the 1987 budget was approaching. Three issues were of particular importance for shaping a winning coalition during the next months: job creation in the electronic industry, regional policy, and the organization of the IT plan activities. The Ministry of Finance had not given up on their defense of the nation's treasure chest, and strengthening of the proplan coalition was necessary.

STRAPIT had done three calculations of the size of the electronic industry measured in new jobs, for low growth, medium and strong growth. It was estimated that the strong growth scenario would create 60,000 new jobs within the next fifteen years. These 60,000 new jobs became a concrete goal in the political debate, and "against 60,000 new jobs even a Ministry of Finance will fight in vain" [1, p. 249].

During the summer of 1986, the various Ministries were asked to report which ITactivities they would propose as part of a national IT plan. The Ministry for Districts and Labour (in Norwegian: Kommunal-og Arbeidsdepartementet) worked out an overview of activities where IT could play a role. Those were many. From that point in time, also regional policy started to play a role in the formation of the national IT plan.

The organization question was a tricky one. There were two opposing views. The industrialists' view was to organize the activities as a project with a strong leadership, which should report to the Minister of Industry. The opposing view was that the different ministries should take responsibility for their own budget items, and that a coordination group with limited power should be established. There was wide agreement that it was not desirable to establish a new government agency, and that the existing organizational apparatus should be used. The compromise was to establish a secretariat in NTNF, which reported directly to the Minister of Industry. None of the other ministries was willing to hand over money and control of their own IT activities to the Minister of Industry. The compromise was necessary in order to secure the support of all involved ministries.

After the political negotiations during the autumn the NTNF proposal's original five subprograms had been extended with three new subprograms, one for telecommunication research within the existing publicly owned telecommunication monopoly (Televerket), one for establishing regional competence centers, and one for increasing in-house industrial research financed by the industry. The four-year plan had become reality. The proposal for "fresh money" in the 1987 budget was 300 MNOK.

Implementation 1987-90

The IT plan was in for a bumpy ride. It was not a "plan" in the conventional meaning of the word. It consisted of a number of individual plans. Each individual plan was budgeted and controlled by different ministries. The IT plan was the addition of all of the "sub-plans". There was no overriding idea that went beyond visionary statements about the future "information society". There was no overriding strategy, no concrete goals and for the plan as a whole, and no organizational instruments for forging decisions on the sub-plans on how the money should be used. The various ministries did not lightly give up their budgetary control over the activities for which they were responsible.

The first coordination group (Norwegian: Nasjonal Styringsgruppe for Informasjonsteknologi) had a dual responsibility. It advised the Minister of Industry on the whole IT plan, and had the operational responsibility for the IT-research budget of NTNF. The group lasted only a little over one year; it was replaced in March 1988 by a new coordination group called NUIT (Norwegian: Nasjonalt Utvalg for Informasjonsteknologi). NUIT was organized directly under the Minister of Industry. NTNF's money remained in NTNF. The various Ministries' money remained in the Ministries. NUIT emerged as a lightweight coordination committee without own resources. NUIT lasted only for approximately one year and a half. Starting January 1, 1990, the coordination responsibility was given back to NTNF where it remained until the official end of the plan in December 1990.

Each of the sub-plans functioned, and planned work was performed according to plans. The major deficiency was that there was little or no synergy. The overall results of the efforts did not become larger than the sum of the components. The fresh money was not put to use in a planned way following an overall strategy. The first coordination group started to develop a strategy half a year out in the IT plan, by early autumn 1987. The Minister of Industry became increasing impatient, replaced the group by NUIT who restarted the strategy work. By mid-1988, there was still no strategy.

The IT plan had a high political profile. The media interest was also high. As the general election of 1989 came closer, the political pressure intensified for showing concrete results. The "promised" 60,000 new jobs still existed in the political landscape, and they did not materialized during the second year after the plan was initiated! The center-left lost the 1989-election and the IT plan was doomed.

The end game started shortly after the new center-right government took over after the general election of the autumn of 1989. The pressure for an evaluation of the IT plan was strong. Petter Thomassen was back as Minister of Industry. I contacted him and asked that I became member of the evaluation committee. This was granted. The evaluation committee was established by government decision on January 12, 1990, and delivered its report on June 1, 1990.

The post-mortem reconstruction of the IT plan classified the activities into five major activity areas: for education (18 percent), equipment (11.5 percent), research (8.5 percent), product development (15 percent), and applications (47 percent); the numbers indicating the part of the total budget allotted to the activity area (NAER90). The financing that followed the IT plan was to provide a continuation and strengthening of ongoing efforts within all of these broad activity areas.

The strengthening of activities was unevenly distributed over the five activity areas. The average annual budget increases compared to the 1986-level were allotted to education (57 percent), equipment (107 percent), research (2 percent), product development (52 percent), and applications (80 percent). From these numbers it is evident that the application area had more than 50 percent of the "fresh money," trailed by education (18 percent), equipment (16 percent), and product development (13.5 percent). Research was the big loser, and got nothing (0.5 percent). Compared to the annual inflation rate the research area lost ground and came out worse after the national IT plan than before this substantial national investment in information technology.

One should be careful when evaluating these numbers. Some of the activity areas were headed for substantial budget increases already before the IT plan was initiated. Much of the increased activity in the application area would have happened anyway, independently of having an IT plan or not, although not as fast without the IT plan as with the plan. However, for the most part, the increased activity in education and product development would not have happened without the IT plan.

The Norwegian IT plan was comparable to other countries' IT plans, measured in budget per capita for comparable activities.

