IBM

:''This article concerns on the IBM (Big Blue) company. For the movie, see The Big Blue.'' International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or colloquially, Big Blue) (incorporated June 15, 1911, in operation since 1888) is headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, and service. With over 330,000 employees worldwide and revenues of $96 billion (figures from 2004), IBM is the largest information technology company in the world, and one of the few with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. It has engineers and consultants in over 170 countries and development laboratories located all over the world, in all segments of computer science and information technology; some of them are pioneers in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. In recent years, services and consulting revenues have been larger than those from manufacturing. Samuel J. Palmisano was elected Chief executive officer on January 29, 2002 after having led IBM's Global Services, and helping it to become a business with a $100 billion in backlog in 2004 [http://www.ibm.com/ibm/sjp/bio.shtml]. In 2002 the company has strengthened its business advisory capabilities by acquiring the consulting arm of professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. The company is increasingly focused on business solution driven consulting, services and software, with emphasis also on high value chips and hardware technologies; as of 2004 it employs about 191,000 technical professionals. That total includes 300-400 Distinguished Engineers and 50-60 IBM Fellows, its most senior engineers. IBM Research has eight research labs located in the Northern Hemisphere, with half of those locations outside of the United States. IBM employees have won five Nobel Prizes. In the USA, they have earned four Turing Awards, five National Medal of Technology, and five National Medal of Science, and outside the USA, many equivalents. == Current business activities ==

(click on the year to go to IBM's page of accomplishments for that year)	Year	Patents Granted
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_2004.html 2004]	3248
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_2003.html 2003]	3415
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_2002.html 2002]	3288
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_2001.html 2001]	3411
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_2000.html 2000]	2886
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1999.html 1999]	2756
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1998.html 1998]	2658
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1997.html 1997]	1724
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1996.html 1996]	1867
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1995.html 1995]	1383
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1994.html 1994]	1298
	[http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1993.html 1993]	1087

In 2002, IBM announced the beginning of a $10 billion program to research and implement the infrastructure technology necessary to be able to provide supercomputer-level resources "on demand" to all businesses as a metered utility. This program will be implemented over the coming years. In recent years IBM has steadily increased its patent portfolio, which is valuable for cross-licensing with other companies. In every year from 1993 until 2003, IBM has been granted significantly more U.S. patents than any other company. That eleven-year period has resulted in over 25,000 patents for which IBM is the primary assignee. [http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/news/20000111_patents99.shtml] Protection of the company's intellectual property has grown into a business in its own right, generating over $10 billion dollars [http://www.industryweek.com/CurrentArticles/asp/articles.asp?ArticleID=1400] to the bottom line for the company during this period. [http://www.forbes.com/2003/08/07/cx_ld_0807ibm_print.html], [http://www.inc.com/articles/legal/ip/patents/23293.html] As of 10 December 2004, IBM has finalized negotiations to sell its PC division to China-based Lenovo. The new division will be headquartered in New York. IBM will maintain a significant (about 19%) stake in the new division. Starting from the date of the acquisition, Lenovo will have five years' use of the IBM and "Think" trademarks. ==Culture== IBM has often been described as having a sales-centric or a sales-oriented business culture. Traditionally, many of its executives and general managers would be chosen from its sales force. In addition, middle and top management would often be enlisted to give direct support to salesmen in the process of making sales to important customers. For most of the 20th century, a blue suit, white shirt and dark tie was the public uniform of IBM employees. But by the 1990s, IBM relaxed these codes; the dress and behavior of its employees does not differ appreciably from that of their counterparts in large