#THE NEXT BIG THING SADIE HAYES SOFTWARE#
#THE NEXT BIG THING SADIE HAYES PC#
#THE NEXT BIG THING SADIE HAYES LICENSE#

#THE NEXT BIG THING SADIE HAYES LICENSE#

Patent 4,549,302-which, named for its inventor, covered a modem-escape sequence defining how modems switch from interpreting commands to safely sending data over telephone lines-and sent letters to approximately 170 modem makers allegedly using the technology, asking that they license it. A court battle began in 1985, shortly after the company received the Heatherington U.S.

#THE NEXT BIG THING SADIE HAYES PC#

Estimates put Hayes's revenue near $25 million, double the 1982 figure, but Hayes announced revenues of $120 million for the year, and Dennis Hayes was already predicting modems would 'get smaller, faster and cheaper.' By 1985, Hayes held nearly half the PC modem market.īut troubles were brewing for Hayes. By July 1984, Hayes was a leading modem manufacturer, gaining household-name status and holding nearly 60 percent of the 300-baud and 1200-baud markets. The company automated its Norcross, Georgia factory with six production lines producing over 10,000 finished boards daily, and the product development staff moved into new facilities.

#THE NEXT BIG THING SADIE HAYES SOFTWARE#

Dennis Hayes indicated that his company had intended to create software since the start. In May 1984, market leader Hayes used its success as a cash cow, expanding into general software with its 'Please' database-management software, with a menu-based command structure. Others enhanced modems by supporting diagnostics inside to trace bad phone lines and producing encryption and other data security features. Robotics added memory to its internal modem boards. Novation introduced 'Hayes-compatible' (a term which stuck) modems Racal-Vadic, known for industrial modems, jumped in and U.S. By 1982, they were selling 140,000 modems annually, with $12 million in revenue.Īs companies discovered the benefits of on-line databases, electronic mail, micro-to-mainframe links, and local-area networks (LANs), the appeal of computer communications spread. A standard interface was required, so they created the Hayes AT command set in June 1981. Demand skyrocketed, and modems were requested for Commodore, DEC, and Radio Shack computers. The Micromodem II for the Apple II was the first modem to directly connect into the telephone network. They peddled modems from their cars to hobby computer dealers, persuading them to carry the product as kit-computer enhancements, selling $125,000 their first year, and attracting 20 competitors.Ī second product shipped in 1978. Hayes subcontracted assembly work from larger computer companies to pay his group and raise equity. With friends, they built a handful of modems daily, releasing the product in April 1977. Hayes and Heatherington built their first product, the 80-103A, operating at 300 baud (bits per second) and connecting to the MITS Altair's S-100 bus, on Hayes's dining room table in Spartanburg, South Carolina. They literally invented the modem industry and created the standards for PC modems. Less investment capital was required, too, compared to diskdrives or printers. Feeling the market would be ignored long enough to get started, they were among the first to develop modems (modulator/demodulators, devices which translate analog telephone signals into digital signals computers can understand), as their company's product. As the first microcomputers and PCs were introduced, they capitalized on simultaneous business opportunities.

Hayes, then 27, left Georgia Tech after five years to start Hayes Microcomputer Products with Dale Heatherington. The strategy appealed to Hayes because FDS competed with larger corporations by targeting a niche market.

'They had a targeted market and a very specific product for that market,' Hayes said in a February 1990 interview. In the 1970s, Hayes worked at Financial Data Sciences (FDS), a Florida-based producer of savings and loans automated teller machines (ATMs), modified from bank ATMs. drawn to high-technology' and won a school science fair award with a laser-operated device. (a Southern Bell cable repairman) and Sadie (a telephone operator), Dennis Carl Hayes was described by Sadie as a 'bookish boy. The company, however, has endured a less than glorious history, marked during the 1990s by fierce infighting at the executive level and a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, from which the company eventually emerged and reorganized itself through consolidation with Access Beyond Inc. Just as IBM set the standard by which all other PCs are judged, Hayes did the same for modems. Hayes Corporation is a leading manufacturer in the personal computer (PC) modem industry.

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