Concluding Remarks

In the aftermath of the IT plan, the field of IT was dead as a political subject for the next six to eight years, until the start of the dot.com wave. There were many bloody bureaucratic noses in the various Ministries. As seen from the outside, the government bureaucrats seemed to do their best to forget the whole "episode." IT became invisible. The effect of this is felt to this day. The political interest in IT evaporated after the national IT plan, never to have been revived other than in political rhetoric.

One area that received substantial new resources was IT university education. Fortunately, the positive effects of financing an expansion of the university education for IT-specialists may have made the IT plan "exercise" worthwhile. This led to Norway having many competent persons for the next big wave in IT, the internet revolution that set in during the 1990s.

The IT plan had a wider political fall-out. The evaluation report contributed to an ongoing debate about the "segmented" state. A widely supported view was that the segmentation brought about by the internal organization of the government bureaucracy prevented "holistic" planning. The IT plan provided a relevant case study. The basis for the plan was a general technology which had potential for changing every segment of society, and indeed has done so from 1970 and onwards. The IT plan was an obvious case for cooperation among the different "segments" of society. Even so, that did not happen. The conservation forces were too strong. Buland (BUL96) proposes that the fate of the IT plan was an important argument for the restructuring in 1994 of the Norwegian publicly funded research organizations. Norway had a large number of research financing agencies for, e.g., industry (NTNF), basic research (NAVF), food, fisheries, and so on. They were all merged into one organization, NFR -Norges Forskningsråd.

However, nothing had been done with the ministerial "fiefdoms." To this day (2010), the various ministries control their own research budgets for IT and they provide NFR with money that has many strings attached. These "many strings" prevent synergy in the sense that several ministries can easily agree on financing IT research of common interest.


Rihards Balodis

Juris Borzovs

Inara Opmane

Andrejs Skuja

Evija Ziemele
email: evijaziemeleimcs@lumii.lv

{rihards Balodis

Keywords: Computing museum, history of computing technology, Latvia, research institute

The article describes the development of information technology in Latvia, in IMCS, to the middle of the 1990s. The history of IMCS represents the usage of computers in typical computing centers in the former Soviet Union and the transformation from computing center to research institution. It also represents Latvian collaboration with the Nordic countries that provided political, scientific, and technological support. Historical documents, computer parts, and photos are collected in the Computer Museum of IMCS.

Over the years, computing machines in IMCS were replaced with more advanced and progressive units, along with the development of technology. Engineers wanted to keep up with rapidly changing technologies and collected more interesting computer parts. The Computing Museum, established in 1984, was founded by IMCS and actually also constitutes the history of IMCS. Since IMCS is currently the largest information technology research center in Latvia, to some extent it also constitutes the history of Latvian information technology. The documents and equipment in the museum reflect the computing machines of a passing age, their description, and the tasks solved with them.

Currently, the Computing Museum occupies 230 m 2 , holds 13,116 exhibits, of which 504 are equipment units, 287 mainframe and workstation parts, 98 computers, and 44 printers. The museum exhibits were complemented with photographs and documents that seemed to have historical value.

The museum has an exhibit for each computing machine used in IMCS. It is either in the form of a photograph, a separate computing unit or component, or as in several cases the complete machine. The history shows how in the transition from Soviet model computers (BESM and MINSK) to Western computers (e.g., IBM and PDP) cloning had taken place and how the regaining of Latvian independence changed the assessment values of technology. For example, efficiency started to play an important role and thus the operation of the service demanding ES EVM was prematurely suspended. The former engineer of IMCS with more than forty years of work experience, who describes the exhibits with illustrations from his own background, heads the museum.

First Computers in IMCS

The original computers became operational during the initial stages of the development of the information technology field in the USSR. The first, a BESM-2, went into commercial production in 1958. IMCS acquired the machine; it had production number "5" -a fact that serves as substantial evidence for the role and competence of the computing center. BESM-2 was a demanding machine that required a great amount of engineering work, but IMCS's engineers were innovative and could introduce several important upgrades that enabled the respective machine to be more efficient. In this regard, IMCS had one of the best results in the entire Soviet Union.

At the end of the 1960s, IMCS started using the Minsk series computers. The machine had a decimal (decimal-binary) notation with the point fixed after the lower bit; numbers and instructions were coded with a variable-length sequence of characters. In addition, the instruction set had a variable number of addresses for operands, and the instruction addresses were normalized and indexed.

The circuitry and instruction set of Minsk-23 completely differed from those computers that had existed before it. The machine was the first domestic computer with alphanumeric logic as well as a variable word and instruction length. A multitasking mode was also realized in Minsk-23. The Minsk-32 closed the Minsk computer series. After Latvia regained independence, the operation of ES EVM was suspended in 1992 due to the costs of service, electricity, and the numerous maintenance staff.

Workstations in IMCS

The SM-4 was a Soviet PDP-11/40 computer clone. SM EVM was a general name for several types of Soviet minicomputers. Production started in 1975. Most types of SM EVM are clones of the DEC PDP-11 and the VAX. The common operating system was MOS, a clone of UNIX. The IZOT was a Bulgarian produced model. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the rapid transition to Western personal computers started.

Profile Components -Signs of Age

What were the original tasks solved and how did the technology help? The following is a brief overview. a. IMCS had a scientific spirit -there were many technological deficiencies in the first industrial Soviet computers that demanded refinements, which were carried out in IMCS by an innovative laboratory of engineers and electricians; b. The installation of the first computers substantially contributed to the growth of research, particularly in the development of methods for the mathematical modeling of various physical processes, in the development of software, and research in theoretical computer science (Tables 5 and6); c. Along with the research, practical information systems for the Latvian economy were developed (Table 7); d. From the 1970s onwards, cloning was a trend, but IMCS retained its initiative in carrying out original research. IMCS cloned only one system -CRJE (DUVZ), the adoption of Conversational Remote Job Entry (Clone of CRJE) for OS ES EVM (Clone of OS/360).

