National Computing Centre
| Limited by guarantee | |
| Industry | IT |
| Genre | Not-for-profit |
| Fate | Liquidated |
| Successor | Redholt Ltd |
| Founded | 1966 |
| Founder | UK Government |
| Defunct | 2010 |
| Headquarters | UK, Manchester |
|
Key people
|
Sir A Cleaver, Sir R Cockburn, D Fairbairn OBE, P Virgo, C Pearse, J Perkins, M Gough, S Markwell |
| Products | Filetab |
| Services | Information, advice, education, publishing, escrow & membership services |
| Owner | Mutual |
|
Number of employees
|
500 at peak |
| Subsidiaries | NCC Blackwell |
| Limited Company | |
| Industry | IT |
| Fate | Insolvent |
| Predecessor | Redholt Ltd |
| Founded | 2010 |
| Headquarters | UK, Bournemouth |
| Services | Information, advice, education, publishing, membership services, Consultancy, Standards |
| Total equity | £12,000 |
| Owner | T Ring, S Fox, K Vooght, S Markwell, S Sidhu, P Morris |
| Website | NCC |
The National Computing Centre (NCC) was an independent not-for-profit membership and research organisation in the UK.
After the original organisation was liquidated in 2010, Redholt Limited changed its name to the National Computing Centre Limited (NCC Ltd) and acquired the assets of the original NCC through a pre-pack administration arrangement. This new for-profit company, formed in 2010, initially offered some of the same the services as the original NCC but in 2012 became a shell company as it had to file for protection from its creditors and make most of its staff redundant. The status of the remaining shell company is unclear.
The National Computing Centre was founded on 10 June 1966 by the Labour UK Government, as an autonomous not-for-profit organisation, in order to be the "voice of the computer user", encourage the growth of computer usage in the UK and ensure that the necessary education and training was made available. NCC was one of the visible outcomes from Harold Wilson's "White Heat of Technology" speech and the formation of a Ministry of Technology, the others being the computer company International Computers Limited (ICL) and chip maker INMOS (both now defunct).
Initially, most income came directly from government grants, but with the growth of NCC's commercial operations this ceased in 1989. During the 1970s and 1980s NCC had a joint venture with Blackwell Publishing (NCC Blackwell) which was a significant publisher of academic computing books.
Between 1989 and 1996 NCC operated with 5 main divisions - Education, Consulting, Escrow, Membership Services, and System Engineering deriving income from membership fees and its commercial activities.
In 1996, the National Computing Centre sold its overseas education business, NCC Education, to stave off a financial crisis that occurred when the company breached its borrowing limits.
In 1999, it sold its commercial divisions (turnover of less than £10m), which provided Escrow, Consultancy, System Engineering services to its existing management team supported by ECI ventures for £5m. This new company was named NCC Services Limited and later became NCC Group Limited of which the National Computing Centre held a 20% share. John Perkins became the new Managing Director of National Computing Centre, which remained a not-for-profit membership organisation.
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Wikipedia