Informer Computer Terminals
Informer Computer Terminals, Inc., originally Informer, Inc., and later Informer Computer Systems, Inc., was a privately held American computer company active from 1971 to 2007. It manufactured data terminals that could communicate with mainframes and minicomputers, mainly those manufactured by IBM and Digital. It was originally based in Los Angeles, California; in the early 1980s, it moved to Laguna Beach, and in the late 1980s, to Garden Grove.
Corporate history
Informer, Inc. was co-founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1971 by Donald Allen Domike. Originally located in the far corner of West Los Angeles, Informer moved to Westchester, Los Angeles, in fall 1976, occupying a facility as their headquarters, manufacturing plant, and research and development laboratory. Informer in the mid-1970s appointed Bryon Cole as president of the company and Wilfred "Will" R. Little as vice president of marketing. By 1981, Little replaced Cole as president.Informer in 1976 manufactured glass terminals with small CRTs as well as traditional keyboard-send-and-receive and receive-only teleprinters. It achieved sales of US$1 million in fiscal year 1976, projecting a doubling of sales for the following year. By 1981, the company had achieved yearly sales in excess of $10 million. The company established ten branch offices in the United States by that year; at some point in the mid-1980s, they also opened a Canadian subsidiary in Richmond, British Columbia.
Its products in the early 1980s comprised not only glass terminals and teleprinters but also barcode readers and batch terminals. Informer's terminals were used for data entry, data monitoring, remote job entry, and software programming. Following struggling sales in the mid-1980s, the company appointed Malcolm K. Green, formerly of Emulex as president and CEO. Green shortly thereafter relocated the company's headquarters to Garden Grove, California.
By the early 1990s the company had renamed itself to Informer Computer Systems, Inc. In 1994, the company spun off its local area and dial-up networking security software operations as Informer Data Security, Inc. Bradley Little was named president of the new company. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the company began orienting their products toward state emergency services, manufacturing terminals and call-tracking systems for 9-1-1 call centers, though they still offered general-purpose terminals as well. Edward P. Dailey replaced Little as president and CEO around this time. In 2000, the company employed 20 in Garden Grove.
Informer went defunct in 2007.