Mathematical scientists and highly qualified engineers worked in the institute. Owing to practical tasks -mainly solving specifically commissioned assignments with methods of mathematical modeling -the initiative emerged to develop such software that solved specific assignments and large groups of them. Thus the first IT research directions appeared. Original software was developed -compilers and software development tools (Table 6), for example, computer usage counting system, software development, and complex systems modeling languages and tools (later GRADE, MOLA), now -semantic WEB (term coined by W3C director Tim Berners-Lee).

Three activity directions of the institute were the result of specific assignmentsthe development of information systems, mathematical models in natural sciences, and research in computer science. The history of IMCS illustrates how very limited computing resources contributed to the evolution of theoretical research fields.

Collaboration with Nordic Countries

Hereafter we illustrate the extensive cooperation with the Nordic countries that commenced in the 1990s. Over the ages, the Baltic Sea has separated and united Latvia and the Scandinavian states. Only 500 kilometers separates Riga from Stockholm and there is only a distance of 200 kilometers between Ventspils and Visby. During the Soviet years, cooperation with the Nordic countries was uncommon; an exception was the modernization of BESM-4 with FACIT ECM 64 (ECM 64 is the magnetic tape storage unit or the Carousel Memory, developed by Facit Electronics AB, Stockholm).

After Latvia gained its independence, cooperation with the Nordic countries started and it brought political, scientific, and technological support. Three directions of cooperation follow.

Collaboration with Oy International Business Machines AB, Tietokuja 2, Helsinki

The first initiatives in IBM commencing its operation in Latvia began in the spring of 1991; however, a contract between IMCS and the IBM branch in Helsinki was signed in May of 1992. Within the framework of the contract, IBM and IMCS provided each other with mutual consultations. The IBM operation in Latvia was equally important to the development of IMCS and the development of the information technology field in Latvia in general, encouraging its dynamic growth with technology exhibitions, annual industry conferences, and other cooperative ventures.

Collaboration with the Swedish Institute

The Swedish Institute (SI) is a public agency that promotes interest and confidence in Sweden, around the world. After the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) regained their independence at the beginning of 1990, the Scandinavian countries helped considerably to establish relations between them and the Western academic community. The SI provided the possibility for Latvian information technology scientists to visit and work for a short period at KTH in Stockholm, Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, as well as at Uppsala, Linköping, and other research centers. Two co-authors of this paper also enjoyed the hospitality of Professor Janis Bubenko, Jr. during their sabbatical leave at the Royal Institute of Technology in 1991. Through increased contacts and new networks, knowledge and innovative ideas could be shared and applied to many future research areas. Professor Janis Bubenko, Jr. (Royal Institute of Technology) and Professor Arne Sølvberg (Trondheim Technical University) jointly established the biannual international conference "Baltic Databases and Information Technology." The ninth DB&IS has taken place in 2010. Both professors are still working on the Advisory Committee of DB&IS.

Professor Janis Bubenko, Jr. has received the Honoris Causa Doctor award from Riga Technical University (2004) and the University of Latvia (2010).

Collaboration with NORDUnet

After the restoration of Latvian independence, IMCS began to work on building an IP network. In 1992, IMCS leased the Lattelekom and ESTI telekom analog communication channel to Tallinn. As of 1993, NORDUnet provided help in developing an IP network for research and educational purposes. Their help was useful both technologically and financially. Controversies over which network solution (X.25 or IP) was the most appropriate had lasted until 1995; Lattelekom with its technology supported X.25 and NORDUnet's actively defended introduction of the internet platform.

In 1995, LATNET (a network maintained by the Laboratory of IMCS) had a 64k link via Tallinn to Helsinki (FUNET) and a 128k link to Stockholm KTH (NORDUnet). Two links had implemented load sharing, so the aggregated capacity was 192k (which was at 100 percent capacity during the day). The five largest universities, about ten research institutions, three libraries, and many other non-profit organizations were connected to LATNET. Inside LATNET, new service providers were emerging such as LANET (another Latvian Academic Network) and Bank Communications Center. LATNET received almost no local assistance for the support of academic users; some sponsorship came from commercial users and a great deal from the Nordic Council of Ministers and PHARE (The Program of Community aid to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe), who were paying for international lines and donating equipment. Unfortunately, no one wanted to pay all the people who operated it; commercial users sponsored the small daily expenses, local lines, and dial-up pools.

The wireless internet access network in Latvia was started in 1993 when the IMCS (LATNET) installed the first citywide wireless LAN link to connect a remote university campus to the central building, a distance of five kilometers between them. At that time, spread spectrum wireless LAN technology was little known. The inspiration to start these tests came from a Cylink demonstration of spread spectrum link of wireless data at the INET'93 workshop in San Francisco, and from the staff at KTH network operations center in Stockholm who brought the first wireless LAN cards to Riga in the autumn of 1993.

The work [START_REF] Lehtisalo | The History of NORDUnet: Twenty-Five Years of Networking Cooperation in the Nordic Countries[END_REF] summarizes the Nordic countries' point of view on the cooperation with LATNET (at present Sigmanet), the laboratory of IMCS.

The first contacts with Baltic computer scientists were created when the NORDUNET program was still operational. Members of the NORDUnet community were active in this new collaboration. In Finland, Estonian scientists interested in building data networks contacted FUNET. In Sweden, the Latvians first approached the Swedish Institute for Computer Science (SICS). In Norway, Rolf Nordhagen, from the University of Oslo, cooperated with the Lithuanians. Rolf Nordhagen recalls that in fact the first outside network connection from a Baltic country was established from Vilnus, Lithuania, to the Norwegian Uninett via satellite already by 1991.