technology companies. In 2003 the IBM company embarked on an ambitious project to rewrite its company values through a world-jam over the internet involving more than 50,000 employees over 3 days. The company values have been updated to reflect modern business, marketplace and employee views. "Dedication to every client's success", "Innovation that matters - for our company and the world", "Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships". IBM's culture has been recently influenced by the open source movement. The company invests billions of dollars in services and software based on Linux. This includes over 300 Linux kernel developers. IBM's open source involvement has not been trouble-free, however; see SCO v. IBM. ===Diversity and workforce issues=== IBM's efforts to promote workforce diversity and equal opportunity date back at least to World War I, when the company hired disabled veterans. More recently, IBM received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign starting in 2003, the second year of the report. IBM is the only technology company ranked in [http://www.workingwoman.com/top10.html Working Mother Magazine's Top 10] for 2004. The company has traditionally resisted labor union organizing, although unions represent some IBM workers outside the United States. [http://www.allianceibm.org Alliance@IBM], part of the Communications Workers of America, is trying to organize IBM in the U.S. In the 1990s, two major pension program changes, including a conversion to a cash balance plan, resulted in an employee class action lawsuit alleging age discrimination. IBM employees won the lawsuit and arrived at a partial settlement, although appeals are still underway . == History == IBM's history dates back decades before the development of electronic computers – before that it developed Punch card data processing equipment. It originated as the Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) Corporation, which was incorporated on June 15, 1911 in Binghamton, New York. This company was a merger of the Tabulating Machine Corporation, the Computing Scale Corporation and the International Time Recording Company. The president of the Tabulating Machine Corporation at that time was Herman Hollerith, who had founded the company in 1896. Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM, became General Manager of CTR in 1914 and President in 1915. On February 14, 1924, CTR changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation. The companies that merged to form CTR manufactured a wide range of products, including employee time keeping systems, weighing scales, automatic meat slicers, and most importantly for the development of the computer, History of computing hardware. Over time CTR came to focus purely on the punched card business, and ceased its involvement in the other activities. During World War II, IBM's German subsidiary Dehomag (an acronym formed from "German Hollerith Machine Company Ltd") provided the Nazi regime with punch card machines. Dehomag was taken over by the Nazis in 1939. In 2001 author Edwin Black published a book titled [http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ IBM and the Holocaust], which alleged that although IBM did not control Dehomag once World War II began, Thomas J. Watson nevertheless knew of the German regime's activities and was indifferent to any moral issues. The credibility of Black's book [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_12/b3724036.htm has been questioned], as has its claim that the Holocaust would have been impossible without Dehomag's data processing systems. As of As of 2004 IBM's possible complicity in the Holocaust is the subject of [http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/08/ramasastry.holocaust.ibm/ at least one unresolved lawsuit]. IBM has donated more than 10,000 pages of archived documents concerning Dehomag to Hohenheim University in Germany and New York University. In the 1950s, IBM became a chief contractor for developing computers for the United States Air Force's automated defense systems. Working on the SAGE anti-aircraft system, IBM gained access to crucial research being done at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working on the first real-time, digital computer (which included many other advancements such as an integrated video display, magnetic core memory, light guns, the first effective algebraic computer language, analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion techniques, modem, duplexing, multiprocessing, and networks). IBM built fifty-six SAGE computers at the price of $30 million each, and at the peak of the project devoted more than 7,000 employees (20% of its then workforce) to the project. More valuable to the company in the long run than the profits, however, was the access to cutting-edge research into digital computers being done under military auspices. IBM neglected, however, to gain an even more dominant role in the nascent industry by allowing the RAND