page_title: History of Norsk Data
section_title: Tandberg
hierarchical_section_title: History of Norsk Data / Tandberg
caption_attribution_description: English: A 1980s computer terminal made by Norsk Data and/or Tandberg, here on display in Aura kraftverk, a Norwegian electric power plant in Sunndalsøra
context_page_description: Norsk Data was a Norwegian manufacturer of minicomputers which operated between 1967 and 1992. The company was established as A/S Nordata – Norsk Data-Elektronikk on 7 July 1967 and took into use the Norsk Data brand in 1975. The company was founded by Lars Monrad-Krohn, Rolf Skår and Per Bjørge, three computer engineers working at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment which had just built the minicomputer SAM 2. ND's first contract was the delivery of a Nord-1 computer to Norcontrol. Initially in competition with Kongsberg, ND started delivering computers to Norwegian institutions. By 1972 the company had developed Sintran operating system, the 32-bit Nord-5 and a time sharing system.
  The international break-through came with the 1973 delivery of computers to CERN and the company soon had half their sales abroad. Two years later the database program Sibas had been completely ported and made available, and the following year a 150-terminal system connected via X.21/X.25 based XMSG and a flight simulator backbone for the F-16 were delivered. In 1978 Norsk Data both bought Tandberg and launched its office suite Notis, although Tandberg was sold again in 1980.
context_section_description: 1975 saw the creation of a new government plan to consolidate the Norwegian information technology industry into three companies: Tandberg, Elektrisk Bureau and Kongsberg, which would become the "cornerstone companies". The plan was launched by Hauge, who started negotiations of purchasing Mikkelsen's shares in both Norcontrol and Norsk Data. He chose to sell Norcontrol to Kongsberg, but would not sell Norsk Data. The government continued to press the issue and promised a large grant to the industry if it merged, but Norsk Data stood on its rejection.
  By December 1978, one of the cornerstones, Tandberg, filed for bankruptcy. The company was split up and Norsk Data became one of the shareholders, although the computer division, Tandberg Data, was spun off. In April 1979 Norsk Data agreed to take over Tandberg's training materials' division and its facilities at Skullerud in Oslo, which would give ample space for expansion. However, Parliament decided in May that they wanted Tandberg to continue operations in the same scale, and offered a NOK 105-million subsidy and a large discount in the Skullerud facility to Norsk Data if they took over all of Tandberg. ND accepted the deal and paid NOK 12 million for 92 percent of the company, the last part being owned by the Industrial Development Corporation of Norway. Tandberg saw a NOK 13-million loss of a NOK 130 million revenue in 1979, which were consolidated into Norsk Data's accounts. Not until a February 1980 deal with Mobil secured a NOK 25-million advance did the company stop being a burden.
  There was a bad relationship between the two companies, in part caused by opposition from within Tandberg against a start-up managing the old company's affairs. Tandberg had split its production between Skullerud and Kjelsås, also in Oslo, which was part of its inefficiency problems. A relocation to Kjelsås was desired, but this resulted in a struggle between the two companies regarding a NOK 20-million advance that Tandberg had paid ND. When resolved, this allowed ND to Take over the Skullerud facilities. To eliminate the negative cash flow and debt in Tandberg, it was sold to ND's shareholders in early 1981.
  Development of the office suit Notis started in January 1978 out of the existing expertise in typesetting and a desire to sell computers to the public sector.  The word processing section was based on a program which had been developed by an employee while working at CERN and this was combined with systems for incorporating tables with figures such as budgets. The system also features search and e-mail. At first the QED text editor was used, but this was later replaced with TED, developed by Kvam Data. Notis was installed on all systems from 1980 and quickly became popular among customers. Because ND's screens were not optimized for text processing, from 1982 Tandberg Data delivered tailor-made keyboards and keyboards. Because text processing required high performance and extra peripherals, ND made high margins on the implementation. ND bought the typesetting system Comtec in 1981, which was combined with Nortext and resulted in large increases in the sale of the systems.
caption: A Tandberg keyboard and monitor tailor-made for Norsk Data and Notis
exif: {}