Hello and welcome to Truth OR Myth, a Star Trek web series that looks at the Truth, or canon information, to dispel any of the myths that have surfaced on a given topic. In today’s episode, we’re taking a look at another one of those crazy crossovers, I hope you enjoy…
Imagination abounds when it comes to fans and crossovers with other fan franchises, but most of those crossovers remain in our imagination. But what about those crazy crossovers that did in fact occur? Well, today we take a look at one of them…
A year ago, in episode 39 of Truth OR Myth, I reviewed the horrible Star Trek: The Next Generation and sitcom Webster crossover. Even though I hated the crossover, it was a part of Star Trek history and I enjoyed reviewing it making myself a promise that if I ran across anything similar ever again that Id make another video review.
Well, guess what? While organizing my old Star Trek Archives, I did, in fact, find ANOTHER interesting crossover that I thought you all might be interested in seeing… So here it is, without further a due, the Star Trek: The Next Generation Boole and Babbage Crossover. The quality isn’t the best, but I hope you enjoy…
Boole & Babbage was founded in 1967 as K & K Associates. Shortly thereafter the company changed its name to Boole & Babbage and became the first software company in Silicon Valley to receive venture capital funding.
Their main products were computer mainframe monitoring package which was the first software that allowed their customers to track their employee’s activities including hours worked. The company had a million dollars in sales in its first year. However, the company’s large expenses outstripped its profits.
As A result, Boole & Babbage almost went bankrupt when their products became obsolete due to upgrades in IBM hardware. But In the 1980s, Boole & Babbage developed new software and went public. In 1984 IBM changed its operating systems, making almost all of Boole & Babbage’s products obsolete.
The company created COMMAND/Post for client/server systems in 1990, and that soon became their main product.
As part of their marketing strategy, they decided to make the advertisement you just saw and use Star Trek: The Next Generation to promote this, what they viewed as fantastic new product and it made sense really.
Star Trek has always looked advanced for its time and TNG was the most advanced Star Trek Show with the most advanced imaginary computer system. So it was fitting. and really, a brilliant decision to use Star Trek to advertise their product.
Unfortunately, Boole and Babbage didn’t last too much longer after this advertisement. In the late 1990s, the computer industry started to become dominated by much larger companies and Boole & Babbage were having trouble competing with those companies. As a result in 1998, as part of a series of takeovers, BMC Software bought Boole & Babbage in what is known as a stock swap.
I always love little tidbits of Star Trek history like this one. It’s interesting to watch and to think about how much Star Trek has actually influenced not only myself and other fans around the world but the commercial industry in general.
Even if you don’t like advertisements like this one, you have to admit how important Star Trek as a franchises effects have been on the world… Who knows, maybe one day, we’ll get some Star Trek Discovery Crazy Commercials to add to Star Trek History…
Thank you for watching today’s episode of Truth or Myth, what did you think of this crazy crossover? Do you have any crazy crossovers you want me to review or show the world as I did with this one? Well leave your comments in the section below and don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel, hitting that little bell icon so you won’t miss a single video we release.
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Thanks again for watching, live long and prosper…
Watch episode 102