Corporation to take over the job of programming the new computers, because, according to one project participant (Robert P. Crago), "we couldn't imagine where we could absorb two thousand programmers at IBM when this job would be over someday." IBM would use its experience designing massive, integrated real-time networks with SAGE to design its SABRE reservation system airline reservation system, which met with much success. IBM was the largest of the eight major computer companies (with UNIVAC, Burroughs, Scientific Data Systems, Control Data Corporation, General Electric, RCA and Honeywell) through most of the 1960s. People in this business would talk of "IBM and the seven dwarfs", given the much smaller size of the other companies or of their computer divisions. When only Burroughs, Univac, NCR and Honeywell produced mainframes, a bit later, people talked of "IBM and the B.U.N.C.H.". Most of those companies are now long gone as IBM competitors, except for Unisys, which is the result of multiple mergers that included UNIVAC and Burroughs. NCR and Honeywell dropped out of the general mainframe and mini sector and concentrated on lucrative niche markets. General Electric remains one of the world's largest companies, but no longer operates in the computer market. The IBM computer range that earned it its position in the market at that time is still growing today. It was originally known as the IBM System/360 and, in far more modern 64-bit form, is now known as the IBM zSeries (often referred to as "IBM mainframes"). IBM's success in the mid-1960s led to inquiries as to IBM antitrust violations by the U.S. Department of Justice, which filed a complaint for the case U.S. v. IBM in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on January 17, 1969. The suit alleged that IBM violated the Section 2 of the Sherman Act by monopolizing or attempting to monopolize the general purpose electronic digital computer system market, specifically computers designed primarily for business. Litigation continued until 1983, and had a significant impact on the company's practices. On January 19, 1993 IBM announced a USD4.97 billion loss for 1992, which was at that time the largest single-year corporate loss in United States history. Since that loss, IBM has made major changes in its business activities, shifting its focus significantly away from components and hardware and towards software and services. In 2004, IBM announced the proposed sale of its PC business to Chinese computer maker Lenovo, which is partially owned by the Chinese government, for USD650 million in cash and USD600 million in Lenovo stock. The deal was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States in March 2005, and completed in May 2005. IBM will have a 19% stake in Lenovo, which will move its headquarters to New York State and appoint an IBM executive as its chief executive officer. The company will retain the right to use certain IBM brand names for an initial period of five years. == Facts and trivia == [[Image:IbmTokyoRed.jpg|thumb|182px|right|''IBM logo in Tokyo.'']] *The IBM Logo was designed by Paul Rand. *IBM's Software Group, if it were a separate entity, would be the second largest software company in the world, behind only Microsoft in total revenue. Products include business staples such as DB2, Rational, Lotus, Tivoli and WebSphere. *IBM invented many of the core technologies used in all forms of computing, including the first hard disk drive and the Winchester hard disk drive, the cursor (on computer screens), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), the relational database, disk read-and-write head, RISC architecture, the Scanning Tunneling Microscope, and the floppy disk. While the floppy disk is rapidly falling into disuse, the infamous Control-Alt-Delete keystroke (Bradly, 2001: "I invented it, but it was Bill that made it famous"), also invented at IBM, is still frequently used on PCs running Windows operating systems. *The first black employee was hired in 1899 by the Computing Scale Corporation (as it was known at the time). *IBM began hiring women to work as professional systems service staff in 1935. Thomas J. Watson Sr. wrote: "Men and women will do the same kind of work for equal pay. They will have the same treatment, the same responsibilities and the same opportunities for advancement." *From 1933 to 1944, IBM punch card machines were installed at various Nazi Germany concentration camps. It has been alleged by a journalist that IBM president Thomas J. Watson, Sr. was aware of their use. Note however that ''concentration'' camps are a perfectly legal war disposition regulated by the Geneva convention. The problem lies with ''extermination'' camps, about which there were already a lot of war rumours, but nothing that could be confirmed or inferred formally before their discovery by allies in 1945. [http://ibmandtheholocaust.com/] *From 1942 to 1944 IBM was one of nine companies contracted by the US Government to produce M1 Carbine rifles; these