IBM: It All Began One Hundred Years Ago

IBM (International Business Machines Corporation), also known as ‘Big Blue’, first originated in the late eighteen hundreds far before computers were even being built or used. Now, as the IT consulting and computer technology company it is today, one rarely looks back upon their small beginnings. It has been one hundred years since IBM stepped into the technology world as the company they are today; and even now, they are still wowing their audience of tech gurus with new and improved technology systems every day.

IBM was initially in the business of producing time clocks for employees in business around the United States of America. They worked as a merger via companies: International Time Recording Company and Tabulating Machine Company, still not under the IBM name. This is far before the invention of the desktop or laptop electronic computers we take for granted today. These punch in-punch out systems were not the only focus of the merged company newly named: Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation. They also dipped into the markets for coffee grinders, automatic deli meat slicers and scales for determining weight.

Operating mainly out of New York, the company maintained over one thousand employees at this time. It was not until February of 1924 that IBM got its formal name. Their employee count rose quite quickly, and by the time the name IBM was official, there were over three times the amount of initial employees working for the corporation. With a newfound group of top engineers, including: James Bryce and Fred Carroll, the company was ready start building electronic business machinery.

IBM wasn’t keeping all of their secrets to themselves, either. IBM held their first educational engineering information course for customers of IBM. The course outline the needs for streamlining business duties, and how using electronic devices could improve overall company efficiency. The company advertised and educated all in the same step.

In the time of the Great Depression, IBM pushed forward, not laying off employees but instead hired more – invested more. The focus was mainly on data processing and food service equipment. By the nineteen sixties IBM was one of the biggest computer companies in the world, alongside UNIVAC, General Electric and Honeywell. In the mid-sixties alone, the company was producing close to seventy percent of all computers.

Always keeping with the new age, IBM produced the first ThinkPad laptop in 1992. The corporation also produced the chip now used within Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3 and a number of other high tech video gaming systems.

Maintaining their aggression in the field of development, IBM has never stopped pushing ahead with new ideas and innovative designs. Since their original founding in 1911 to the now 2011 era of speedy and smart technology, IBM has continued to be a front runner. Now supplying the world with IBM hardware, software, services and consulting, computing systems and more, it is no wonder the company has only gained strength through the years. What will IBM produce for the commercial and personal consumer next? We will just have to wait to find out…