Special Report: Distributed Computer Processing in Europe

As minicomputers and microprocessors continue to drop in price, people at virtually any level in a company may soon be able to purchase their own computing hardware with little or no formal approval. While such a possibility is clear, the nature and extent of the resulting changes are hard to imagine. Will inhouse DP centers be left with only a handful of clients needing high-volume applications? What about the effect on mainframe suppliers, service bureaus, and timesharing companies? To what extent will data processing authority be decentralized?