are now sought-after antiques. *IBM also made clocks until they sold their time division in 1958. *In 1944, IBM was the first corporation to support the United Negro College Fund. *In 1953, IBM published the first US corporate mandate on equal employment opportunity, stating that the company would hire people based on their ability, "regardless of race, color or creed". Sexual orientation was added to the nondiscrimination policy in 1984. *Whilst IBM did not invent the personal computer, architectures cloned from its design for the IBM PC (which relied on third-party componentry) became the industry standard, and are now often simply called the ''PC''. The IBM PC was introduced on August 12 1981; Microsoft and Intel became monopoly suppliers of two of the key components of PC-compatible systems. IBM agreed to sell its PC division to Lenovo in December 2004 and, when the sale is complete, will come out of the business of manufacturing / designing / selling PCs, the business which it created in 1981. *The IBM AS/400 (in its 24-year history also variously known as i5, AS/400 and System/38) is the world's largest-selling computer family, if PC-type machines are excluded. It was the first successful 64-bit machine. It has been calculated that, if the IBM Rochester that produces the machine were independent, it would be the third largest computer company in the world. * In 2004, for the twelfth consecutive year, IBM was awarded the greatest number of patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. IBM received 3,248 patents that year. (Reference: [http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/speeches/05-03.htm USPTO Releases Annual List of Top 10 Organizations Receiving Most U.S. Patents]) == BlueEyes == BlueEyes is the name of a human recognition venture initiated by IBM to allow people to interact with computers in a more natural manner. The technology aims to enable devices to recognize and use natural input, such as facial expressions. The initial developments of this project include scroll computer mouse and other input devices that sense the user's pulse, monitor his or her facial expressions, and the movement of his or her eyelids. == Acquisitions == * 1889 Bundy Manufacturing Company incorporated. * 1891 Computing Scale Company incorporated. * 1893 Dey Patents Company (Dey Time Registers) incorporated. * 1894 Willard & Frick Manufacturing Company (Rochester, New York) incorporated. * 1896 Detroit Automatic Scale Company incorporated. * 1896 Tabulating Machine Company incorporated. * 1899 Standard Time Stamp Company acquired by Bundy Manufacturing Company. * 1900 Willard & Frick Manufacturing Company (Rochester) acquired by International Time Recording Company. * 1901 Chicago Time-Register Company acquire by International Time Recording Company. * 1901 Dayton Moneyweight Scale Company acquire by Computing Scale Company. * 1901 Detroit Automatic Scale Company acquired by Computing Scale Company. * 1902 Bundy Manufacturing Company acquired by International Time Recording Company. * 1907 Dey Time Registers acquired by International Time Recording Company. * 1908 Syracuse Time Recording Company acquired by International Time Recording Company. * 1911 Computing Scale Company acquired by Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R). * 1911 International Time Recording Company acquired by Computing-Time-Recording Company (C-T-R). * 1911 Tabulating Machine Company acquired by Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R). * 1917 American Automatic Scale Company acquired by Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R) as International Scale Company. * 1917 C-T-R opens in Canada as IBM. * 1921 Pierce Accounting Machine Company (asset purchase). * 1921 Ticketograph Company (of Chicago). * 1924 C-T-R renamed IBM. * 1930 Automatic Accounting Scale Company. * 1932 National Counting Scale Company. * 1933 Electromatic Typewriters Inc. (See: IBM Electromatic typewriter) * 1941 Munitions Manufacturing Corporation. * August, 1959 Pierce Wire Recorder Corporation. * 1984 ROLM. * 1986 RealCom Communications Corporation. * 1995 Lotus Development Corporation for $3.5 billion. * 1995 Tivoli Systems for $750 million. * 1997 Software Artistry for $200 million. * 1997 Unison Software. * 1998 CommQuest Technologies. * 1999 Mylex Corporation. * 1999 Sequent Computer Systems for $810 million. * 2001 Informix Software (a purchase of assets rather than a true acquisition) for $1.0 billion. * January, 2002 Crossworlds. * 2002 PricewaterhouseCoopers' Consulting for $3.5 billion (recalculated by IBM in August 2003 as $3.9 billion). * October, 2003 CrossAccess. * 2003 Rational Software Corporation for $2.1 billion. * 2003 Presence Online, Aptrix. July. * 2004 A.P. Moller-Maersk Group Data & DMData. * April, 2004 Candle Corporation. * July, 2004 Alphablox. * July, 2004 Cyanea Systems. * August, 2004 Venetica. * October, 2004 Systemcorp. * February 2005 Corio crio for $182 million == Spinoffs == * 1934 Dayton Scale Division is sold