Editing IBM Future Systems project (section)

===Future Systems===
In May–June 1971, an international task force convened in [[Armonk]] under [[John Opel]], then a vice-president of IBM. Its assignment was to investigate the feasibility of a new line of computers which would take advantage of IBM's technological advantages in order to render obsolete all previous computers - compatible offerings but also IBM's own products. The task force concluded that the project was worth pursuing, but that the key to acceptance in the marketplace was an order-of-magnitude reduction in the costs of developing, operating and maintaining application software.

The major objectives of the FS project were consequently stated as follows:
*make obsolete all existing computing equipment, including IBM's, by fully exploiting the newest technologies,
*diminish greatly the costs and efforts involved in application development and operations,
*provide a technically sound basis for re-bundling as much as possible of IBM's offerings (hardware, software and services)

It was hoped that a new architecture making heavier use of hardware resources, the cost of which was going down, could significantly simplify software development and reduce costs for both IBM and customers.