Mats Brunell, the project manager of the NORDUnet program, was working at SICS when the Latvian Institute of Electronics and Computer Science contacted the Swedish to establish research collaboration. The Baltic researchers expressed their interest in getting a connection to NORDUnet and via NORDUnet also to the internet.

Brunell began to organize a project for Nordic-Baltic networking collaboration. After a visit to Riga, Latvia, in May of 1991, Brunell initiated the BALTnet project with the objective of establishing communication services with the Baltic States, primarily for the research and education community. The funding for the project was sought and received from the Nordic Council of Ministers; it granted 7.5 million Danish crowns for the BALTnet project.

The BALTnet project came into being in 1993 and Mats Brunell became its project leader. He continued in this task until 1995. Then the BALTnet project was moved from SICS to the University of Oslo and Rolf Nordhagen took over the management.

The goal of BALTnet was to support the development of Baltic education and research networks. The work was accomplished by organizing seminars for Baltic networkers, buying equipment for research institutes and financially supporting international connectivity. In addition, the Nordic networking specialists helped Baltic scientists to establish contacts with other European networkers and with networkers in the United States.

Peter Villemoes considers that the NORDUnet community played a very important role in the Baltic countries when the three countries were building their first research networks. According to Villemoes, the early collaboration and connection to NORDUnet and to the Internet had a beneficial effect on Baltic networkingcollaboration with the Nordic countries ensured that "of the former Soviet states, the Baltic countries became the most advanced in networking."

The success of networking in Latvia and in all the Baltic States was based on international cooperation and help, including the support of the Nordic Council of Ministers. For example, LATNET (at present Sigmanet) was the Latvian partner in the BALTnet project established by the Nordic Council of Ministers in 1993.

Table 1 .

 1 First computers used in IMCS.

	Usage years	Computer
	11.04.1961-21.08.1970	BESM-2 (first generation, vacuum tubes,
		5,000 op/s)
	29.06.1964-03.04.1972	BESM-2M
	11.04.1967-06.04.1978	BESM-4 (second generation, transistors,
		20,000 op/s)
		Computer modernization with FACIT ECM
		64
	1968-1975	Minsk-22, Minsk-23, Minsk-32 (7,000 op/s)
	In very special cases, IMCS bought Western computers, for example, IMCS had been
	granted funds to buy the GE415. This allowed IMCS scientists to compare the level of
	computer technology progress in the USSR and the West and to comprehend the tasks
	that were necessary for software development. GE415 was a second-generation
	computer with transistors that executed 40,000-90,000 op/s. GE400(s) computers
	were time-sharing information systems produced by General Electric, introduced in
	1964 and exported until 1968. IMCS used the GE415 from 03.09.1969 until
	03.04.1983.
	2.2 Mainframes in IMCS
	Soviet economic planners decided to use the IBM design, although some prominent
	Soviet computer scientists had criticized the idea and suggested that one of the Soviet
	indigenous designs such as BESM or Minsk should be chosen instead. The first work
	on the cloning began in 1968; production started in 1972. Thereafter, the first
	subseries of the ES EVM, released in 1969-1978, included models 1010, 1020, 1030,
	1040, and 1050, which were analogous to System/360, and the more rare and
	advanced models 1022, 1032, 1033 and 1052, which were incompatible with the IBM
	versions. The electronics of the first models were based on TTL circuits; the later
	machines used the ECL (emitter-coupled logic) design. ES 1050 had a maximum of 1
	MB RAM and 64-bit floating point registers. The fastest machine of the series, the ES
	1052, was developed in 1978. (Note that data regarding computer models and their
	relevance to cloned models come from Wikipedia.)
	The second subseries, released in 1977-1978, included the models 1015, 1025,
	1035, 1045, 1055 and 1060, all analogous to the System/370.

Table 2 .

 2 Mainframe types used in IMCS.

	Usage years	Computer types
	16.05.1974-31.12.1978	ES EVM-1020 (3. generation, integrated
		circuits, 11,800 op/s)
	1976-31.12.1987	ES EVM-1022 ( 80,000 op/s)
	02.1980-31.12.1987	ES EVM-1022-02 ( 80,000 op/s)
	12.1982-1990	ES EVM-1060-02 (100,000 op/s)
	02.03.1983-06.1989	ES EVM-1055M ( 450,000 op/s)
	25.10.1989-10.1992	ES EVM -1037" (4,000,000 op/s)

Table 3 .

 3 Workstation types used in IMCS.

	Usage years	Computer types
	23.03.1981-06.1989	SM-4 (180,000 op/s)
	24.03.1985-05.1989	IZOT-1016S
	30.04.1987-1990	IZOT-1055S
	07.06.1989-1990	IZOT-1080 (4,500,000 op/s)
	2

.4 Microcomputers and personal computers in IMCS Acorn

's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s and early 1990s, drawing many comparisons with Apple in the US. The Wang 2200 was cloned by the Soviet Union and produced as "Iskra 226." DVK was a computer series of DEC PDC-11 and PDP-11, while the Elektronika BK was a series of 16-bit PDP-11-compatible Soviet home computers, almost perfectly compatible with the DEC LSI-11 line. These computers were used in schools for informatics classes: one KUVT and many BK or Yamaha, later AGAT (Apple-II). The KUVT was based on a Z80 CPU (in fact, an Eastern clone of Intel 880), and used SCP, a CP/M compatible operating system. It was widely used in Russia and other East European countries for office and educational purposes. Iskra 1030 was a Soviet 8086 compatible personal computer.

Table 4 .