to the Hobart Manufacturing Company. * 1942 Ticketograph Division is sold to the National Postal Meter Company. * 1958 Time Equipment Division is sold to the Simplex Time Recorder Company. * December, 2004 Lenovo acquires IBM Personal Systems Group, 10 000 employees and $9 billion in revenue. * Taligent, a joint software venture with Apple Computer. * Lexmark (keyboards, typewriters, and printers). Lexmark has sold its keyboard and typewriter businesses. [http://www.printers.ibm.com IBM Printing Systems] now competes with Lexmark. * [http://www.hitachigst.com Hitachi Global Storage Technologies] now provides many of the hardware storage solutions formerly provided by IBM, including IBM Harddrives & The Hitachi Microdrive. IBM continues to develop storage solutions, including Tape Backup, Storage software, etc. * [http://www.scansoft.com/ ScanSoft] now sell and support IBM's speech technology products under the ViaVoice brand. * [http://www.prodigy.com Prodigy], formerly a joint venture with Sears. * [http://www.attbusiness.net AT&T Business Internet], formerly IBM Global Network, formerly Advantis (joint venture with Sears). * ARDIS mobile packet network, a joint venture with Motorola. Now [http://www.motient.com Motient]. ==alphaWorks== Free software available at [http://alphaWorks.ibm.com/ alphaWorks] (IBM's showcase for emerging software technology): #Flexible Internet Evaluation Report Architecture: A highly flexible architecture for the design, display, and reporting of Internet surveys. #History Flow Visualization Application: A tool for visualizing dynamic, evolving documents and the interactions of multiple collaborating authors. Examples from Wikipedia. [http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/screenshots/16E98A61CB7178D488256FC70075E6CD/$FILE/historyflow01.jpg] [http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/screenshots/4985F7ED629EE82D88256FC700764E11/$FILE/historyflow03.jpg] #IBM Performance Simulator for Linux on POWER: A tool that provides users of Linux on Power a set of performance models for IBM's POWER processors. #Database File Archive And Restoration Management: An application for archiving and restoring hard disk files whose file references are stored in a database. #Policy Management for Autonomic Computing: A policy-based autonomic management infrastructure that simplifies the automation of IT and business processes. (This is an ETTK technology.) #FairUCE: A spam filter that stops spam by verifying sender identity instead of filtering content. == See also == *List of IBM products *Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. *computer *IBM clone *Lenovo Group == External links == * [http://www.ibm.com/ Company home page] * [http://www.ibm.com/ondemand IBM On Demand Business home page] * [http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/ IBM eServer]. * [http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ History and Archives] * [http://webfuziondesign.com/groundzero Ground Zero News] * [http://barry_froggatt.users.btopenworld.com/songbook.html The IBM Songbook]; [http://anthems.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/ibm.swf ''Ever Onward''] (needs Flash) * [http://www.research.ibm.com/ IBM Research] * [http://www.research.ibm.com/cambridge IBM Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts] * [http://www.zurich.ibm.com IBM Research in Zurich] * [http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/1980.htm IBM Antitrust Suit Records 1950-1982] * [http://tuxmobil.org/ibm.html Linux on IBM laptops] * [http://www.laptopical.com/ibm-laptops.html IBM laptop news] * [http://www.google.com/search?q=ibmjarg IBM Jargon Dictionary] * [http://www.ibm.com/ibm/sjp/ Current CEO - Samuel J Palmisano] * [http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/BlueEyes/index.html BlueEyes Project Description] * [http://www.computercraft.com/docs/ibm.html IBM Compatibles] * [http://ibm.com/developerworks/ developerWorks - IBM's resource for software developers] * [http://www.power.org power.org] IBM Fortune 500 companies th:ไอบีเอ็ม

IBM

==Editing ideas (outline)== historical influence on business and computing -- punched cards and US census -- Selectric typewriter -- IBM-PC 5150 1981 'revolution' -- IBM mainframes -- IBM minicomputers -- OS/2 -- "THINK" -- mainframe -- Fred Brooks classic ''The Mythical Man-Month'' about OS/360 -- Winchester disk technology -- legal precedents(?): unbundling -- office automation -- research contributions -- Atomic force microscope -- Scanning electron microscope -- -- Binnig & Rohrer -- The role of IBM in automating the holocaust -- Deep Blue -- IBM deal with Microsoft -- does Microsoft now occupy the position IBM did in the 1970s? -- : Furthermore sale of IBM's PC related activities incl. the right of using the IBM andTHINK trademarks for a limited time to some Chinese pc maker, in connection with a technical cooperation agreement. --User:Ernst.schnell 22:14, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC) ---- There's