Last week’s announcement was the end of a long, slow slide for the computer maker. Founded by Dr. An Wang, a Harvard-educated Chinese immigrant, Wang Laboratories revolutionized offices around the world with its minicomputers. But as the industry began to shift to personal computers in the mid-19808, Wang was left behind. Its meteoric growth rates slowed, and earnings fell dramatically. In 1986, “the Doctor,” as An Wang was known, appointed his 36-year-old son, Fred, president of the company. But three years later, under pressure from creditors, he forced Fred out of office just as Wang Labs announced a huge loss. Before the elder Wang’s death from esophageal cancer in 1990, he was already preparing bankruptcy papers-but just in case the company rose from the ashes, he named Miller, an experienced turnaround artist, to succeed him.
Since then, Miller has been fighting to stave off the inevitable. The company had talked with more than 40 investors and bargained with lenders for 56 amendments to its borrowing plan over the last three years. But analysts say miller wasn’t listening to customers-and last week Wang reported an operating loss of $45.4 million for the last fiscal year. “[The company] fell prey to the enormous success of the PC,” say Thomas Willmott, a Boston-based computer consultant. “They simply did not react fast enough to compete in the workplace.”
Wang isn’t the only victim of the shift to PCs. Along Boston’s Route 128, an area that fueled the “Massachusetts Miracle,” several other computer makers have hit hard times in recent years. Though a new line of PCs sells well for Digital Equipment Corp., the slumping mini market led the company to cut thousands of jobs. Data General Corp. is half its former size; Prime Computer, after an expensive leveraged buyout, has quit the hardware business and has renamed itself Computervision. Wang could undergo a similar transformation. In any case, the company will emerge from Chapter 11 much changed-if it emerges at all. Miller says, “We’re in business today just as we were yesterday.” Some analysts are doubtful. Like a worn-out basketball player, they say, Wang may finally have benched itself for good.
