Universities that were not too high profile began to get cases accepted to buy IBM systems. Newcastle get a virtual memory IBM 360/67 and University College, London install a 360/65. At this point they have more computing power than the Atlas Laboratory and the Regional Centres.
By February, stage payments for the system were under negotiation and Progress Meetings started in March at ICL's West Gorton factory.
By July, ICL had decided to abandon the ICL 1908A. The ICL 1906A would be the largest machine is the ICL 1900 range and faster machines would appear with the ICL New Range, which later became the 2900 series.
Abandoning the ICL 1908A left the whole university procurement strategy in a mess. The aim was to install 6 to 8 1906As in universities with the Atlas Laboratory's 1908A being responsible for running those large jobs that would disrupt the 1906A services.
The Atlas Laboratory would need to look elsewhere for a top-end machine and the only real possibilities were the CDC 7600 and the IBM 360/85, both US systems.
By the end of the year, the decision had been made to continue with the purchase of the 1906A, as it would help the effort available to get the university 1906A systems into operation, and the ICL 1906A could act as a front-end to a future large batch processor.