no mention of the IBM 360 or Thomas J. Watson, Jr. in here (Yes I just finished watching PBS' They Made America) User:Dols 04:05, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC) Right, and there is no mention either of how much the IBM corporate culture owes to the influence of the time Watson senior spent working for John H. Patterson at NCR (National Cash Register) or how Watson senior got stung by his boss at NCR (a long time before IBM was formed) and ended up in jail eventually (see TJW doing time section below), or how Watson junior was in fact in the US Air Force during WW II, seeing to it that the Nazis got bombed to pieces while his dad allegedly (see the IBM and the holocaust section below) helped the same bad guys murder millions of jews. Worse of all, there is no mention of Gene Amdahl or Frederick P. Brooks. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done in the historical section of this article. --User:AlainV 04:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC) ==Big, bad? Blue== ''does Microsoft now occupy the position IBM did in the 1970s?'' As a subject of fear and distrust by hackers yes, in all other matters no. The alleged IBM monopoly in the 70s covered both hardware and software, while Microsoft presently controls only the software aspects of desktop computers and some servers. Furthermore, IBM's control in the 70s was spread over all types of machines, in contrast with Microsoft's specialization in small business systems. User:AlainV 03:00, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC) ==THINK or THWIM== (In the early 1990's during a period of downsizing and retrenchment, a new motto was coined: "THINK or THWIM.") (Actually, this lisping pun is much older - it appeared at latest in the early seventies) ==Article title== Shouldn't this page be at IBM? I know one of the naming conventions is to spell out acronyms, but I think IBM is better recognised than "International Business Machines" - also, it is the most used name English, which is also a naming convention, creating a conflict for this situation. A look at "what links here" and a Google search (17.4 million vs. 205,000) support the above proposal. Any objections? User:Jheijmans 11:01 Aug 4, 2002 (PDT) :I agree with User:Jheijmans. International Business Machines should redirect to IBM, not the other way around. User:Two halves :I agree too. —User:Seav :I disagree though. —User:Okay ::IBM stands for other things too. [http://www.acronymfinder.com Acronym Finder] lists 7 meanings including Big Blue, most notably ''Inclusion Body Myositis (inflammatory muscle disease)'', so this page may need to link to that as well if a page for that exists yet or if one is ever created. Therefore, the text should be in International Business Machines, not at IBM. I imagine that most TLA's have more than one meaning. -- User:Chris-gore 20:22, May 31, 2004 (UTC). ::I just checked, and there is a page on Inclusion body myositis, so this really should be a disambiguation page for the two. However, I will just put a little note about that meaning on the top of the page. If somebody finds more entries that are also IBM, this should be fixed. -- User:Chris-gore 20:41, May 31, 2004 (UTC). ==TJW doing time== I shan't note this on the main page, but its true: IBM was founded by a criminal -- Thomas Watson served time in prison for deceptive business practices while he worked for NCR. -- User:Anonymoues 14:36 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC) Specifically, anti-trust violations. NCR had a virtual monopoly in cash registers, and he set up a front company to buy all the available second-hand machines and then sell them at a loss, to drive all the second-hand cash register stores out of business. This is discussed in "[http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471414638,descCd-reviews.html The Maverick and His Machine]" by Kevin Maney--User:metamatic 20040719T154800Z ==Hard disk outsourcing== NB: though IBM invented the hard disk, it recently announced plans to spin off its hard disk division to a new company, which will in turn be sold to Hitachi: [http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/1183321] [http://www.harddiskinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.asp?newsID=508] [http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002may/gee20020605012041.htm] [http://taipeitimes.com/news/2002/06/05/story/0000139107] Someone more enterprising can figure out how to integrate this into the article. User:K.lee ==Thanks== I just want to say that I found this on IBM page quite useful and learned quite a few things. Kudos to those who wrote and edited it! --Mikhail Capone ==IBM and the Holocaust== There is no mention of that question about Nazi Germany using IBM tabulating machines for the Holocaust. Can somembody throw some data? -- User:Error :Google gives about 48000 hits for IBM and Nazi, but I find it hard to find useful information... User:Guaka 13:07, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC) ::Edwin