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Thomas J Watson Sr. joins the company
Charles Flint hires Thomas J Watson Sr., a successful sales executive at NCR, to be a general manager at CTR while his court cases relating to his time at NCR were resolved. Once they were, Watson Sr. was made president of the company where he would double the company's revenue within the first 4 years. -
Creation of the IBM World Trade Corporation
Following their explosive growth, the company needed a way to be able to keep up their famous sales culture for markets abroad. To solve this, a secondary company called the IBM World Trade Corporation was founded with the sole purpose of meeting the needs of customers outside of the US. -
Social Security Administration Contracts IBM
With the passing of the social security act in August of 1935, the newly formed Social Security Administration was now left with the task of tracking the contributions of over 25 million Americans, leading to a major demand in machinery to quickly process the data. For this task, IBM was contracted to provide the framework to make this task possible, let alone quick. -
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Monopolization of the Tabulating Market
During this period of time, IBM grew drastically and quickly absorbed a majority of the market share for tabulating equipment. Since the company was contracted by the SSA for handling data processing, many employers had no other choice than to go through IBM when the need for quick and accurate data processing was needed. -
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The Defining of IBM Culture
As IBM began to rapidly expand and consume the tabulating market they began to define the cultural values that the company would become known for as we move into the present day. These 2 values that define IBM are the focus on research and development and the importance on a strong sales team to provide maximum customer satisfaction. -
Creation and Mass-Production of the IBM 701
Under Watson Jr.'s direction, IBM produced its first commercially available mainframe mainly for the aviation and defense industry, the IBM 701. This machine and its successor, the IBM 704, pushed IBM to the forefront of mainframe R&D and helped the company continue its explosive growth. -
The Redefining of a Market
One major problem for IBM and other mainframe R&D firms was the lack of cross compatibility between cheaper commercial mainframes and the more expensive scientific and military models. To solve this problem, IBM undertook the most ambitious project in its history and began developing a family of systems that are all compatible, regardless of the model. This project cost the company $5billion in 1960s money but was worth it as it made IBM an international giant in the computer industry. -
Creation of the Magnetic Stripe Card
One of the most ubiquitous inventions to ever come out of IBM is the Magnetic Stripe Card which is an invention still widely used today but is slowly being phased out by RFID chips and similar devices. -
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The Attack on IBM
Due to the explosive growth of IBM during the mid 1900s, the Department of Justice became concerned over the sheer dominance of the firm in the computer industry and filed an anti-trust lawsuit on the grounds that IBM violated the Sherman Act. After thousands of hours and millions of documents, the DOJ finally dropped the case on the grounds that it was without merit. -
The Birth of the PC Market
The late 1970s to early 1980s saw the birth of the personal computer market, which IBM was late to joining. To make up for the lost time, IBM tasked William Lowe with rushing out a personal computer using off-the-shelf components and a rebranded version of the MS DOS operating system. This first IBM PC was widely successful and thrust IBM into the PC market where they would quickly dominate 20% of the market. -
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Disaster Strikes
The late 1980s to early 1990s were the roughest in IBM's history as the company posted an $8billion loss despite the continued innovations produced by the company. This loss was the biggest corporate loss of the time but despite this, IBM lived another day. -
Major Restructuring
Following the massive losses in the late 1980s to early 1990s, IBM decided to hire its first CEO that wasn't part of the company since 1914, Louis Gerstner. Under his reign, Gerstner focused on high-margin opportunities while cutting low-margin industries. -
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Major Acquisitions
During this new age in IBM's history, the company acquired several major companies including The Weather Company(2015) and Red Hat(2019). -
IBM Divests its PC Business
In 2005 IBM sold off its PC business to Lenovo for $1.25billion, $500million in debt, and 18.9% of Lenovo's shares. This move was risky as the Thinkpad line was immensely successful and gained the company a solid footing in the PC business. The reason why IBM made this controversial sale to Lenovo is because IBM was already looking to sell the brand and picked Lenovo over other American companies because selling to Lenovo would get IBM into the lucrative Chinese markets. -
The Unveiling of Watson
Watson is a question answering AI developed by IBM to be able to process speech, retrieve information based on the question, and formulate a logical response. Watson was unveiled and competed on jeopardy in 2011 where it beat 2 champions to bring home the $1million prize. Watson is a perfect example of the shift in IBM's focus on software development over hardware development like they had in the past.
