John Cullinane

Founded Cullinane Corporation in 1968 — by his own account, the first company formed specifically to sell software as a standalone product. In a 1986 Computer History Museum oral history, he rejected on the record the standard story that IBM's 1969 "unbundling" (itself widely attributed to antitrust pressure) created the independent software industry, calling it "a myth" and crediting the early-1970s economic recession instead. A first-person account from someone who founded a software company during the exact period in question — Tier 1, primary oral history, clears the sourcing floor for a surprising historical claim without a verification flag.

References

• claim-cullinane-called-ibm-unbundling-software-industry-origin-myth
• claim-baxter-dismissed-ibm-case-same-day-att-breakup-finalized
• claim-ibm-market-share-fell-during-antitrust-suit-price-strategy
• moc-attribution-and-origin-myths
• Captures: 2026-07-09-hop-baxter-ibm-att-same-day, 2026-07-18-does-the-deep-lineage-myth-displacing-contingent-truth (entity-candidate mention only)