Werner Frank

Abstract: Werner Frank discusses his emigration from Germany to the United States as an 8 year old and his educational background. He covers getting involved with computers while in the US Army. He then applied his mathematical skills to a variety of projects at Ramo-Wooldridge and later at TRW. He reviews some of the major military projects in Washington, DC and on the west coast. He then joined Walter Bauer and Richard Hill in forming Informatics as a subsidiary of Data Products. He describes some of the US Federal government projects he managed and how he started writing articles for Computerworld. Werner Frank then details how Equimatics was initiated as a jointly owned company with the Equitable Life and Informatics and how Equimatics purchased Informatics and changed the company’s name to Informatics General. He continues with how he developed an interest in microcomputers and tried to get Informatics to invest money in microcomputer products. Later, he left Informatics, was a consultant for less than two years and then became an executive with Sterling Software. He discusses the unfriendly acquisition of Informatics by Sterling Software and how the two companies were merged. He reviews some of the principal acquisitions that Sterling Software made and how successful (or unsuccessful) they were. Attached is a copy of a chapter “Achieving the American Dream: Becoming an Entrepreneur” from his book: “ Legacy: The Saga of a German- Jewish Family Across Time and Circumstance” published in 2003.

Oral History of Werner Frank

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