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IBM Turns 100
adeelarshad82 writes "On this day in 1911, IBM started as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R). It wasn't until 1924 that the company changed their name to IBM. Needless to say that a 100-year milestone is quite the feat. While some of us might know IBM for its recent "Jeopardy"-playing Watson computer, a look back shows that IBM has a long history of innovation, from cheese slicers (yes, really) and the tech behind Social Security to the UPC bar code and the floppy disk. One of the most notable leaps of faith IBM took was in 1964 with the introduction of System/360, a family of computers that started the era of computer compatibility. To date the company has invested nearly $30 billion in technology."
A fantastic achievement, Here's to the next 100 years.
Hope is the currency of fools
IBM and the Holocaust
IBM and the Holocaust on Wikipedia
I worked for a large organization in Chicago that had the "gold" IBM support contract back in the early 90s; they would show up at 2 am Sunday morning to replace a keyboard if necessary. Our main contact was a guy who had been with the company for 30+ years and he would mention some of the things he'd had to fix, in addition to the standard computer stuff: scales for weighing meat in the meat packing district and the thing that was most surprising: the clock on the Wrigley Building. Apparently IBM didn't actually out-and-out make the clock mechanism but had bought some company that had and they inherited the support contract. He mentioned having to get some gears specially made when it broke down.
The thing I thought was so ahead of its time was the wireless device he had that was essentially a large, two-line blackberry that he'd carry on his shoulder with a strap; it would beep and he'd flip the cover open, read the message, then type some sort of response. I remember he'd use it to order parts and within an hour(!) another guy would show up with them, a new ps/2 mouse, a monitor, or a reel-to-reel tape drive for the as/400. I was surprised IBM never thought to market that device; much like Apple is reluctant to talk about their ipod touch-based POS terminals, he wasn't too keen about showing it off or even talking about it.
What do they even make anymore?
About a $100 billion a year.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
From TFA:
The company invested $5 billion in [system/360], about $30 billion today, but the gamble paid off.
Summary is wrong.
It is amazing to me that - back when I graduated university in '92 - people were foretelling the death knoll for IBM. Next thing I know, I'm working on programming ASP.NET using JCL on zSeries machines fifteen years later.
Now, we're using Rational and Eclipse to manage Websphere projects.
Go figure.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
It's easy to get confused when it's all three letter acronyms: IBM death knell - JFK death knoll (yes I went there) - D&D death gnoll, it just goes on and on and on.
Who is John Cabal?
Except that the $30 billion is just what they invested in researching and developing the system/360. Summary is wrong.
Also, most of the $700 Billion of that bailout were loans that have been paid back. There's still a ludicrous about of wasted money, like the $200 million that a bankers wife took, and then deposited in a bank, and reaped the interest! But in general, it was a short term loan to keep the economy moving. And it worked. Get over it.
You seem to be confusing 'hype' with 'innovation' if you think it was led by Microsoft and Apple. There is a reason that there were basically 2 PC architectures - Apple, and (wait for it) 'IBM PC Compatible'. One of those completely swamped the other.
You might want to check out whose systems are behind almost any financial transaction you process. At the other end of the scale, you might want to check out whose processors are in every XBox/360, PS/3, and Wii.
Maybe you have a GPS - want to take a guess on whose semiconductor (SiGe) technology is in there?
where IBM kept in contact with its Switzerland headquarters, was in trouble several times with the government for dealing with 'blacklisted' countries, the strings it pulled to get around those limitations, and one of whose officials was denied entry into the US after the war.
and then there are the ways that the subsidiaries, after the war, were brought back into the fold of IBM, along with all the profits they had reaped from their wartime experiences, which were meticulously recorded.
So far, the comments are the predictable ones I'd expect -- the recent love of offshoring, sell-off of products, etc. But it's pretty amazing to see what they did after almost dying in the late 80s after they missed the client/server and PC boat. I don't agree with a lot of their short sighted moves, but changing from a hardware to a consulting company without people realizing it is an interesting feat.
Stories I've been told describe the IBM prior to this period as a pretty amazing place to work in terms of benefits and the tech you were able to work on. Don't forget that all of that was possible because back in the day, margins on hardware were orders of magnitude higher than they were now. Plus, IBM had a total lock on the mainframe market (still does pretty much, but less work needs to be done in this space now.) When they could get a much higher margin for selling boxes, they could lavish R&D money on the people who designed those boxes, training and salaries on the people who supported them, AND still have plenty left over for the execs and shareholders. You know, the "golden age of computing".... Now, most hardware is in the single-digit percent margin category (except for Apple stuff) and there's no money to be made in it. "Consulting" and managed services will bring in millions more than a hardware purchase; they can throw half the population of India at a customer and still make billions even if it takes longer to get results...which is where we US techies are stuck right now. In particular, the stories of older IBM techies being told to move to India or Brazil or leave paint a pretty sad state of affairs. (Side note, this trend will never reverse until we can kick everyone's hyperfocus on the stock market and corporate earnings. No public company is able to do anything that isn't guaranteed to instantly pay off anymore.)
That said, the hardware they do still make (or at least OEM) is pretty good. And, if you're willing to pay the premium for this gear, System x and BladeCenter support is still done in the US. Documentation is horrible because of the huge decentralized nature of the company, but I've been able to call these guys up and get an answer in 5 minutes. Still, it's kind of ironic that IBM hires teams of customers to come in and basically rewrite the documentation for some of their products (see Redbooks.)
Also, don't forget that IBM is one of the only companies big enough to put serious money into research anymore. In my mind, that's really important. Where are all the CS, physics and EE Ph. D's going to work now that Bell Labs is gone and HP only does product research?
'There is a reason...' is something of a historical mess of a sentence. At the release of 8088-based IBM computers, one could still buy Apples (6502, not macs), trs-80's, commodore systems, atari, several 8080 and z80 systems/OS's (mostly CP/M), international alternatives (Acorns, Sinclairs), and niche business systems (wasn't OS-9 out by this time?). Apologies to fellow oldsters for not digging up a comprehensive list or missing your pet system -- many more existed when the IBM PC was released.
Skip ahead a few years, and there were newer commodores, apples, ataris, other brands and various Radio Shack schlockery. There'd also been all sorts of changes on OS's, all sorts of changes under the hood. By then, there was a burgeoning PC-compatible market... and it was beginning to be clear that 'PC-compatible' was going to dominate the future. But the category didn't exist initially, and pretending that it was ever an apple/ibm/microsoft triumvirate is just silly.
Having said that, around this time (1977-1985) nobody seriously considered IBM innovative. Their dominant strength was in delivering stodgy b-side computational function that companies could rationalize buying. Any innovation seen pc-side sprang to life as a 3rd-party product. After a few years, IBM might deign to make their own version.
During their existence, Apple deservedly gets credit for innovation, even if part of their genius has been recognizing underappreciated good ideas and pushing them (xerox parc, etc.).
Through all of this, many other companies should get credit for innovation in networks, printing, software (visicalc, sidekick, turbo * compilers), modems, displays, input, storage, etc.