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- MAI Systems Corporation, or simply MAI, was a United States-based computer company best known for its Basic/Four product and the customized computer systems that ran it. It was later known for its computer reservation systems. The company formed in 1957 as a consulting firm, Management Assistance Inc.. In the early 1960s they created a profitable niche leasing IBM mainframes and grew to have income in the millions. When the System/360 was announced the company was left with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of suddenly outdated equipment, and by 1971 the company was almost insolvent. The company re-launched that year starting several new subsidiaries. Among these was Basic/Four Corporation which sold customized minicomputers running their version of Business Basic, Genesis One that bought and sold obsolete equipment, and Sorbus, which performed servicing on computer equipment. Genesis One was never very successful, and while Sorbus was modestly profitable, by 1975 two-thirds of MAI's income was from Basic/Four. By the mid-1980s, the introduction of the IBM PC was shaking up the entire computer market and MAI was once again losing money. Asher Edelman began a proxy war to take over the company, and on achieving this in 1985, immediately began liquidation. Sorbus was sold to Bell Atlantic and Basic/Four sold to Bennett S. LeBow. Basic/Four took over the MAI marque, and the product, now running on the Unix-like UCOS system, became MAI Basic Four, Inc. This was re-launched in 1990 as Open BASIC on the PC, becoming MAI Systems at that time. Using the money LeBow organized during the leveraged buyout, the company purchased a number of other companies in an effort to diversify. Among these was Computerized Lodging Systems, who made booking systems for hotels. The Business BASIC market disappeared, and the company was declared bankrupt in 1993. They emerged from Chapter 11 later that year, focused on the hotel software market, the division now named Hotel Information Systems. In this form they continued until the early 2000s, until being purchased by Appian Corporation in 2005. (en)
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- MAI Systems Corporation, or simply MAI, was a United States-based computer company best known for its Basic/Four product and the customized computer systems that ran it. It was later known for its computer reservation systems. The Business BASIC market disappeared, and the company was declared bankrupt in 1993. They emerged from Chapter 11 later that year, focused on the hotel software market, the division now named Hotel Information Systems. In this form they continued until the early 2000s, until being purchased by Appian Corporation in 2005. (en)
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