The story of the LEO, the worlds first business computer, has now been told a number of times (Bird [1], Caminer [2]), but in each case, the story has been told by an insider. Bird worked as a manager in the Lyons organization, and Caminer and his colleagues had been part of the LEO team. Ferry, on the other hand, is a science writer with a number of acclaimed books to her credit, including the biography of Nobel Laureate Dorothy Hodgkin, and, more recently, an account of the Human Genome Project.

Ferry came across the LEO story while researching one of her previous books, became intrigued by the story of the catering firm that built its own computer, and decided to investigate further. What she discovered about the early days of computers in the UK and the US, and about the interaction of the many people involved on both sides of the Atlantic, persuaded her to write a book. Her focus is on the story of Lyons, and how it came to be the first company to build a business computer, but she skillfully interweaves that story with the early history of digital computers and the people who built them.

Much more than the telling of a story is contained in this book. One of the strengths of the book is Ferrys analysis of what led a company, apparently far removed from the world of mathematics and electronics, to go into the computer business. She traces how Lyons had developed since its founding in the nineteenth century, and how, in the twentieth century, the nature of the business required an ever-growing army of clerks. As a response, Lyons had recruited the kind of people who could think of business problems innovatively, and that kind of thinking led them almost inevitably to the notion of the electronic computer as a business necessity. The hero of the book is Simmons, Lyons Comptroller, recruited in the 1920s from Cambridge University, where he had graduated with a top mathematics degree.

The author analyzes why, when Lyons decided to go into the computer manufacturing business as LEO Computers Limited with a product that was as technologically advanced as the best of its rivals, the company could not survive. The reasons she advances are a complex mixture, including the hubris of the LEO pioneers, the shortsightedness of the British government, the relatively small size and under-capitalization of the LEO venture, and many other contributory reasons.

A story of remarkable success is also told. Lyons built their computer by building a small (one could almost say tiny) team of engineers, systems analysts, programmers, and operators who invented business computing some years before anyone else in the world. But this is also a story of ultimate failure, and a story told brilliantly, so that someone like myself, who joined the LEO team in 1953, could feel a real sadness as the unraveling of the LEO experiment unfolds in Ferrys pages.

I found the book a delight. It is much more, however, than a nostalgia trip for those engaged in the LEO project. The general reader will enjoy the book for the freshness and clarity of the style, and lucidity with which the author tells her fascinating story. For students, the book will provide a case study of business innovation, and of the complex reasons that underlie success and failure. I highly recommend the book.