 4 Microcomputers and personal computer types used in IMCS.

	Usage years	Computer types
	1985-1993	Acorn UK education class
	1986-1993	Previous generation of personal computers:
		ISKRA-226
		DVK
		KUVT-86
		BK-0010
		Robotron -1715 (East Germany)
		Yamaha (JAPAN)
	1989-1993	ISKRA-1030, IBM XT, AT, Mazovia, PS2

Table 5 .

 5 Research directions developed in IMCS.

	Research direction	Description
	Software debugging and	From the development of automation tools for
	testing	practical needs to theoretical research and
		experimental systems
	Inductive synthesis of	Theoretical research and experimentation
	algorithms from examples
	Specification languages	For telephone exchange, real time systems and
		business models
	Software development tools	Research and development of tools
	Modeling and simulation of	Theory, practical simulation of telephone
	discrete processes	exchange call load balancing
	Computational linguistics	Latvian language research with computers
	Graph theory	From theory to printed circuit board design
	Mathematical methods and	Theory and computer modeling
	modeling of physical
	processes

Table 6 .

 6 Notable original software developed in IMCS from 1970 to 1980.

	Programming language	Description	Computer
	or software tool		(operating system)
	Fortran	Compiler implementation; compiler had	BESM-4
		restrictions
	SMOD	Macro command system for information system	Minsk-32
		development
	TRANS	Automation of translation, debugging and	Minsk-32
		execution of programs
	PL/I	Original PL/I Compiler. Interpreter of PL/I	OS ES EVM
		commands for software debugging in visual	(Clone of OS/360)
		PL/I machine. PL/I Handbook, printed twice in
		Statistika (Moscov), Polish translation of book
		(Warsaw)
	RIGAL	Language and tools for Compiler implementation OS ES EVM
			(Clone of OS/360),
			SM-4, IZOT
	SDL (System	Real System specification language: tools used for	SM-4, IZOT
	description	system prototyping and debugging.
	Language)
	MAUS (Computer	System that counts usage of all computer	OS ES EVM (Clone of
	usage account	resources (processor, peripherals, I/O	OS/360),	MAUS
	system)	operations) and calculates expenses.	included in the base of
			the operating system and
			maintained in all Soviet
			produced computers

Table 7 .

 7 Information systems developed in IMCS from 1970 to 1980.

	Description	Computer
		(operating system)
	Wholesale store for agriculture, including	Minsk-22, Minsk-32
	accounting system
	City traffic simulation system	BESM-4
	Operative planning system for production in	GE-415
	enterprise
	Information system for electronics production at	Ge-415
	Factory Komutators
	Construction and building management system	Ge-415
	Higher education student registration system	OS ES EVM
	Agricultural resources optimization for land usage	OS ES EVM
	Pension calculation and payment system	OS ES EVM
	Informatics in schools	PC


Björn Thodenius
email: bjorn.thodenius@hhs.se

Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo
email: b.batiz-lazo@le.ac.uk

Tobias Karlsson
email: tobias.karlsson@ekh.lu.se

The History of the Swedish ATM: Sparfrämjandet and Metior

Keywords: Automated teller machines (ATM), cash dispensers, savings banks, Sweden, technological change

In this paper, we describe the first decades of the history of the Swedish Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Sweden was one of the pioneers in using ATMs, starting with cash dispensers or cash machines in 1967. The first machine was made operational and shown to the press on 6 July 1967 in Uppsala at Upsala Sparbank, only one week after the first cash machine in the world was made operational in the UK. The Malmö-based company Metior manufactured the Swedish machine. This paper seeks to document the origins and the early development of cash machines by Swedish savings banks, employing oral as well as archival sources. Interestingly, we find that the key actor behind the ATM technology was not Spadab, the computer company of the saving banks, but Sparfrämjandet, a company most well known for its campaigns to encourage thrift among children.

Introduction

Automated teller machines (ATMs) have been around for some forty years and today we can use the same card to withdraw cash all over the world. In this paper we describe the first decades of the history of the Swedish ATM. Sweden was one of the pioneers in using ATMs, starting with cash dispensers or cash machines in 1967 [START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF]. The first machine was made operational and shown to the press on 6 July 1967 in Uppsala at Upsala Sparbank, only one week after the first cash machine in the world was made operational in the UK [START_REF] Bátiz-Lazo | Emergence and Evolution of ATM Networks in the UK, 1967-2000[END_REF]. The Malmö based company Metior manufactured the Swedish machine. This paper seeks to document the origins and the early development of cash machines in Sweden, employing oral as well as archival sources. Interestingly, we find that the key actor behind the ATM technology was not Spadab the computer company of the saving banks, but Sparfrämjandet, a company most well known for its campaigns to encourage thrift among children. This finding is, however, not as surprising as it may seem, since Sparfrämjandet also had the task to rationalize administrative functions among the savings banks. The ATM technology was not a coincidental innovation made by technicians. Rather, we should view it as part of a modernization process within the savings banks movement that took place in the light of intensified competition and rising transaction costs.

The reminder of this paper proceeds as follows. The next section provides some background regarding the origins and the growth of savings banks in Sweden. The third section documents the adoption of cash machines by Swedish savings banks and the way this development intertwined with the history of the engineering firm Metior (later to be Asea-Metior). The fourth and final section encompasses our conclusions.

The Swedish Savings Banks -a Brief Overview

During the first half of the twentieth century, competition between savings banks and commercial banks in Sweden was rather weak. Each bank had different customers and offered different services. In some instances they even came together to collaborate in joint projects. Whereas the commercial banks had experienced serious problems during the inter-war period, savings banks flourished while operating mainly in local and regional markets. Although their number had already started a downtrend (approaching 450 in 1945 and as few as 60 in 2008), their joint share of total deposits increased from 26 to 43 percent between 1920 and 1950 and profits were high [START_REF] Forsell | Moderna tider i Sparbanken: Om organisatorisk omvandling i ett institutionellt perspektiv[END_REF].

