An office communications system

The term “office automation” generally refers to the machine-aided creation, communication, storage, retrieval, and control of messages and documents handled by professional, clerical, and secretarial personnel in an office environment. Motivated by the conviction that “office automation demands that the new office machines be linked together to form integrated systems,” an office study was begun in 1975 by IBM'S Data Processing Division in conjunction with one of its customers. The purpose of the study was to investigate requirements for an integrated office communications system and to provide a framework for developing a prototype of such a system.