Unlike the German Democratic Republic’s computer hardware industry, the software sector there is by no means the reserve of just one firm: true, the ubiquitous VEB Kombinat Robotron dominates the area of system software, but further than that, there are a number of East German software developers, which, as Computerwoche reports, may provide the key to any real international presence for the East German computer industry. The East German software sector today employs around 120,000 and was initially based around a 1960s Soviet concept that originally found popularity in the field of cybernetics – the study of automated communication and control, particularly in electronic mechanisms – that information technology would be crucial in the future running of a centralised economy: this concept was to have been realised in the creation of all-embracing State-run computer networks. The first important step for the software industry in East Germany was the 1960s formation of the KDV Kombinat for Dataprocessing, which was given the brief to make such a State computer network possible.
Modest role
This project has, over 20 years later, still not left the ground, and instead the KDV has operated in a more modest role as a developer of accounting, stockkeeping and order book software for large trade organisations and such industries as the transport sector. Most recently, a number of KDV developers have written more ambitious software for technical and engineering applications, and since 1986, the LfA Centre for Applications Research, a specialised software development group within the KDV, has offered computer aided design packages and graphical interface software in addition to its traditional database and communications software. Since the 1970s, the computer departments of large Kombinats – state-owned firms, which unlike most organisations in Eastern Europe are allowed to trade directly with the West – have started working in conjunction with research teams from the Academy of Science, universities and technical schools, on new software intended to rescific market requirements. According to the West German trade weekly, these joint projects have brought forth such industry-specific applications as a computer aided design package developed by the Research Institute for the Footwear Industry; the Autent assembly and bodywork system for the automotive industry, started by the Institute for Light Assembly in Dresden, with later participation from the WTZ Automobilbau and the LfA; and Blech CAD, another computer aided design package developed by the 7 Oktober Kombinat and the Central Institute for Cybernetics and Information Processes to handle the forming and cutting out of sheet metal. –
Translated and adapted by Mark John
Meanwhile, Robotron’s impact in the software market is by necessity limited: Robotron Projekt Dresden, its 1,400-staff software development department, is obliged by the State to develop Basissoftware – this includes the operating system system for Robotron’s 370-alike ESER mainframes, such as the OS/ES 6.1 for the R-1040 and R-1055 machines, MVS/EV for the R-1057; Unixalike operating systems such as Mutos for the 16-bit K 1600, EC 1034 and the 32-bit K 1840; MS-DOS-compatible systems for its 16-bit personal computers, and a VMS-alike system for its K 1840 mini. Robotron also supplies languages such as Fortran, C, Modula-2, Pascal, Cobol, and is in the process of developing its own implementation of Lisp, as well as variants of Prolog. But despite the gradual move towards producing more market-orientated software, for Robotron and the various collaborations between data processing departments of large firms and of academic institutions, there still exist barriers that make short-term penetration of the software market on any significant international level virtually impossible. Application packages are still too specialised, and therefore have limited customer appeal; State-imposed restrictions, such as the obligation on Robotron to produce Basissoftware, and on various large Kombinats to develop
only industry-specific software has led to software development being completely out of step with whatever market there could be for it. Moreover, the CoCom list, which restricts high-technology imports to the East, has meant that there has been a lack of hardware and standard system software on which to develop applications. Finally, there is still simply not enough money for academic institutions and individual firms to launch wholeheartedly into the commercial market – whether in East Germany or abroad. But, seen from another perspective, it is precisely these same factors that could turn East Germany into a specialist producer of high technology, niche market software products.
Economy and style
The CoCom list has meant that the academic institutions, deprived of the opportunity to test applications in practice, have become experts in the theoretical side of software development, and the lack of powerful hardware has brought about a necessity is the mother of invention attitude to developing more elegant and effective programs: as a result, many of the programs have an economy and style that easily set them apart from Western programs written using the most powerful tools and hardware. But, perhaps most importantly, the lack of impact on the large potential markets for industrial and commercial applications, together with the long tradition of co-operation between academic centres and the engineers and scientists that ultimately use the software, has meant that, for really top-end technical applications, the East German software writers have an infinitely more acute sense of the market and customer than their Western counterparts. Given the existence of various political prerequisites and the willingness on the part of the State to support such a possibility, this may all mean that, while the impact of East German software internationally is likely to be limited for the foreseeable future, the specialised technically-orientated programs of East German developers could in the next few yers surge ahead to complement equivalent Western developments in hardware, even as the Western software sector continues to languish.
