Sperry Corporation (1910-1986) was a major American equipment and
electronicsElectronics is a branch of science and technology that deals with the controlled flow of electrons. The ability to control electron flow is usually applied to information handling or device control. Electronics is distinct from electrical science and technology, which deals with the generation,...
company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the twentieth century. Through a series of mergers they exist today as a portion of
UnisysUnisys Corporation , headquartered in Blue Bell, Whitpain Township, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware, is a global provider of information technology services and programs.-History:...
. Some of its former divisions became part of
HoneywellHoneywell is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
.
Early history
The company was founded in 1910 as the
Sperry Gyroscope Company by
Elmer Ambrose SperryElmer Ambrose Sperry was a prolific inventor and entrepreneur, most famous as co-inventor, with Herman Anschütz-Kaempfe of the gyrocompass.Sperry was born at Cortland, New York, United States of America...
to manufacture navigation equipment, chiefly his own inventions – the marine gyrostabilizer and the
gyrocompassA gyrocompass is similar to a gyroscope. It is a compass that finds true north by using an fast-spinning wheel and friction forces in order to exploit the rotation of the Earth. Gyrocompasses are widely used on ships...
. During
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
the company diversified into aircraft components including bomb sights and fire control systems. In their early decades, Sperry Gyroscope and related companies were concentrated on Long Island, New York, especially in
Nassau CountyNassau County is a suburban county in the New York Metropolitan Area east of New York City in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2000 census, the population was 1,334,544...
. Over the years, it diversified to other locations.
In 1918
Lawrence SperryLawrence Burst Sperry was an aviation pioneer. He was the third son of gyrocompass co-inventor Elmer Ambrose Sperry and his wife Zula. Sperry is noted for having invented the first autopilot, which he demonstrated with startling success in France in 1914...
split from his father to compete over aero-instruments with the
Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Company, including the new
automatic pilotAn autopilot is a mechanical, electrical, or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. Most people understand an autopilot to refer specifically to aircraft, but self-steering gear for ships, boats, space craft and missiles are sometimes also called by this...
. In 1924 following the death of Lawrence on December 13, 1923, the two firms were brought together. The company became
Sperry Corporation in 1933. The new corporation was a holding company for a number of smaller entities such as the original Sperry Gyroscope,
Ford Instrument Company,
Intercontinental Aviation, Inc., and others. The company made advanced aircraft navigation equipment for the market, including the Sperry Gyroscope and the Sperry Radio Direction Finder.
The company did very well during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
as military demand skyrocketed; it specialized in high technology devices such as
analog computerAn analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved...
-controlled bomb sights, airborne
radarRadar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as an acronym for RAdio Detection And...
systems, and automated take off and landing systems. Sperry also was the creator of the
Ball TurretA ball turret was a particular form of aircraft gun turret mounted on aircraft during World War II. The most common one was manufactured by the Sperry Corporation.- Sperry Ball Turret :...
Gun that was mounted under the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, as commemorated by the films
Memphis BelleMemphis Belle is a 1990 film directed by Michael Caton-Jones and written by Monte Merrick, starring Matthew Modine and Eric Stoltz and introducing Harry Connick Jr. in his screen debut...
and the poem
The Death of the Ball Turret GunnerThe Death of the Ball Turret Gunner is a five-line poem by Randall Jarrell published in 1945. It is about a gunner in a Sperry ball turret on a World War II American bomber aircraft, who was killed and whose remains were unceremoniously hosed out of the turret...
. Postwar, the company expanded its interests in electronics and computing, producing the company's first digital computer, SPEEDAC, in 1953.
During the 1950s, a large part of Sperry Gyroscope was moved to
Phoenix, ArizonaPhoenix is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the fifth most populous city in the United States...
and soon thereafter became the Sperry Flight Systems Company. This was to try to preserve parts of this vital defense company in the event of a thermonuclear conflagration. Yet the Gyroscope division remained headquartered on New York—in its massive
Lake SuccessLake Success is a village in Nassau County, New York in the United States. The population was 2,797 at the 2000 census.It is in the Town of North Hempstead on northwest Long Island. Lake Success was the temporary home of the United Nations from 1946-1951, with the functions housed at the...