The decades that followed the end of World War II were characterized by overall economic growth, increased affluence and expansion of the welfare state in Sweden. This era also saw increased competition in the banking sector as the commercial banks began to widen their customer base (while aiming to attract all sorts of new customers, from companies to wage earners). Handelsbanken, for example, launched itself as the "people's bank" in 1950. Shortly afterwards, Handelsbanken and other commercial banks used the contacts developed while financing the working capital of manufacturing companies to offer these companies direct payroll deposit services.

The savings banks were initially hesitating to this new service. However, a group of younger managers pushed for a more aggressive corporate strategy [START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF][START_REF] Forsell | Moderna tider i Sparbanken: Om organisatorisk omvandling i ett institutionellt perspektiv[END_REF]. Throughout the 1950s, these young managers were under the leadership of Sven G. Svensson, director of Sparfrämjandet, who also organized annual conferences in Saltsjöbaden to facilitate the meeting of like-minded young managers [START_REF] Forsell | Moderna tider i Sparbanken: Om organisatorisk omvandling i ett institutionellt perspektiv[END_REF]. They united with the idea that the savings banks had to adjust to ongoing social change. Furthermore, their conviction was that the savings banks should meet the challenge of Handelsbanken and other commercial banks, not by demanding protection from the state but by introducing better services. Many ideas that emerged from the conferences at Saltsjöbaden were implemented during the 1960s as the attendants reached influential positions within the savings banks. As a result, the Swedish savings banks evolved from small-scale savings institutions to "modern" businessoriented banks. During this process, the emphasis on thrift was downplayed while the savings banks began to view depositors more like customers than savers.

Rocketing administrative costs provided a strong incentive for the savings banks to seek greater labor efficiency through the application of new technologies. As suggested by Table 1, the increase in the nominal value of deposits accompanied an increase in the value of administrative costs (measured as a percent of total deposits). It is with this background that they intensified efforts to introduce mainframe computers for various tasks during the 1960s. As mentioned, the savings banks were late to respond to the direct payment of payroll service offered by commercial banks. This attitude was to change in 1960 when most of the bigger savings bank introduced that service. However, unfortunately, the number of individual accounts they managed to attract proved to be much lower than expected. This became evident two years later in 1962 when the commercial banks had more than twice as many accounts as the savings banks (387,000 and 143,000, respectively). However, close links with trade unions helped the savings banks to transform their position and eventually dominate the direct payroll payment service. By the end of 1970, the savings banks had no less than 870,000 accounts [START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF][START_REF] Forsell | Moderna tider i Sparbanken: Om organisatorisk omvandling i ett institutionellt perspektiv[END_REF]. Table 2 below illustrates the way growth in business volume accompanied an increase in staff in Sweden. While increased involvement in direct deposit of payroll reduced the number of checks passing through the banking system, the savings banks found that this involvement was not without costs. To keep up with the commercial banks, the savings banks had to expand their workforce. This resulted in payroll and related costs growing faster than the pace at which the value of total deposits increased. Consequently, administration costs bolted. Administration costs (expressed as a share of deposits) increased by 40 percent between 1962 and 1967. Table 3 below summarizes a closer study of the four largest savings banks. It revealed that the number of transactions (withdrawals and deposits) increased by 125 percent, whereas their total funds increased by 64 percent [START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF]. Another aspect of the modernization of the Swedish savings banks that took place in the 1960s was concentration. In the beginning of the 1960s, there were still over 400 individual savings banks in Sweden. Because of amalgamation between small units operating in the countryside and city-based entities, only 273 savings banks remained in 1970. The concentration process went on during the following decades with merges between the biggest banks. By 1989, there were 109 savings banks left, but this population consisted of 20 big banks with regional coverage holding 80 percent of total deposits, and 95 local banks [START_REF] Forsell | Moderna tider i Sparbanken: Om organisatorisk omvandling i ett institutionellt perspektiv[END_REF].

Rising administrative costs and an increasing number of accounts in the late 1950s and the 1960s required Swedish savings banks to take urgent action. A major step towards computerization occurred in 1958 when a Technical Committee formed within the Swedish savings banks association. Per Olov Rimvall, a committee member was a driving force behind research to solve the "bookkeeping problem" in the savings banks. Eventually he initiated the formation of a commonly owned computer and data processing company in 1961, later called Spadab. However, to all appearances, Spadab did not play a central role in the development of cash machines. Within the saving banks movement, the agent of change occurred in another organization, namely Sparfrämjandet.

Sparfrämjandet and Metior

Sparfrämjandet

Originally, Sparfrämjandet was the propaganda department of the Swedish savings banks association. According to Hessling [START_REF] Hessling | Att spara eller inte spara -vilken fråga! Den sparfrämjande verksamheten 1920-1970. Sparfrämjandet[END_REF], this department had three main aims. First, the department encouraged thrift, both internally within the savings banks and externally among the public. Second, it served as a publishing house. Third, the department became a central purchasing unit to coordinate purchases of material that the savings banks needed in their retail branches. The department regularly published printed material and was responsible for launching national campaigns. In 1941, the propaganda department was renamed Sparfrämjandet and in 1943, it became an independent company. One reason to change the name was the negative connotation of the term "propaganda." The new Sparfrämjandet had three departments, namely publishing, external relations, and central purchasing.

Sparfrämjandet was the initial driving force for savings banks to adopt cash dispensers because the central purchasing department of Sparfrämjandet had a parallel development within automation. In 1960, Hans Rausing and the Rausing company started to develop and sell coin sorting machines to the savings banks. This later became the firm Restello, a company within the Tetra Pak group.

