Article published in English

Article: Building air defense and computer expertise: knowledge transfer between MIT and IBM in the SAGE project

Lars HEIDE

Associate professor of business history - Copenhagen Business School

Abstract

The start of the Cold War in the late 1940s made the United States government aware of the country’s vulnerability to an attack by Soviet bombers. The existing system for monitoring aircraft coming to the US was based on manual communication. Because the Department of Defense (DOD) found they were too complex, DOD wanted an automated system. It therefore contracted with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to design this automated system, called Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE). Because MIT was a research institution, it did not have the manufacturing capability for serial production of large computers for air defense systems. Consequently, DOD awarded IBM a contract to design and produce computers conceived by MIT.
The paper analyses the processes and methods applied in the transfer of knowledge between MIT and IBM in the building of the SAGE computer, which was far more advanced than the IBM 701. The knowledge transfer was planned and implemented by engineers from both MIT and IBM. Both groups saw innovation and knowledge transfer as a simple, rational process aiming at a predictable goal. This paper discusses the intricacies of the process of transferring knowledge between two completely different organizations at MIT and IBM and involving a not-yet-finalized technology that required a shared mode of innovation.