Who will Unisys Corp buy next? No, not NCR Corp – that speculation was just too silly, but Aharon Orlansky, who has been following the computer scene for longer than we care to remember, is making a much more pertinent suggestion: the biggest new growth area identified by IBM is systems integration, and while Unisys already has the old Burroughs acquisition of Systems Development Corp under its belt, that hardly on its own stacks up against an IBM Federal Systems Division unleashed, or an Electronic Data Systems Corp given its head by the Detroit General; quoted in the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column, Orlansky – now with Morgan Olmstead Kennedy & Gardner in Los Angeles – goes on to name a company that we’ve suggested more than once looks an uncommonly attractive takeover play, El Segundo-based Computer Sciences Corp; Computer Sciences, keen to expand its commercial business and reduce its dependence on national and local government, is not going to go quietly, but if Unisys doesn’t move for it, another very likely will.