For some years, the saving banks and Sparfrämjandet had been discussing the possibilities of automating cash dispensing to rationalize the bank tellers' handling of cash in the bank offices. One other need was to make it possible to distribute cash when the bank offices were closed, especially as had been the case in Britain, after the banks closed retail branches on Saturdays in 1969.

The Metior Cash Dispenser

Sparfrämjandet wanted some type of machine or automat that was able to dispense bank notes and discussed the issue with Metior, a company in the Tetra-Pak group that manufactured automatic petrol pumps and had taken over production of the Restello coin sorting machines. The discussions went on for some time but the cooperation was not fully successful. Metior then contacted the commercial bank Svenska Handelsbanken who became the new partner in the development of a cash dispenser [START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF][START_REF] Wentzel | Pengar på Minuten[END_REF]. According to Körberg [START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF], Bengt Wetterholm, the CEO of Spadab at that time, reinitiated the contacts with Metior when learning about the interest of Svenska Handelsbanken [START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF][START_REF] Elanders | The Archive of Metior AB (MAB), Huvud-och dagböcker (HD)[END_REF].

Here it is worth noting that there are very few references to Spadab in Metior's archives. It seems like the company mainly had contacts with Sparfrämjandet and that this organization influenced the design of the first generations of cash dispensers in Sweden. For example, when Metior was about to demonstrate its first machine in December 1966, it invited a representative from Sparfrämjandet but no one from Spadab.

The initial demonstration was planned for 11 January 1967 in Malmö. There were also plans to start testing the machines in Uppsala in January or February that same year. It is unclear whether the demonstration and subsequent tests actually took place according to plans, but we can establish that the first Swedish cash machine became operational and shown to the press on 6 July 1967 in Uppsala. This was only nine days after the first British cash machine was operational by Barclays Bank and De La Rue, and a couple of days before Svenska Handelsbanken showed its first Metior machine.

After some months of testing, the public started to use the cash dispenser in Uppsala twenty-four hours a day in September of 1967. The first machine had some problems and it took some time to get them sorted and make the machine operational most of the time.

In early 1968, Metior had manufactured five machines. Metior still called them prototypes and of these five machines, the savings banks had two and the commercial banks three. In the spring of 1968, mass production began because Sparfrämjandet ordering twenty machines. This order included a number of specific requirements, indicating that the savings banks actively contributed to shape the new technology.

They delivered about twenty machines to Switzerland and one to the Netherlands. Each machine sold at 58,000 to 59,000 SEK. About a year later, in April 1969, the Swedish savings banks ordered Metior cash dispensers for 1.8 million SEK, Metior's biggest order so far. By February 1970, Metior had delivered 37 cash dispensers for the Swedish market, of which savings banks bought 24. At the same time, Metior had exported 141 cash dispensers. For instance, Metior had achieved a dominating position in Switzerland, where De La Rue had left the market, and was about to enter the French market in collaboration with Transac, a division of Compagnie Industrielle des Télécommunications (CIT).

The first cash dispenser went under the name "utbetalningsautomat" and later "Bankomat." However, Svenska Handelsbanken and the commercial banks soon acquired this name as the brand name for their dispensers. During its initial years, Metior developed four generations of cash dispensers. The first generation was not sold commercially. They developed the second and third generations for savings banks and the fourth for commercial banks and the French market.

Bankomat Mark 2 and 3 were made of steel and had punched holes for identification, while in the UK Chubb's plastic card had punched holes, Barclay-De La Rue used a cheque-sized voucher with a magnetic stripe and Speytec-Burroughs' plastic card had a magnetic stripe on the back [START_REF] Bátiz-Lazo | Evidence from the Patent Record on the Development of Cash Dispensers and ATM Technology[END_REF]. Bankomat Mark 4 used a card with information embedded in a magnetic stripe that had been developed by the French Société Générale de Automation. To withdraw money from the Metior machines, a one used a PIN-code together with the card.

Whereas UK banks had been adamant not to deploy machines until their security had been tested [START_REF] Bátiz-Lazo | Evidence from the Patent Record on the Development of Cash Dispensers and ATM Technology[END_REF], some years after the first Swedish machines were being used the security of the system became an issue. Withdrawals using fake cards started to appear. Someone had discovered the algorithm used to associate card numbers with the PIN-code. One Easter holiday someone travelled around Sweden, withdrawing money from each machine visited. This led Metior to contact Bofors in order to help with the security issues. The cooperation led to Bofors buying 80 percent of Metior's shares on 31 August 31 1969. However, Bofors' interest and competence on these security issues regarding cash dispenser were insufficient. New problems emerged in October of 1971 and of such magnitude that the savings banks considered closing down its whole fleet of Metior machines. As a result, Bofors sold the control of Metior to ASEA in 1973.

It is interesting to note that the Easter holiday incident lead to a change in the internal regulations of the savings banks. Before the incident, the retail branch that had the dispensers was solely responsible for losses that might arise. This changed after the incident so that all savings banks collectively shared any losses resulting from the malfunction of cash machines.

Already at an early stage, in May 1968, Metior delivered the first machine connected online to the Malmö computer center. The second to fourth generations of Bankomats were all able to connect online via modem and Mark 4 connected to a call system. However, most cash machines at the savings banks operated as stand-alone, off-line machines.

