Following the failure to win major contracts in Australia in 1960 and the subsequent failure of Highgate Wood, it was necessary for the British manufacturers to come up with something different until a fully digital system could be developed (this eventually turned out to be System X and System Y). Ericsson had twenty years of experience of manufacturing the crossbar system and reducing its cost, so there was no point in trying to compete with them (Plessey Telecommunications, a subsidiary of Plessey, took a different view and continued to urge the GPO to adopt crossbar). At this time, in the US, Bell Labs were developing a system based on electronically controlled reed relays, and this looked promising. One of Ericsson's marketing points for crossbar was that it used precious-metal contacts, but reed relays would be even better as their precious metal contacts were hermetically sealed. Also their very short operating and release times (<1 ms) made them ideal for electronic control, and these reed-electronic exchanges were considered the most practical switching system to proceed with at the time and electronic enough, until a truly electronic system could be developed, although Tommy Flowers did not approve as he advocated going straight to a digital system.