Was the decline of WANG comparable ot BLACKBERRY?
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Yes! Wang Laboratories was one of the great Boston-area technology success stories of the 1970s and 1980s—and its collapse is remarkably reminiscent of BlackBerry's.
In fact, Wang is a classic example of a company that dominated a major technology market, became enormously successful, and then failed to adapt when the entire market changed underneath it.
The rise and fall of Wang Laboratories
Founded in 1951 by Chinese-born engineer An Wang, Wang Laboratories eventually became a Massachusetts technology giant headquartered in Lowell, about 25 miles northwest of Boston.
Its specialty was dedicated word-processing systems, particularly the Wang OIS (Office Information System). In the late 1970s and early 1980s, these were sophisticated, expensive office machines that could store, edit, and print documents long before ordinary office workers had personal computers.
Wang became especially popular with law firms, government agencies, corporations, and other organizations producing mountains of documents.
At its peak, Wang employed roughly 30,000 people and generated more than $3 billion in annual revenue.
How quickly did it collapse?
1984
1988
1989
1992
1999
Why the BlackBerry analogy works
The similarity is almost uncanny.
Wang: Why would a corporation abandon an excellent $10,000–$20,000 dedicated word-processing system for a relatively primitive IBM PC?
BlackBerry: Why would a business executive abandon a superb physical keyboard and secure corporate email for an iPhone without a keyboard?
In both cases, the incumbent had a very good answer about why its existing product was superior—while missing the much larger advantages of the new platform.
There is one important complication: by the 1980s, Wang also had a substantial minicomputer business. Its failure was not simply the disappearance of dedicated word processors, but the erosion of its entire proprietary computing ecosystem.
And there is a fascinating Boston connection. Wang's decline was part of the collapse of the Route 128 computer industry, including Digital Equipment Corporation, Data General, and Prime Computer. Boston had once been a formidable competitor to Silicon Valley in computing hardware.
One surviving reminder is Boston's famous Wang Theatre, named for An Wang, who helped finance its restoration.
The historical irony: Wang helped invent the modern electronic office, but the personal computer revolution made Wang's own version of that office obsolete.
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An Wang himself did not simply disappear from the scene. He remained involved with Wang Laboratories almost until his death.
He died March 24, 1990, at age 70, of esophageal cancer at Massachusetts General Hospital.
His story has a rather poignant ending:
1984: His company was still enormously profitable.
1986: His son Frederick became president, while An Wang remained CEO.
1989: With the company losing hundreds of millions, An Wang removed his own son from the presidency.
1990: Wang died, still chairman and CEO.
1992: The company filed for bankruptcy.
So Wang lived long enough to witness the unraveling of his life's work, but not its final bankruptcy.
He was also a remarkable inventor, earning a Harvard PhD in applied physics and making an important early contribution to magnetic-core computer memory.
And his philanthropic legacy outlived the company, particularly Boston's Wang Theatre and the Wang Ambulatory Care Center at MGH.
The striking historical detail is that the company went bankrupt just 29 months after its founder died.
