David Caminer, OBE has been called "the world's first corporate electronic systems analyst" and "the world's first software engineer". He carried out the systems analysis and charting for the world's first routine business computer job. He was a British computer engineer who developed the world's first business computer, LEO. He was also called "the first business application programmer".
Life and work
Caminer was born David Treisman in the East End of London. His father was killed in action during the First World War. When his mother remarried, he was given his stepfather's surname Caminer. In March 1943 Caminer lost a leg at the Battle of Mareth, whilst serving with the Green Howards in Tunisia. Caminer worked generally in the area of operations management and cost accounting. He helped to design, along with John Pinkerton, the LEO, which has been certified by the Guinness World Records as the world's first business computer. Caminer joined Lyons & Co. as a management trainee in 1936 and became manager of the Lyons Systems Research Office before concentrating on the computer innovation. He became director of LEO Computers Ltd in 1959 and was subsequently general sales manager of English Electric LEO Marconi, while retaining his responsibility for consultancy and systems implementation. After the merger to form ICL, his posts included the delineation of the systems software requirements for the New Range and director of New Range Market Introduction. He chose to complete his formal career in the field as project director for the implementation of the computer and communications network for the European Economic Community, where he developed a computer system for the European Common Market. For this work he was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 1980. As Caminer himself pointed out, the LEO story highlights important characteristics of the history of innovation in computing technology, including the complex roles of government funding and university research; the frequent failure of technically advanced products to enjoy commercial success; the importance for commercial success in business computing of firm-level capabilities in related technologies; and the interaction between organizational and technological change in the adoption of business computing systems. In 2001 he presented the second IEE Pinkerton Lecture. He died in June 2008, at age 92.
