MAI Systems Corporation Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

MAI Systems Corporation - Case Study Example Recently, Softbrands purchased the Company back in August 2006. Since its inception in 1957, the Company has gone through significant changes. Being an opportunist and thanks to IBM and the Justice Department in 1956 when the entire computer industry was under the monopoly of IBM, Walter R. Oreamuno and his associate came up with an idea of re-purchasing the computer equipment from IBM customers and leasing it back to the customers at a lower rate than what was being offered by IBM. This idea was a great boast to the MAI's growth but did not last that long. During this time, the Company opted for an IPO with an Not realizing IBM's strategy of depreciating its punch card equipment and the innovation of 360 third generation computer, MAI invested substantially in the older equipment that resulted in MAI's growth to stall. During 1967, a major setback on merger plans with Transamerica, Oreamuno stepped down as the CEO and was replaced by Luther Schwalm an ex-IBM veteran. With a shift in strategy, the earlier investment in the older IBM equipment did not prove to be fertile, Schwalm decided to write-off the outdated older equipment. MAI's cash flow was impacted so substantially that its net worth in 1970 was negative $ 28 million. Oreamuno's decision proved out to be so wrong that even Schwalm was unable to bring the Company out of trouble. It was that when in 1971 MAI's CFO took over as the President. With a new strategy, Kurshan reorganized MAI into a holding company with various subsidiaries. Basic/Four and Sorbus subsidiaries of MAI did well in bringing MAI back to life. Sorbus took advantage of MAI's existing 1,200-person maintenance staff as its core, and expanding from there. Basic/Four was a major success instantaneously. In 1972, Basic/Four introduced the first multi-user transaction-processing mini-computer to use the Business Basic language. Basic/Four's revenue grew up to $43 million, and it was contributing around two-thirds of MAI's tot al earnings. Focused on software products, MAI in 1977 took over acquired Word stream Corporation. This company was producing word processing systems and IBM-compatible CRT terminals. MAI shipped its 10,000th computer system in the year 1980. The market for these computers began to shift drastically at this time, and small companies were turning to cheaper, newly available personal computers instead of the mini-computers that had been Basic/Four's forte. In 1983, the company introduced its MAI 8000, a super-minicomputer nearly as powerful as a mainframe computer, which was proficient enough of servicing up to 96 users at one time. In 1984, a New York-based investor Asher Edelman purchased 12 percent of MAI's stock. Edelman by means of a proxy war for control of the company won four seats on MAI's ten-member board of directors. In the course of the proxy battle, Edelman received a settlement in the $1 million range following a libel suit filed against MAI concerning company advertisements. During April 1984, MAI International Corporation, the company's worldwide marketing arm, was folded into

The American Beaver as a keystone species and there effect on the Essay

The American Beaver as a keystone species and there effect on the north american ecosystem - Essay Example This paper purposes to explore how the animals achieve this great impact. The American Beaver is considered as a keystone species in the North American wetland areas by the ecologists. Keystone species are animals whose activities and abundance determine the integrity of the community and its unaltered persistence through time (Schulze 238). The activities of the American Beaver result to creation of dam and reduction of the flowing speed of streams. Moreover, it results to deposition of sediments on the beds of those streams. This improves the ecosystem of the fish and other water animals in those streams. Therefore, the activities of these animals improve the living conditions of the other water animals and hence they are keystone species. Moreover, the activities of the American Beaver also have an impact to the animals living in both the riverbanks and those living on the other landscape. This is because these animals have the capability to influence the course of succession, species composition, and structure of plant community (Rosell et al 2). These animals can change the composition of plant in an area thus bettering the habitant for other animals. Their foraging also clears the land thus making the ecosystem very favorable for the predators. However, they sometimes fall trees that can destroy the ecosystem of the birds. Therefore, the activities of the American Beaver have an influence to the community of the terrestrial animals also and thus it is a keystone species. The American Beavers activities results to felling of trees on streams that block the streams thus converting the flood plains of streams into wetlands. The activities of these animals have resulted to creation of several wetlands on areas that were previously occupied by flood plains. In other areas, their activities have resulted to expansion of the existing wetlands. This has been mainly through the felling of trees