Black's ''IBM and the Holocaust'' (see [http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/]) is the only comprehensive and even somewhat respectable source I've seen which gets into about this, and even it is too shrill and melodramatic to be taken totally at face value. However the basic gist of it is that IBM's German subsidiary played a key role in the Holocaust by allowing Germany to properly keep track of its Jewish citizens before the creation of the camps, and then to help keep track of camp prisoners within the camps themselves, using IBM Hollerith punch-card technology. Black seems to say that Watson not only would have known what his machines were being used for, but was willing to actively support Nazi ideals if it got him a good bottom line. Because of the IBM licensing scheme at the time, punch card machines were not bought by clients but leased and custom maintained and administered by IBM employees -- including ones who would travel to the death camps to work on the machines stationed there. To add insult to injury, Black says, after the war, IBM was not fined but instead able to claim all profits its German subsidiary accrued from this work, an exception Black implies was due to the work IBM was also doing for the Allied armies and the necessity of their help in establishing a post-war German government. ::I think it's definitely worth noting in ''some'' article somewhere that the Holocaust required a level of personnel organization never before seen, and that IBM machines are what they used, and that perhaps IBM leadership knew what they were doing and willfully turned a blind eye, and that after the war they were apparently awarded special exceptions and have done their damnest to keep the lid on any possible controversy (notice that their own history page covers nothing except their work for the USA during this period, despite the apparent fact that a huge amount of their profits and activities were overseas)... but I'm not sure this is the place to do it, nor if there's any easy way to do it. If someone wanted to add a line like, "It has been asserted by some journalists and historians that IBM machines, perhaps with the full knowledge of the IBM leadership, played a crucial role in Nazi Germany's ability to incarcerate its Jewish population and to administer its death camps," I wouldn't be opposed to it, but I'm not going to do it... --User:Fastfission 01:21, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC) I've taken a cut at it. The book got loads of publicity, so it can't be ignored. I'm guessing the IBM web site says nothing because of the ongoing lawsuit. -- User:metamatic 20040719T163200Z :I think that's just fine. I don't take the Black book too seriously personally -- I think he gets some things correct, but a lot of things are highly suspicious (and he's so overdramatic about it to a point that I can't tell if he's genuinely concerned or just wants to sell more books). (and I must also admit that in his interviews about his latest book, about the history of eugenics -- something I know quite a bit about -- do not lead me to think that he is a particularly gifted researcher, but that's neither here nor there) In ''my'' opinion, the most "correct" things Black has are that: **The Nazis required the sorts of machines that IBM/Deomag produced in order to have a systematic Holocaust in the manner they did (but... could they have slaughtered without them? Of course. But the logistics would have been entirely different -- for what that's worth). **Watson probably didn't give a damn about German Jews and certainly gave more a damn about money than anything else (but... what else is new in the world?). **After the Allies moved in, IBM was able to recover Deomag equipment and earnings without suffering the penalties imposed on other companies for their complicity with the Holocaust/World War II. If this is correct, then this is Black's best point, I feel -- that because IBM had become so essential to the US Army and government, they were given a pretty big break when it came to reincorporating Deomag after the war was over. :So... yeah. I don't necessarily feel this needs to get worried over too much quite yet though, maybe when that lawsuit is resolved it can be done through the POV of the court and that might just be the safest way to go about it... --User:Fastfission 17:13, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC) ==littleBlue, ACM== Is there any real reason why littleBlue and the ACM Programming contenst are mentioned in the See also section? looks like noise to me. I've removed them from the page. I'm keeping the links here in case someone thinks differently: *littleBLUE *ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest User:Mikiher 11:33, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC) :The ACM ICPC is sponsored by IBM. User:TheCoffee 05:40, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Profit margin == That picture makes it look like the margin is evaporating.

