Title:
Oral History of Werner Frank

Date:
2006-02-14

Pages:
30 p. oral history; 53 p. book excerpt

Interviewer:
Yost, Jeffrey; interviewer
Frank, Werner; interviewee
Rosenshteyn, Yan; cameraperson
Grad, Burton; editor

Abstract:
Werner Frank discusses his emigration from Germany to the United States as an 8 year old and his educational background. He covers getting involved with computers while in the US Army. He then applied his mathematical skills to a variety of projects at Ramo-Wooldridge and later at TRW. He reviews some of the major military projects in Washington, DC and on the west coast. He then joined Walter Bauer and Richard Hill in forming Informatics as a subsidiary of Dataproducts. He describes some of the US Federal government projects he managed and how he started writing articles for Computerworld. Werner Frank then details how Equimatics was initiated as a jointly owned company between the Equitable Life and Informatics and how Equimatics purchased Informatics and changed the company’s name to Informatics General. He continues with how he developed an interest in microcomputers and tried to get Informatics to invest money in microcomputer products. Later, he left Informatics, was a consultant for almost two years and then became an executive with Sterling Software. He discusses the unfriendly acquisition of Informatics by Sterling Software and how the two companies were successfully merged. He reviews some of the principal acquisitions that Sterling Software made and how successful (or unsuccessful) they were. Attached is a copy of a chapter “Achieving the American Dream: Becoming an Entrepreneur” from his book: “Legacy: The Saga of a German-Jewish Family Across Time and Circumstance” published in 2003.

Keywords:
Frank, Werner
Ramo-Wooldridge
TRW
ShARE
USE
Informatics
Hill, Richard
Bauer, Walter
Tomash, Erwin
Postley, John
Mark IV
HUD Contract
STIFF
Lemons, Richard
Equitable Life
Equimatics
Informatics General
ComputerWorld
Israel projects
MultiMate
Sterling Software
Williams, Sterling
Wyly, Sam
Blow, Warner
Cook, Bob
VM Software
Computer Associates
Knowledgeware
Texas Instruments
Sterling Commerce
Texas Instruments
Sterling Commerce

Rights:
Computer History Museum

102657942