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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
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.
Hitler used IBM punchcard systems purchased in the 30's to facilitate the Holocaust. Of course, if IBM hadn't sold them the punchcard machines, the Holocaust would never have happened.
Next up, we'll tackle Boeing's complicity in 9/11.
In 1933. And the Hollerith machines were not "designed" in Germany. In fact, we'd been using such machines since 1890 for OUR census. IBM's entire revenue revolved around selling tabulating machines.
Also, Hollerith machines were not designed for "camp-tracking." Census machines were re-purposed for that task.
You must have missed the part where the Nazi regime decided to stuff people they didn't like into camps while starving them, beating them, working them to the bone, then executing them.
Personally, I believe if you're going to hold IBM (or Ford or Bayer or any other trendy 'you helped the holocaust' company) responsible, then you should also hold trees responsible. Trees provided the wood that built the guard towers, that held the barbed wire fences in place, and built the barracks. Bricks, fire, lead, and rope should also be investigated.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
You also must have missed the first few years of the World War where the US knew about the atrocities but decided to do nothing about it or Ford-Werke, the division of Ford in Germany or the 'neutral' Swiss supplying weapons and bankrolling the operations with Jewish deposits.
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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.
Yes, that's actually the thesis of that (national award-winning) book. "[W]ithout IBM's machinery, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of punch cards, whether located on-site or off-site, Hitler's camps could have never managed the numbers they did." (p. 352) Germany had plans for a long-delayed census of ethnicity, which was not feasible until IBM came to the rescue in 1933, which was followed soon afterward by laws barring Jews from citizenship or marrying Aryans. Early predictions of ~500K Jews in Germany were revised upwards, identifying 2M afterwards.
"This activity was not only countenanced by Thomas Watson and IBM in America, Black argues, but was actively encouraged and financially supported, with Watson himself traveling to Germany in October 1933 and the company ramping up its investment in its German subsidiary from 400,000 to 7,000,000 reichsmarks — about $1 million.[17] This injection of American capital allowed Dehomag to purchase land in Berlin and to construct IBM's first factory in Germany, Black charges, thereby "tooling up for what it correctly saw as a massive financial relationship with the Hitler regime."[17]" (from Wikipedia, etc.)
More generally, if we're going to gush about IBM's history, intellectual honesty demands that we include the well-known black marks, too.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
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?