Year		1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Revenue		26.2	29	34.4	40.2	45.9	50	51.3	54.2	58.6	62.7	67	65	64.5	62.7	64	76	75.9	78.5	81.7	87.5	88.4	85.9	85.9	89.1
Earnings	3.4	3.6	4.4	5.5	5.5	6.6	4.7	5.2	5.8	3.7	6.2	-2.8	-4.96	8.1	3.2	5.4	5.42	6.09	6.3	7.7	8.1	7.7	7.7	7.6
Profit		13.0%	12.4%	12.8%	13.7%	12.0%	13.2%	9.2%	9.6%	9.9%	5.9%	9.3%	-4.3%	-7.7%	12.9%	5.0%	7.1%	7.1%	7.8%	7.7%	8.8%	9.2%	9.0%	9.0%	8.5%

== Overly positive == This article feels like the IBM marketing & propoganda department typed it up over a few beers. THe "trivia" section in particular feels like an advertisement, with a bunch of useless factoids about how wonderful IBM is, and a clumsy attempt to rationalize their cooperation with Nazi concentration camps. The whole section is ridiculous and should be deleted. == Software and Microsoft == :''IBM's Software Group, if it were a separate entity, would be the second largest software company in the world, behind only Microsoft in total revenue.'' It depends what you include in "software". The part of IBM that produces retail software (DB2, Lotus, Rational, etc) has indeed less revenues than Microsoft. But a larger part of IBM's revenues is made up by solutions and services (i.e. custom software solutions) Nowadays, software and related services make up more than half of IBM's revenues. :Global Services ... $46.4 billion :Hardware revenues ... $31.2 billio :Software revenues ... $15.1 billion :Global Financing revenues ... $2.6 billion :Enterprise Investments/Other area ... $1.2 billion (from [http://www.cimdata.com/newsletter/2005/3/03/03.03.09.htm]) if you add the Software and Global Services you get more than Microsoft's revenues. User:Bogdangiusca | User talk:Bogdangiusca 08:22, 7 May 2005 (UTC) == Old Logo == I have the first logo of IBM, stripped from here[http://www.tcf.ua.edu/AZ/ITHistoryOutline.htm], but where should it go? -- User:Xiong Chiamiov :I added the logo you mention in the link to the history section of the article. do you know the year that the logo was created? i would like to add that to the caption if possible. User:UriBudnik 01:39, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC) IBM acquired Ascential ETL and Data integrator this has been missed out in the List of acquisistions of IBM.- Prashanth R. India. == Still an IT company? == IBM may be, as the opening para suggests, "the biggest", but the biggest what? Is it still at IT company? It seems focussed on consultancy. It doesn't make PC's. Its servers are backwardly-proprietary and have small market share. It's embrace of Linux is born of backtracking over the MSDOS mistake (trying to "right wrongs") and is a last gasp attempt to have some presence in software. IBM still exists as a concept and as a revenue stream, but as a player in computing - not really? The logo of IBM should now be IBM "ON DEMAND BUSINESS" - Prashanth Ramachandra, India. ==IBM and the Holocaust== The points about Black's language in "IBM and the Holocaust" being excessive are fine. How about when adding information about the participation of IBM in the Holocaust, only information from primary documents is included eg Watson recieved a medal from Hitler, Watson was regularly in contact with, and directed Dehomag, etc. User:pjanini1

IBM

Computer companies of the United States Computer hardware companies Fortune 500 companies Multinational corporations Software companies Companies traded on NYSE Companies based in New York

See other meanings of words starting from letter:

I