, Long Island plant (which also served as
United Nations headquartersThe United Nations Headquarters is a distinctive complex in New York City that has served as the official headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1950...
before 1952) -- into the 1980s.
Sperry Rand
In 1955 Sperry acquired
Remington RandRemington Rand was an early American business machines manufacturer, best known originally as a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation as the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers but with antecedents in Remington Arms in the early nineteenth century. For a time, the...
and renamed itself
Sperry Rand. Acquiring then
Eckert-Mauchly Computer CorporationThe Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation was founded by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, and was incorporated on December 22, 1947. After building the ENIAC computer at the University of Pennsylvania, Eckert and Mauchly formed EMCC to build new computer designs for commercial and military...
and
Engineering Research AssociatesEngineering Research Associates, commonly known as ERA, was a pioneering computer firm from the 1950s. They became famous for their numerical computers, but as the market expanded they became better known for their drum memory systems. They were eventually purchased by Remington Rand and merged...
along with Remington Rand, the company developed the successful
UNIVAC computer series and signed a valuable cross-licensing deal with IBM. The company remained a major military contractor. From 1967 to 1973 the corporation was involved in an acrimonious
antitrustUnited States antitrust law is the body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are designed to encourage competition in the marketplace....
lawsuit with
HoneywellHoneywell is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
, Inc. (see:
Honeywell v. Sperry RandHoneywell, Inc. v. Sperry Rand Corp., et al. 180 USPQ 673 was a landmark U.S. federal court case that in April 1973 invalidated the 1964 patent for the ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer, thus putting the invention of the electronic digital computer into the...
).
In 1978 Sperry Rand decided to concentrate on its computing interests, and sold a number of divisions including Remington Rand Systems, Remington Rand Machines, Ford Instrument Company and
Sperry VickersHarry Franklin Vickers U.S. was an American inventor and industrialist recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers as the "Father of Industrial Hydraulics". He was born in Red Lodge, Montana October 10, 1898 and he grew up in Montana and southern California...
. The company dropped "Rand" from its title and reverted to Sperry Corporation. At about the same time as the Rand acquisition, Sperry Gyroscope decided to open a facility that would almost exclusively produce its marine instruments. After considerable searching and evaluation, a plant was built in Charlottesville, Virginia, and in 1956, Sperry Piedmont Division began producing marine navigation products. It was later renamed
Sperry MarineSperry Marine is a division of Northrop Grumman. The company manufactures many types of marine equipment such as marine radars, gyrocompasses, and navigation equipment. Sperry Marine was formed in 1997 from three well-known brand names in the marine industry - Sperry Marine, Decca Radar, and C....
. In the 1970s, Sperry Corporation was an old-school conglomerate headquartered in the Sperry Rand Building at 1290 Avenue of Americas in Manhattan, selling typewriters (Sperry Remington), office equipment, electronic digital computers for business and the military (Sperry Univac), farm equipment (Sperry New Holland), avionics (e.g. gyroscopes, radars, Air Route Traffic Control equipment) (Sperry Vickers/Sperry Aerospace), and consumer products (electric razors) (Sperry Remington.) In addition, Sperry Systems Management (headquartered near New York City with an office at
Long Island MacArthur AirportLong Island MacArthur Airport is a public airport located on Long Island, in Ronkonkoma, Suffolk County, New York, United States. It is seven miles northeast of the central business district of the Town of Islip, which owns and operates the airport...
) did a fair amount of government defense contracting. Sperry bought out and continued the RCA line of electronic digital computers: architectural cousins to the IBM
System/360The IBM System/360 is a mainframe computer system family announced by IBM on April 7, 1964. It was the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large, both commercial and scientific...
