Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 02/82 - checked

February 1982

"So I said to 'Bumper', said I, 'what do you reckon, then?'

At the time we were sharing a quiet corner at this illustrious journal's autumn fete at the Cunard Hotel (the one where Mike Sterland employed all those cute little midshipmen). I had managed to corner one of the personal computer industry's most sagacious sages, 'Bumper' Harris, the man whose finger is really on the pulse of who is doing what, with what and unto whom. I felt it was time to ask him some serious questions.

So I said to 'Bumper', said I, 'what do you reckon, then?'

His answer was most revealing. 'Interesting,' he said, after a great deal of consideration. In fact, he gave the same answer to the two questions I had asked him. The first concerned the potential for government intervention in the business, and what the end result might conceivably be. The second concerned the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.

Bumper pondered the second question first and after a while thought the answer might lie somewhere in the high 30s. 'But maths was never my strong point,' he added, defensively.

Having thus cleared his mind of such trivia, he turned his attention to my first question. 'Now this is of far greater import,' he said importantly. 'The potential for government intervention is limitless within all normal bounds of reason,' he continued, 'and the scope for Government to make a complete and utter balls-up of it is directly proportional.'

These seemed harsh views indeed from one so close to the heart of the matter. It appeared that, maybe, they required just a little clarification. Being brave, I asked for it.

'Well, look at it this way,' he said, 'any government worth its salt is going to want to do the best it can for the people it governs.' At this point, it seemed Bumper's clarification needed clarification.

'I'll re-phrase that,' he said. 'Any government purporting to be freely elected by the population will be keen to be seen doing what the population can be convinced is the right thing for those people, so that the government will get re-elected next time around. Clear?' Certainly, it felt better the second time.

'So,' he continued, 'one significant option open to the government is in the economic area, the object being to keep as many as practicable of the population in jobs so that they can be convinced they are useful to society. In this way, lots of money keeps changing hands as wages are earned and spent and shareholders get rights issues aimed at them; and the government takes a slice of all the action in taxes.'

Okay so far, but what has this to do with government intervention in the microcomputer business, I asked.

'I'm coming to that,' he said. 'When a nation, or geographically definable governed area, gets to be rather old its opportunities for providing useful means of obtaining a tax-take from the population - ie, keeping them working - is directly proportional to the intrinsic age of the indigenous industries. Old industries will tend to show signs of senile decay, usually quite rightly, and they should be allowed to die.' But that won't get many votes. It seemed a logical question, so I asked it.

'Right,' he said, 'so governments are left with two options. One: they can inject monkey glands into the old biddies in the hope that there will be a miraculous recovery. Two: they can do something completely different, and probably make a cock-up of it. On balance, the monkey gland treatment gets the vote by most governments because the cosmetic effects look good in the short-term, and the short-term is vote-catching. But as often happens with miracle cures, the patient only appears to get better. When it keels over and dies it is often rather sudden, and sometimes spectacularly messy.'

But governments are trying some new things, I suggested to him, especially in the microelectronics and general new technology area. What of these? I asked.

'Yes,' he said, 'many of them have cottoned on to the monkey gland syndrome at last, and are trying the second alternative. The trouble seems to be that, as with anything new, it is the nature of the political process not to understand a single thing about the subjects it has decided to support. For a start, the bureaucratic machinery takes over what is often a good theoretical idea and, slowly and inexorably, grinds it into dust.

'Now, I can sense that you are going to ask why.'

I was.

'I will tell you,' he continued without stopping. 'The first Law of Bureaucracy is to protect your own backside. The second Law is to build your own empire, thus enhancing the first Law. Any new development, such as a ministerial decision to support a new industry like microcomputer manufacture, poses a direct threat to the first Law as the vast majority of bureaucrats will not understand a single word that is uttered about the business. When this happens, the bureaucrats react quite naturally. It is they that are given the responsibility of implementing any support scheme, yet they do not understand what they should be doing or how they should go about doing it. They therefore run an immense risk of breaking the first Law. They try to make it look as if they know what they are doing, to fool their political masters, while at the same time making those masters look good to the public. At the same time they actually only do some little bits that they can understand.'

I asked him if he could perhaps be more specific, perhaps point to one or two actual instances.

'That's easy,' he said, 'just look at the education announcement earlier this year. With full fanfare it is proclaimed that every school in the land is to be given a cut-price deal on obtaining a microcomputer. Now this is highly laudable. It is good for the schools and their pupils, it is good for the country's future as all the little children come out into the wide world brim full of computer literacy. It is even good for the politicians that displayed such farsightedness.

'As it is indigenous manufacturers that are to be supported, it even appears good for the industry as well. But is it? The bureaucrats fail to understand that there is already an enormous ground-swell of microcomputing in education, where schools are using machines like PETs and Apples and all sorts. They fail to understand that software is probably more important than hardware and that schools without micros, that are in areas where there are schools already using them, can gain more from being allowed to buy the same machines, even at full price, than from buying something different at an enormous discount.

'The worst sin in my view comes in the administration of the scheme; the fact that the administration is actually more important than achieving the purpose for which is was established.'

This I asked him to explain more fully, and he did.

'Look, they have settled on two systems from indigenous manufacturers. Just two. Now the two they have selected are both very fine machines. I have no criticism of them at all. But while it appears to provide a degree of choice, it is my own view that the real reason is to make the administration of the scheme as convenient as possible for the bureaucrats. With more than two types of machine involved, the bureaucratic mind would tend to haemorrhage.

'But there are more than two indigenous manufacturers worthy of support. Some of them have machines available that, at face value at least, have a great deal to offer the educationalists and pupils. You end up with a scheme that is supposed to partly provide overt support for local industry actually being counter-productive, actually penalising companies and effectively banning them from a good and long-term marketplace.'

This seemed to beg the question of what 'Bumper' Harris would propose as an alternative. I felt brave enough to ask him.

'I have a variety of alternatives,' he said, 'that range from taking the bureaucrats and politicians outside and shooting them, through to ideas that are more humane but probably less justifiable, certainly from their point of view. One alternative is for the micro business to carry on as it started - just ignore them. After all, the bureaucrats have done little to provide really constructive help so far. They might sulk for a while, but the business now seems to have picked up enough momentum to ignore them, if necessary.

'Of course, it would be nice if they gave some real help - or, more specifically, money - with as few strings as possible. If the politicians feel that employment for the people is a major vote-catcher - and I'm sure it is - then they should look to history. No company started life as a multi-national; they all started small. So what we need are lots and lots of small companies. They won't all succeed, of course; in fact, the majority will fail. But so what, some will make it. All you need to do is keep the money rolling for start-ups, and reap the benefits from the ones that make it.'

I ventured that this was not unakin to the venture capital approach; and 'Bumper' concurred.

'That's right,' he said, 'and it wouldn't take too much in the way of money either. Just ten per cent of what has been poured into operations like British Leyland could probably start up a thousand small companies. Each of those would actually employ people, and maybe ten per cent of them would survive and prosper, funding other start-ups.'

I asked if he felt it would work. 'God knows,' he replied, 'but it would be more fun than what we have at present.'

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