Ray Anderson: My risky computer venture paid off

Ray Anderson made his fortune designing and selling user interfaces for computers. His big break came in the 1980s when IBM decided to use his software.

Ray Anderson's first computer business "didn't make a lot of money", but it must have done something right. When he "shut shop" in the mid-1980s, Steve Jobs decided to buy his software. "He had just been fired from Apple and was trying to put a new computer together." Anderson had set up Torch Computers in the early 1980s after graduating from Cambridge University. The firm designed graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which let users see images rather than text on their screens, for early-generation PCs.

After selling up to Jobs, Anderson spotted an opportunity in business machines. "Lots of firms were going digital and installing work stations for the first time I knew that demand was going to grow." Computer-makers were each developing their own GUIs. But for the large corporations ordering workstations, this was a problem. "Each GUI needed specific code and programs. That made it difficult for companies to use different manufacturers' machines interchangeably." Clients could, of course, buy all of their equipment from one provider, but "they did not want to be beholden to any one supplier".

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James McKeigue

James graduated from Keele University with a BA (Hons) in English literature and history, and has a certificate in journalism from the NCTJ. James has worked as a freelance journalist in various Latin American countries.He also had a spell at ITV, as welll as wring for Television Business International and covering the European equity markets for the Forbes.com London bureau. James has travelled extensively in emerging markets, reporting for international energy magazines such as Oil and Gas Investor, and institutional publications such as the Commonwealth Business Environment Report. He is currently the managing editor of LatAm INVESTOR, the UK's only Latin American finance magazine.