. In 1983 Sperry sold Vickers to
Libbey Owens FordThe Libbey-Owens-Ford Company was a producer of flat glass for the automotive and building products industries both for original equipment manufacturers and for replacement use. The company's headquarters and main factories were located in Toledo, Ohio, with large float glass plants in Rossford,...
(later to be renamed TRINOVA Corporation and subsequently Aeroquip-Vickers).
Merger
In 1986, after the success of a second
hostile takeoverIn business, a takeover is the purchase of one company by another . In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to the acquisition of a private company.- Friendly takeovers :Before a bidder makes an offer for another...
bid engineered by Burroughs' CEO and ex-Treasurer of the U.S.,
Michael BlumenthalWerner Michael Blumenthal served as United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Jimmy Carter from 1977-1979....
, Sperry Corporation merged with
Burroughs CorporationThe Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment. The company was founded in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company and was assimilated in the 1986 merger that resulted in the creation of Unisys. During its history the company's history paralled many of the...
to become
UnisysUnisys Corporation , headquartered in Blue Bell, Whitpain Township, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware, is a global provider of information technology services and programs.-History:...
. The takeover came about even after Sperry used a "
poison pillPoison pill is a term referring to any strategy, generally in business or politics, to increase the likelihood of negative results over positive ones for a party that attempts any kind of takeover...
" in the form of a major share price hike to dissuade the hostile bid, as a result of which Burroughs had to borrow much more from the banks than was anticipated in order to complete the bid.
Certain internal divisions of Sperry such as Sperry New Holland and Sperry Marine were sold off after the merger. Also sold to
HoneywellHoneywell is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
, was Sperry Flight Systems. Sperry Defense Products Group was sold to Martin Marietta. -- the two units whose functions were originally at the heart of the venerable Sperry Gyroscope division. This group is now part of Lockheed Martin.
The name Sperry lives on in the company Sperry Marine, headquartered in
Charlottesville, VirginiaCharlottesville is an independent city geographically located in Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom....
. This company, formed in 1997 from three well-known brand names in the marine industry - Sperry Marine,
DeccaThe Decca Company, a British gramophone manufacturer that, as Decca Records, released records under the Decca label, contributed to the British war effort during the Second World War...
, and C. Plath, is now part of
Northrop GrummanNorthrop Grumman Corporation is an American aerospace and defense technology company formed by the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company was the fourth largest defense contractor in the world in 2008, and the largest builder of naval vessels. Northrop Grumman employs over 122,000...
Corporation. It is a worldwide supplier of navigation, communication, information and automation systems for commercial marine and naval markets.
See also
- UNIVAC
UNIVAC is the name of a business unit and division of the Remington Rand company formed by the 1950 purchase of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, founded four years earlier by ENIAC inventors J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly and the associated line of computers which continues to this day...
- Sperry Sun
- Rangekeeper
Rangekeepers were electromechanical fire control computers used primarily during the early part of the 20th century. They were sophisticated analog computers whose development reached its zenith following World War II, specifically the Computer Mk 47 in the Mk 68 Gun Fire Control system. During...
- Director (military)
A director, also called an auxiliary predictor, is a mechanical or electronic computer that continuously calculates trigonometric firing solutions for use against a moving target, and transmits targeting data to direct the weapon firing crew.-For warships:...
- Gun Data Computer
The Gun Data Computer is a series of Artillery computers used by the U.S. Army, for Coastal artillery, field Artillery, and Antiaircraft artillery applications...
- Fire-control system
A fire-control system is a number of components working together, usually a gun data computer, a director, and radar, which is designed to assist a weapon system in hitting its target. It performs the same task as a human gunner firing a weapon, but attempts to do so faster and more...
- Kerrison Predictor
The Kerrison Predictor was one of the first fully-automated anti-aircraft fire-control systems. It was an electromechanical analog computer. The predictor could aim a gun at an aircraft based on simple inputs like the observed speed and the angle to the target...
- Hendrik Wade Bode
Hendrik Wade Bode , was an American engineer, researcher, inventor, author and scientist, of Dutch ancestry...
External links