The leasing subsidiaries of IBM’s various European country companies are to publicise details of their used machines coming back off lease for the first time. The information will be collected by IBM Financial Services International in London and fed into the on-line database network service run by Haarlem, Netherlands-based Computer Brokers Exchange BV. The CBE database was started in 1983 and currently has 252 subscribers – brokers, leasers and users – in 23 countries with details of between 1,500 and 2,000 IBM mainframes and peripherals. Director Peter Moree is forecasting that the present trading level on the network of up to 100 System 36s, 38s and 370-type mainframes per day will double or triple within the next two years when IBM starts to get a significant number of used machines back off lease. Although a new step for IBM in Europe, IBM already offers on-line information to brokers in the US through the Computer Dealers and Leasers Association network.
