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Julian Horwich’s Professional Career

App Development

Julian Horwich has programmed apps for mainframes, minicomputers, microcomputers, cellphones and the Apple Watch®. His first app was a payroll system programmed in RCA301 Assembly Language in 1965. The RCA301 was one of the early mainframe computers.

He contributed an open-source shareware utility, "COBOL Cross-Reference Program" in 1968 to the GE400 Software Library. It was used by many corporations who used the GE400 computer. He programmed a number of apps for pharmaceutical research, two of which won President's awards by his employers.

Starting in 1996, he developed several commercial personal productivity apps in the C and VB languages for the Palm, Pocket PC® and Sony® cellphones. The apps were part of his role as the co-founder of neoHand, Inc., together with his son Dave Horwich.

Apple

Julian has a long history with Apple and its products. He used the Apple Lisa, the Mac's predecessor, to draw PERT charts and was a developer of two "moonlight" commercial apps on the Apple II. He also supported corporate users on the Apple II. When he couldn't keep up with the demand for Visicalc on the Apple II, he had an Apple dealer set up a satellite hardware/appstore in American Hospital Supply's corporate executive office, one of the first inside an end-user company.

He received, under NDA, a demo of the Mac®, from Apple senior management, before the Mac was introduced. At his later enterprise IT trade-shows he instituted a PowerPC® pavilion as well as conference programs on integrating Macs into enterprise architectures.

Now

He is now developing apps using SwiftUI® for Apple's platforms His goal is to use the proceeds to support charities involved in funding medical research.

Pharmaceutical Research

Julian Horwich's career has been primarily focused on applying information technology for the solution of complex scientific and business problems. Much of his corporate career was in IT management and staff positions at pharmaceutical and health care companies. A major focus was computer technology for drug research applications.

He founded the Research Computing department at American Critical Care, a division of American Hospital Supply Corp. and developed a state-of-the- art research network using internal resources and the University of Chicago’s mainframe, with very limited local personnel resources.

He has authored several papers on pharmaceutical research computing, personal computing, and e-mail, and compiled the book “Pharmasources: A Directory of Software for Pharmaceutical Applications.”

SAS

Juian Horwich was one of the first users of the Statistical Analysis System. SAS is a software system developed by a statistician and three computer professionals at North Carolina State University’s Agricultural Dept. Julian introduced it at Abbott Labs where it quickly became the standard for processing clinical trial data. He led a team that developed a data-entry front end for clinical trials running on a networked DecSystem 10 minicomputer and an IBM370 mainframe. He then lead the development of software to extend SAS for Abbott’s specific drug research needs.

As part of that project, he organized the first SAS user group meeting bringing together the SAS developers with Northern Illinois users. After the success of that event, Julian organized the first international conference of what became SUGI (SAS User Group International). Held near Orlando, Florida it was attended by 300 statisticians, researchers and software engineers from a number of countries. At that event Julian introduced the SASware ballot which is still used every year to determine the product direction for SAS.

At that event, the developers of SAS decided to form their own company, now SAS Institute, Inc. Under Dr. James Goodnight’s leadership it became the dominant data analytics company, with 14,000 employees and is widely used for scientific research.

Computer Industry

Julian Horwich founded CAMP IT® Conferences, Inc. The organization’s goal is to provide assistance to corporate IT executives, management and staff in making strategic and tactical decisions. Now led by Julian's son, Dan Horwich, CAMP is in its 39th year producing conferences and trade shows.

In the 1980s and 1990s Julian’s conferences were keynoted by the CEOs, and other thought leaders, from Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Apple, Lotus Development, Borland, Compaq, Novell, etc. Other speakers have included CIOs from major corporations, health-care providers, universities and other enterprises.

Widely quoted in IT publications, InfoWorld Weekly said of him in their March 16, 1992 issue: “Julian Horwich is literally a household name in the microcomputer management community.”

Academic

Julian’s academic background includes undergraduate study in electrical and biomedical engineering at Northwestern University, graduate study in computer science at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and later continuing education at NU on digital electronics.

His interest in medical applications of computing was stimulated by earning part of his tuition by working as a lab technician and, at times, a laboratory subject, of the biomedical engineering department.

He has also participated in continuing education in a variety of technical and non-technical fields of study. Recent courses/seminars have included content in art history, computer science, digital electronics, biomedical engineering, astrophysics, politics, Caribbean pirate history, musical theater, most of them sponsored by Northwestern's Alumnae Association, Oakton College, Common Ground, local libraries and senior centers.

Professional

Julian edited the handbook and newsletter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computer Ombudsman Project as well as being active in the Chicago Chapter. He has also been a member of the IEEE since college. He was an invited speaker at the MBA program at Northwestern University and Lake Forest College in the 1970s speaking about the then coming revolution in personal computing. He was a member for ten years of Northbrook Rotary.

Computing History

During his career he has been involved in each of the platforms of modern computing including early mainframes through wearables. He "wired the board" of IBM EAM (tab) equipment, as well as using an analog computer to simulate differential equations describing the possible vision processes of a horseshoe crab.

At a computer hobbyist meeting he had the pleasure of hearing Steve Wozniak (the Woz) co-developer of the Apple II. Another talk he remembers, fondly, was by Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (in her beloved US Navy uniform), the world's first modern programmer, who "pulled a nanosecond" out of her purse (you had to be there that night).

He remembers, with gratitude, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, who keynoted several of Julian's trade-shows and Scott Briggs the publisher of PC Week, the Magazine of Corporate Computing, as well as Stewart Alsop II, the publisher of InfoWorld magazine.

Thanks go to the many writers from the trade publications who covered the seminars, conference and trade shows, like Alice LaPlante, Bob Schier, Jim Seymour, Dennis Eskow, Spencer F. Katt, Robert Cringely, Sam Whitmore, Jim Louderback, Rachel Parker, Michael Fitzgerald. Julian looked forward to Thursdays when the writers for the weekly trade-press called looking for a quote on the latest tech news.

A good friend, Marty Cawthon, introduced IBM to the conferences. Marty was responsible for creating the OS/2 pavilion on the exhibit floor. He was a frequent speaker at the conferences and was responsible for recruiting IBM top management to speak as well. When one of his OS/2 talks happened to coincide with, Scottish poet, Robert Burns' birthday, he concluded his talk with a bagpipe concert. Ken Zoline was a frequent speaker and seminar leader on data networking and security and was a key advisor in those areas.

Judith Brown, then at Fox Valley Technical College, regularly chartered a bus to bring IT people from Wisconsin's largest enterprise to the CAMP expos. She was a key adviser on the CAMP programs and overall strategy. Special thanks also to the following people and their former companies: Don Oehlert (Apple), Georg Lamp (Lotus), Teresa Burgin (Microsoft), Chuck Meister (Novell).

Julian also thanks the creators of many of the key products of the IT industry who spoke at CAMP such as: Bob Metcalf (Ethernet), Jim Cannavino (IBM PC), Drew Major (Novell NetWare), Marc Andreessen (Mosaic and Mozilla browers), Dr. John Warnock (Postscript, Acrobat), Dr. Richard Schwartz (Paradox)

Julian's wife, sons and father all contributed to CAMP IT's success.

Julian, and his wife Evelyn Kaye, have two married sons and four grandchildren. They live in Highland Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

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