History of IBM
Headquartered in Armonk, New York, the company originated from the amalgamation of various enterprises dedicated to automating routine business transactions, notably pioneering punched card-based data tabulating machines and time clocks.
Watson, a proficient salesman, aimed to cultivate a highly motivated, well-compensated sales force capable of devising solutions for clients unacquainted with the latest technological advancements.
[21] The amalgamated companies started manufacturing, and selling or leasing machinery such as commercial scales, industrial time recorders, meat and cheese slicers, tabulators, and punched cards.
[citation needed] Watson had never liked the hyphenated title of Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company and chose the new name of "International Business Machines Corporation" (IBM) both for its aspirations and to escape the confines of "office appliance".
For the ever-onward IBMThomas J. Watson, during his tenure at IBM, implemented strict guidelines for employees, encompassing a dress code stipulating dark suits, white shirts, and striped ties.
[citation needed] The 1930s Great Depression posed an extraordinary economic test, yet IBM displayed resilience by maintaining investments in personnel, manufacturing, and technological advancements during this challenging period.
[citation needed] In 1936, following a loss at the US Supreme Court, IBM agreed to a consent decree which created a separate market for the punched cards and in effect for subsequent computer supplies such as magnetic tapes and disk packs.
In the years preceding the commencement of World War II, the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) had established operational presences across various nations that later became embroiled in the global conflict, aligning with either the Allies or the Axis powers.
[78] This technology proved to be crucial during the war, as Admiral Richard E. Byrd successfully sent a test Radiotype message over 11,000 miles from Antarctica to an IBM receiving station in Ridgewood, New Jersey in 1935.
[81][82] The decision to establish a presence on the West Coast, particularly in San Jose, was strategic and capitalized on the burgeoning electronics research and high technology innovation base in the region, which later became known as Silicon Valley.
Noteworthy events included IBM's launch of a program in 1942 to train and employ disabled individuals,[90] beginning in Topeka, Kansas, and expanding to New York City the following year.
To address this concern, IBM initiated an ambitious international expansion, leading to the establishment of the World Trade Corporation in 1949, tasked with managing and expanding foreign operations.
He notably introduced the company's first equal opportunity policy letter in 1953, preceding the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education by a year and anticipating the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
[101]During the period from 1946 to 1959, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) witnessed several significant events and developments that played a crucial role in shaping the company's trajectory and influence in the emerging computer and technology industry.
[citation needed] In 1967, Thomas John Watson Jr. announced that IBM would open a large-scale manufacturing plant at Boca Raton, Florida, to produce its System/360 Model 20 midsized computer.
Also in 1973, bank customers began making withdrawals, transfers and other account inquiries via the IBM 3614 Consumer Transaction Facility, an early form of today's Automatic Teller Machines.
[168] The company studied the market for years and, as with UNIVAC, others like Apple Computer entered it first;[31] IBM did not want a product with a rival's logo on corporate customers' desks.
[171] The company opened its first Product Center retail store in November 1980,[172] and a team in the Boca Raton, Florida, office built the IBM PC using commercial off-the-shelf components.
During the 1980s, IBM's investment in building its research organization produced four Nobel Prize winners in physics, achieving breakthroughs in mathematics, memory storage and telecommunications, and expanded computing capabilities.
Despite a strong reputation and anticipating many of the features, functions, and technology that characterize the online experience of today, the venture was plagued by overly conservative management decisions, and was eventually sold in the mid-1990s.
[citation needed] The IBM token-ring local area network, introduced in 1985, permitted personal computer users to exchange information and share printers and files within a building or complex.
But within five years the company backed away from this early lead in Internet protocols and router technologies in order to support its existing SNA revenue stream, thereby missing a boom market of the 1990s.
Still, IBM investments and advances in microprocessors, disk drives, network technologies, software applications, and online commerce in the 1980s set the stage for the emergence of the connected world in the 1990s.
Recognizing this trend, management, with the support of the Board of Directors, began to implement a plan to split IBM into increasingly autonomous business units (e.g. processors, storage, software, services, printers, etc.)
A decade of steady acceptance and widening corporate growth of local area networking technology, a trend headed by Novell Inc. and other vendors, and its logical counterpart, the ensuing decline of mainframe sales, brought about a wake-up call for IBM.
Gerstner brought with him a customer-oriented sensibility and the strategic-thinking expertise that he had honed through years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. Recognizing that his first priority was to stabilize the company, he adopted a triage mindset and took quick action.
In 2012, IBM announced it had agreed to buy Kenexa and Texas Memory Systems,[249] and a year later it also acquired SoftLayer Technologies, a web hosting service, in a deal worth around $2 billion.
[323] Other private lawsuits ultimately won by IBM include California Computer Products Inc.,[324] Memorex Corp.,[325] Marshall Industries, Hudson General Corp., Transamerica Corporation[326] and Forro Precision, Inc.
Despite long having a dominant position in such industries as electric, gas, and water utilities, IBM stumbled in the 1990s trying to build workstation-based solutions to replace its existing mainframe-based products.
[citation needed] While IBM better embraced open source technologies in the 1990s, it later became embroiled in a complex litigation with SCO group over intellectual property rights related to the UNIX and Linux platforms.
