If there are folks out there who've held Unisys (NYSE:UIS) for 25 years or so, they've had one wild ride. While these shares had great runs in the bull markets of the mid-'80s and late '90s, those runs ended very badly. And the question now is whether this management team can rebuild and repair this business so that it can survive and perhaps thrive again.

Unisys says that it's a "worldwide technology services and solutions company." Boy, that's helpful, huh? Lots of other companies are, wholly or in part, players in this rather general sector. You've got big boys such as IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Electronic Data Services (NYSE:EDS), mid-cappers such as Affiliated Computer Services (NYSE:ACS) and SRAInternational (NYSE:SRX), and literally dozens of small-fries. In other words, not the easiest neighborhood in which to attempt a recovery.

At this point, I think Unisys is still in a stage whre you don't really look for improvement so much as hope that things haven't gotten worse. Revenue in the first quarter was up 2%, as reported, while both businesses reported operating losses. The services side was stronger: Revenue rose 6% and the operating loss was smaller, and that's good because it's both the larger business and the one most likely to successfully move to a more high-value strategy.

If Unisys' plan for recovery isn't exceptionally original, that may be because a lot of the key points are time-tested as good ideas. The company is looking to divest less promising units, reduce headcount (especially in Europe), expand into promising areas like India, and get away from commodity manufacturing operations. Now, I may be mistaken, but that sounds a lot like what IBM did not so long ago -- minus the India part or not as significantly.

All that said, revenue is still growing and Unisys has positive operating cash flow. If management could just recapture the margins of say even the late '90s, today's share price would likely prove a bargain. I have serious questions about whether you can establish real brand value in "technology services and solutions," but that's why turnarounds pay off so well when they work: If everybody thinks a business is certain to get going again, the stock never gets to these levels.

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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).