NCR Joins UA?s ITRC

NCR, the company founded as the National Cash Register Co. in Dayton, Ohio, has joined the Information Research Technology Center within the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

Brad Lawless, program director at IRTC, said its interests benefit the total group and NCR’s as well.

“NCR has had a long relationship with the college,” said Lawless. The move will allow for greater communications between the two organizations, he said.

NCR will be allowed one seat in the ITRC’s board of advisors. The board is comprised of 17 information technology executives who provide input on the center’s research direction. Joseph Rarey, senior managing partner for Teradata, will represent NCR.

Teradata is the data-warehousing division of NCR, which provides hardware and software to businesses for comprehensive database analysis and management.

The ITRC conducts information technology research, collects and analyzes data, provides research reviews and provides research facilities.

In 2000, a grant from NCR and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. provided a 1,500-SF computer system that gives students hands-on experience with data-warehousing technology. The grant, valued at more than $7 million, included an NCR WorldMark computer system with 20 gigabytes of memory, 1.7 terabytes of storage and 80 parallel processors capable of 100 MIPS each. The grant also paid for software to operate the system and maintenance. The UA has two more years of funding for that project, which costs about $100,000 per year to operate. In this case, the cost is shared with the UA College of Engineering and the UA Graduate School.

Eventually, the ITRC will support the operation of the IBM and NCR computer systems.