EDS (Electronic Data Systems)
More info
- Creator
- Ross Perot
- Released
- 1962–2008
- Owner
- General Motors (1984–1996), Hewlett-Packard (from 2008)
- Type
- IT services company
The company that invented IT outsourcing — someone else runs your computers for you — and turned its founder into a presidential candidate.
Ross Perot was an IBM salesman who hit his annual quota in January. He founded EDS in Dallas in 1962 to sell the running of computers rather than the computers themselves: the client didn't need its own data processing staff, EDS handled everything for a fixed fee. Government Medicare and Medicaid systems were early anchor contracts, and a strict dress code became a trademark.
General Motors bought EDS in 1984 for $2.5 billion, and Perot proved such a vocal board member that GM paid him to leave. Spun off in 1996, EDS was bought by Hewlett-Packard in 2008 for $13.9 billion. The services business later landed in HPE and merged with CSC in 2017 to form DXC Technology. Perot himself ran for president as an independent in 1992 and took 19 per cent of the vote.