History of Computers - Origins of IBM

International Business Machines, a computer technology company, was founded in 1911 in New York. Today it is the fourth largest technology company in the world^[1]. IBM manufactures both hardware and software.

Overview

The predecessor company to IBM, the Computing Tabulating Recording Company, was founded as the result of a merger between three companies, the Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company, and Computing Scale Corporation^[2]. The corporation flourished under the leadership of Thomas Watson, and the name was soon changed to International Business Machines to reflect the expanding commercial base of the company.

Headquartered in Armonk, New York, IBM is one of the largest international technology companies existing today. IBM is one of few information companies with a history dating all the way back to the 19th century, and in early 20th century, it was one of the first modern multinational corporations. The earliest products of IBM ranged from punch card tabulators to commercial scales. The 80-column punch card, developed by IBM in 1928, doubled the information capacity of the punch card, and remained an industry standard into the 1970's. At the onset of the Great Depression, Thomas Watson, unlike many other commercial leaders at the time, hired new employees and increased employee benefits, all while making many more machines than were needed to satisfy demand. By over-producing their products, IBM made a considerable gamble, which in 1935, payed off. The government was looking for a corporation capable of providing the equipment necessary for the 'greatest accounting operation of all time', the Social Security Act of 1935, and IBM was the obvious choice. IBM's success on the contract allowed the company to not only successfully navigate the Depression, but to rise to the forefront of the information industry, where it remains to this day.

Significance

Today, IBM is the fourth largest information company in the world, and the second most valuable global brand^[3]. From the Electronic Tabulating Machine to Deep Blue to today's video games CPU's, IBM has been designing and producing computer technologies from the dawn of the computer. The corporation now employs over 388,000 people in over 170 countries^[4]. IBM has the most patents out of any computer technology company, and has participated in the development of nano-technology in computers, anti-virus tools, Lasik eye surgery, automated test scoring technology, artificial intelligence, the FORTRAN programming language, the first heart-lung bypass machine, the first magnetic hard disk, word processing, laser printers, flexible transistors, fractal geometry, the technology used during the first moon landing, the floppy disk, and many more technological advances whose successors we benefit from today^[5]. IBM is responsible for many of the technological breakthroughs that have allowed computers to reach the point they are at today.