IBM

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Type:	Public
Industry:	Information Technology and Services
Founded:	1911
Headquarters:	New Orchard Road Armonk New York, NY 10504
Country:	USA
Employees:	399, 409 worldwide
Revenue:	$ 99.870 billion as of 2010
Website:	http://www.ibm.com
Key People
Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman, President and CEO

International Business Machines(IBM) also referred to as the Big Blue is a multinational technology and consulting company. It is highly recognized as the leading computer and systems integrator worldwide. Samuel J Palmisano is the Chairman, President and CEO of the company which is based in Armonk, New York.

IBM offers a wide range of infrastructure, hosting services; a broad portfolio of middleware for collaboration, predictive analytics, provides the world's most advanced servers and develops computer hardware & software, systems management and consulting services in different technology such as the nanotechnology. IBM employs hundreds of thousands of employees in more than 170 countries and it operates under the principle of building a smarter planet.

Early Years of the Company)

Charles Ranlett Flint engineered the merger the International Time Recording Company,the Computing Scale Company and the Tabulating Machine Company to form Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) Company. CTR was incorporated as a holding company on June 16, 1911. George Fairchild became the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Flint remained member of the board of C-T-R until his retirement in 1930.C-T-R is the predecessor of IBM.

The newly formed CTR has over 1,300 employees and its plants are located in Endicott New York manufacturing time-recording equipment, Dayton, Ohio produces scales and Washington, D.C. makes keypunch cards. CTR started selling a wide range of products from meat slicers, clocks, commercial scales, punched-card tabulators and many other machineries. The punched-card tabulating machine paved the way to the development of computers. Herman Hollerith, founder the Tabulating Machines Company that merged with CTR invented the punched-card tabulator.

CTR under Thomas J. Watson Sr.

Because of the diversity of CTR's product line, it was difficult for Flint to manage the business. He hired Thomas J. Watson Sr. in 1914 as General Manager to help him revitalize the business. Watson aggressively introduced Hollerith's punched card tabulators to the United States government during World War I. During his management the use of accounting machines begin to spread and the company's product line include mechanical key punch,hand-operated gang punch,the vertical sorter and tabulator. Customers increases from rail road, chemical, utilities and insurance companies.

Watson Sr. Renamed CTR to IBM

Watson was elected President and General Manager of CTR in 1915. After a decade, Watson changed the name of the company from CTR to International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation due to the companies global and functionality expansion. During that time IBM's gross income was already $11 million and it has already established three manufacturing companies in Europe. The Electric Accounting Machine and the Carrol Rotary Card Press were also introduced in the market. Note that prior to renaming CTR's name, the company operated its business in Canada as IBM since 1917.

IBM During the Great Depression

In 1930s, IBM was one of the few companies during the Great depression to maintain full employment. Instead of resorting to mass lay-offs Watson Sr. took care of his employees, he supported the call of President Franklin Roosevelt's National Recovery Action Plan.Many companies went bankrupt and shut down their operations but Watson kept his men working and decided to manufacture parts for inventory and stored them. In 1934, IBM was one of the first companies to provide group life insurance, survivor benefits in 1935 and paid vacations in 1937.

IBM Landmark Contract

In 1935 the United States government legislated the the Social Security of 1935 and mandating the issuance of social security numbers to 26 million workers and 3.5 million employer identification numbers and the development of centralized system of record keeping. The project was considered the largest book keeping operation in the world's history. A French consultant for the government said that "It can't be done.". IBM proved the statement wrong when it landed the contract and the project went very well. The company was prepared for the project since it has a large inventory of equipment, and IBM have already established its research and development center. The company developed the IBM O77 Collator specially for the SSA program in 1937 along with different mechanical card punch and tabulating devices.SSA used this machines until 1940s. IBM developed and improved the machines to maintain the records of the agency and supplied the first electronic computing device in 1950,the IBM 604 Electronic Calculator, which was used to do benefit computations. In 1955, SSA received the IBM 705, the first large-scale, general-purpose, computer, an IBM 705 which was used for most of the accounting jobs related with the Social Security programs. The machine was used until 1960's and it was eventually replaced with modern computers.

After landing the SSA contract, IBM's business continued to flourish, orders from different government agencies and other private companies followed and continued developing equipments such as the IBM 701, the first large computer based on the vacuum tube which can executed 17,000 instructions per second and it was mainly used by the government and for research work and the IBM 7090, able to perform 229,000 calculations per second used by the U.S. Air Force to run Ballistic Missile Early Warning System.

After World War II, the company is already the largest supplier of office equipments in the United States. Year after year IBM continue to introduce different product lines, expanded its operation in different countries worldwide and recorded a consistent increase in annual earnings.

Watson served the company for more than two decades. He is responsible in transforming CTR from a small scale manufacturer of commercial scales, time clocks, punch card tabulators to a well positioned high technology multi-national company. IBM is now a front runner, a growing leader in technological innovations worldwide.

IBM under Thomas Watson Jr.

In, 1952 Thomas Watson, Sr. transferred his title as President to his son Thomas Watson Jr. The younger Watsom oversaw the rapid technological developments and changes. After his father's death on June 19, 1956, Watson Jr. became the Chief Executive Officer of IBM. During his first year as CEO, he re-organized the companies six divisions and the its subsidiary company the World Trade Corporation. He formed the Corporate Staff to advise and assists the division in specialized Divisions. He also established the Data Processing, Special Engineering Products and Time Equipment Divisions and provided the employees with Family Major Medical Plan.

Thomas Watson Jr. served IBM until 1971, among the notable products launched during his management include:

• 305 and 605 Random Access Method of Accounting and Control (RAMAC) the first computer disk storage system
• FORTRAN(FORmula TRANSlation), a computer language based on algebra, grammar and syntax rules which became one of the most widely used computer languages for technical work.
• Model 7090 high capacity computer
• 7070 Intermediate data processing system
• Series 50 basic accounting machine
• 632 Electronic typing calculator
• 1401 data processing system
• 1620 scientific computer
• 357 data collection system
• 1210 magnetic character reader/sorter
• 9090 automatic airline reservation system
• solid-state 7000 series computers
• 1410 computer
• STRETCH computing system -world's most powerful computer
• "Executory" PBX dictation system & portable dictation unit
• 7710 data communications unit which allows computers in different locations to exchange information via high speed internet
• 7750 which allows single computer to communicate with a large number of widely separated terminals
• bank transit system
• 1062 teller system
• IBM 2361 the largest computer memory ever built and it used by NASA Space Center in Houston and many other products and equipments

IBM dominated the computer industry today because Watson Jr. strongly pushed the company to develop it, and another significant contribution his his initiative in reorganizing of the company structure splitting it into six major divisions and the establishment of the the World Trade Corporation. He retired as CEO and Chairman of the Board in 1971 but remained member of IBM Board of Directors until 1984.

Other IBM CEO

• T. Vincent Learson (1971-1973)
• Frank T. Cary (1973-1981)
• John R. Opel (1981-1985)
• John F. Atkins (1985-1993)
• Louis V. Gertner, Jr. (1993-2002)
• Samuel J. Palmisano (2002-present)