ISTEL, formerly BL Systems, and latterly AT&T Istel, was a British information technology company.

History

The company was formed in 1979 as BL Systems Limited (BLSL) through a merger of the computer departments of various automotive manufacturing companies brought together under the

British Leyland British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partl ...

(BL) umbrella.

John Leighfield John Percival Leighfield (born 1938) is a British IT industry businessman and was previously chairman of RM plc from 1993 until 2011. Currently John Leighfield is a Director of Getmapping, a UK supplier of aerial photography, mapping product ...

became the chairman of the new company, which, in addition to providing the computer resources and telecommunications services for the BL companies, gradually started to provide similar services for other outside companies. The company's headquarters were established in

Redditch Redditch is a town, and local government district, in north-east Worcestershire, England, approximately south of Birmingham. The district has a population of 85,000 as of 2019. In the 19th century, it became the international centre for the ...

and

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

. BL Systems pioneered many services, including the establishment of Europe's first

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ran ...

communications network in the late 1970s and launched Comet (originally a US product) that in 1981 was Britain's first commercial

electronic mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronics, electronic (digital media, digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, ...

service. In 1984 the company's name was changed to ISTEL. The new company name was said to have been chosen by Leighfield randomly by combining pairs of syllables that sounded vaguely related to systems, telecommunications, or technology until he hit upon one he liked the sound of. By 1986 it was widely understood among staff to be an acronym for In Systems The Established Leader, some also noting that Information Systems and TELecommunications fitted quite nicely. In addition, the similarity with the name of a microchip manufacturer did not go unnoticed. The more waggish staff were known to say that the acronym stood for "Information Screwed, Twisted and Eventually Lost" or "I Stand To Earn Less". In June 1987,

Rover Group The Rover Group plc was the British vehicle manufacturing conglomerate known as "BL plc" until 1986 (formerly British Leyland), which had been a state-owned company since 1975. It initially included the Austin Rover Group car business (comprisi ...

(to which British Leyland had been renamed in 1986) sold ISTEL, in a

management buyout A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...

, to a consortium of its management and employees, and investors, led by John Leighfield, for £35 million. In October 1989, ISTEL was sold to

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

and was renamed AT&T Istel. Latterly it was documented that in 1997 AT&T quietly dropped the Istel name putting its finance, commerce, travel, and healthcare divisions up for sale. Customers included

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...

Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the List of airlines by foundation date, world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atla ...

Barclays Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Indepe ...

British Oxygen BOC Ltd is a British based multinational, industrial gas company, more commonly known as BOC, now a part of Linde plc. In September 2004, BOC had over 30,000 employees on six continents, with sales of over £10.6 billion. BOC was a constituent ...

, Boots and

Post Office Limited gd, Oifis a' Phuist kw, Sodhva an Post ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Post Office Logo.svg , type = State-owned private company limited by shares , genre = , predecessor = General Post Office , foundation = 1987 , founder = , location_cit ...

. The healthcare division was sold to Atlanta-based company HBO & Company. In 1998 the company's finance and banking division was sold to

Cap Gemini Capgemini SE is a multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company, headquartered in Paris, France. History Capgemini was founded by Serge Kampf in 1967 as an enterprise management and data processing company. The compa ...

. In April 1998 AT&T sold the Automotive Division, the original core of ISTEL, to BMW's in house software house,

Softlab Softlab GmbH was a software development and information technology consulting company who developed and deployed a software application called Maestro I, which was the first integrated development environment in the history of computing. Foun ...

."AT&T division twins with Cap Gemini". Computing. 1998. http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/1815775/at-t-division-twins-gemini In April 2001, following BMW's sale of Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium the previous year, Softlab sold a significant part of its UK operations, specifically the automotive facing sections, on to

Computer Sciences Corporation Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) was an American multinational corporation that provided information technology (IT) services and professional services. On April 3, 2017, it merged with the Enterprise Services line of business of HP Ente ...

References

{{reflist British Leyland