A turning point came in 1971 because of two developments. First, commercial banks within the Swedish Bankers Association, the post office, and the Federation of Swedish Rural Credit Societies set up the Automatic Cash Dispenser Center. The aim of this independent company was to install and run cash dispensing equipment for the consortia, determine where the machines would be located, market its services (under the Bankomat brand) and administer card registration, data processing, clearing and statistical information. In November 1972, fifteen Asea-Metior cash machines became operational for the consortia in Stockholm. In 1973, thirteen machines became operational in Gothenburg and one more in Stockholm. The following year, ten more dispensers became operational in Stockholm. By 1974, the savings banks remained outside of the consortia that, at the same time, aimed to deploy one hundred machines throughout Sweden to service 1.8 million direct payroll deposit accounts. Between November 1972 and January 1974, banks in the Automatic Cash Dispenser Center consortia issued 29,443 cash machine cards and dispensed some SEK 66 million (USD 14.54 million), with an average withdrawal equal to SEK 268 (USD 59).

A second important development took place when the new director of Spadab, Jan Rydh, attended the Automated Teller Machine Conference in Chicago in 1971. Rydh reminisced that during discussions dwelling on investments in off-line dispensers on the fringes of the conference, out of impulse he made the sudden decision to regard investments in off-line machines a sunk (i.e. irrecoverable) cost [START_REF] Thodenius | Teknisk utveckling i bankerna fram till 1985[END_REF]. Colleagues attending the conference received the decision; upon their return to Sweden, engineers at Spadab were free to start what became the Minuten project. The aim of this project was the adoption of online cash dispensers by the savings banks. In search of potential suppliers, they made contacts with a number of manufacturers of cash dispensers and in the end, three companies competed for the project. These were the Swedish company Asea-Metior, the British company Chubb, and the US-based Docutel. Resulting deliberations caused savings banks to abandon Metior in 1975 by choosing Docutel as their supplier of ATM devices (online cash machines).

There are several competing explanations behind the move by the savings banks to abandon Metior. One major factor, however, was the weak US dollar at that time which made the Asea-Metior dispenser more costly than the Docutel machine [START_REF] Thodenius | Teknisk utveckling i bankerna fram till 1985[END_REF]. Datasaab handled the installation and service in Sweden. This engineering company was at the start of its collaboration with Leif Lundblad and his Stockholm-based Inter Innovation company. Lundblad had developed its own cash dispensing mechanism to accommodate the differences between dollar notes and European currencies. The experience which Datasaab had acquired of the Docutel machines combined with Lundblad's dispensing mechanism, led to the decision to develop a Datasaab ATM. However, before presenting a working machine, Datasaab became part of Ericsson Information Systems. It produced and installed a few machines in a number of countries.

The savings banks were the first to use this new generation of ATMs. These ATMs were initially known as mini-banks and 'Minuten' and the first machine was installed on 24 May 1977 in the city of Falun. In total, Docutel installed 600 machines [START_REF] Wentzel | Pengar på Minuten[END_REF]. From the beginning, all Minuten machines were connected online. In 1982, Spadab searched the market for a new generation of ATMs. Spadab wanted to buy 1,000 new ATMs. The machine that Datasaab had started to develop did not fulfill the demands of Spadab. Instead, Ericsson contacted Omron; in 1984, they signed a contract and started deploying new ATMs. In total, they delivered to the savings banks 900 ATMs of this type.

The Minuten network competed with the network built around the commercial banks (called "Bankomat"). In later years, clearing agreements between the two networks allowed bank customers to use each other's network.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have explored the first steps in the emergence of self-service technology in banking. The focus has been on the savings banks, since they played an especially important part in the early development. It would also be interesting to investigate closer the early development in Svenska Handelsbanken before 1966-67.

Our purpose has been to research technology and corporate strategy in their social and historical context, that is, the dynamics of the design, construction, development, implementation and use of specialized technology [START_REF] Orlikowski | Technology and Institutions: What can Research on Information Technology and Research on Organizations Learn from Each Other?[END_REF][START_REF] Bridgman | Institutions and Technology: Frameworks for Understanding Organizational Change -the Case of a Major ICT Outsourcing Contract[END_REF].

What we find among the most interesting aspects in the early development is the key role of Sparfrämjandet and that the interest of the saving banks' computer company Spadab seems to have been low in the beginning. This finding is, however, and as stated before, not as surprising as it may seem, since Sparfrämjandet also had the task to rationalize administrative functions among the savings banks.

We also note that the ATM technology was not a coincidental innovation made by technicians. Rather, we should see it as a part of a modernization process in the savings banks movement that took place in the light of intensified competition and rising transaction costs.

The role of the company Metior is also crucial for the early development and it would be interesting to make deeper studies of the company and its roots. The exact story of the first online machines also requires further investigation.

Table 1 .

 1 Administration costs in the 80 biggest Swedish savings banks, 1962-67[START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF].

	Year	Million SEK	% of deposits
	1962	114	0.847
	1963	128	0.895
	1964	150	0.963
	1965	176	1.063
	1966	213	1.124
	1967	257	1.194

Table 2 .

 2 Estimated number of employees and deposits in Swedish savings banks, 1962-67[START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF].

	Year	Number of	Increase	Deposits	Increase in %
		employees	in %	million SEK
	1962	3,500		17,699
	1963	4,100	17	18,957	7
	1964	4,700	15	20,531	8
	1965	5,200	11	22,263	8
	1966	5,800	12	24,511	10
	1967	6,400	10	27,259	11

Table 3 .

 3 Transaction volume and deposits in the four biggest Swedish savings banks, 1962-67[START_REF] Körberg | Förnyelsen: Sparbankernas historia 1945-1980[END_REF]

	Year	Number of deposits and	Value of deposits in
		withdrawals	million SEK
	1962	2,011,600	989
	1963	3,077,600	1,062
	1964	3,528,900	1,147
	1965	3,843,300	1,246
	1966	4,473,000	1,425
	1967	4,526,700	1,626