Talk:IBM/Archive 1

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Contents

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. --Ernie 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) 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. --AlainV 04:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Also, IBM built machine guns at one point. Too bad I don't know enough about it, but check out this site: http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?ID=113 This is an oft-overlooked part of the history.

Big, bad? Blue

does Microsoft now occupy the position IBM did in the 1970s?

Why is this relevant in an article about IBM? if you want it, put it in an article about Microsoft and explain what you mean by one entity "occupying a position that another entity occupied". What position? Arch-monopolist? Or what?

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. 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? Jeronimo 11:01 Aug 4, 2002 (PDT)

I agree with Jeronimo. International Business Machines should redirect to IBM, not the other way around. Two Halves
I agree too. —seav
I disagree though. —Okay
IBM stands for other things too. 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. -- 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. -- Chris Gore 20:41, May 31, 2004 (UTC).
This should definitely be under International Business Machines Corp (as it's listed in the stock market) and IBM should be a disambiguation page. IBM stands for a plethora of things, including being a modified version of ICBM (as intercontinental really is just one word). IBM is not like KFC in that they changed their official name to be just the acronym. trentblase

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. -- 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 "The Maverick and His Machine" by Kevin Maney--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: [1] [2] [3] [4] Someone more enterprising can figure out how to integrate this into the article. 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? -- Error

Google gives about 48000 hits for IBM and Nazi, but I find it hard to find useful information... Guaka 13:07, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust (see [5]) 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... --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. -- 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... --Fastfission 17:13, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Dehomag profits

I read somewhere that during the war, the Nazi authorities allowed Dehomag to send IBM's share of the profits to a Swiss deposit. I don't remember if that's the standard thing under international war law for goods of belligerant foreigners. If not, it should be mentioned. --Error 00:58, 30 March 2006 (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:

Mikiher 11:33, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The ACM ICPC is sponsored by IBM. 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 [6])

if you add the Software and Global Services you get more than Microsoft's revenues. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | Talk 08:22, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Old Logo

I have the first logo of IBM, stripped from here[7], but where should it go? -- 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. uri budnik 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.

A larger logo is available on their online history[8], according to this document[9] we need a prior permission from IBM Corporate Archives. Did somebody already asked them? explopulator 14:37, 30 sep 2005 (CEST)

There is no requirement as the conditions in the first section state that non commericial and educational use is fine. Garglebutt / (talk) 13:32, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

The current logo, an SVG, shows as blue-on-grey to me. Does it to anyone else? The IBM logo appears in various colours, but most traditionally is blue-on-white. Mooncow 21:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

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.

How the heck are you counting market share? IBM has more server revenue than ANYONE [10].
Let me remind you IBM still sells more than $30 billion worth of hardware. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | Talk 08:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

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.

On Demand appears to be used as a buzzword. I see it everywhere on the IBM intranet. "Buy on demand", "On demand workplace", "Blog on demand", "On demand community" etc ;-) bogdan ʤjuʃkə | Talk 08:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

On Demand Operating Environment. It has four essential characteristics:

  • Integrated
  • Open
  • Virtualized
  • Autonomic

IBM give three steps to On Demand...

  • FIRST: Innovation drives step change business improvements. Technology insight is a good thing.

Business insight is a good thing. But uniting them is what breaks new ground. Every day we are proving this by applying the same discipline and rigor we use to solve technology challenges to solving business problems.

  • SECOND: This is a journey that happens in steps. And where a client starts is up to them, not us.

This is why we are committed to open standards and build modularity into everything we offer. Being built for change is a pre-requisite in an on demand world.

  • THIRD: Clients, large and small, want to do this on their terms. And we bring more options to the table

than any other partner. IBM leads in the range of choice in how solutions are accessed, deployed and financed.

Can I get a brochure to go? Garglebutt / (talk) 05:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

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

This appears to be a notable enough topic to create an article and write about it in more detail. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | Talk 08:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)


I have changed the phrasing from
"The credibility of Black's book has been questioned, as has its claim that the Holocaust would have been impossible without Dehomag's data processing systems."
to
"The conclusions of Black's book have been questioned, including its claim that the Holocaust would have been impossible on the scale it reached, without Dehomag's data processing systems."
The first change is because, as far as I know, no-one is attacking Black's sources or the accuracy of his factual statements. The second is because, again as I understand it, Black is not claiming the Nazis wouldn't have instituted the Holocaust without the Hollerith machines, but that the machines allowed them to organise the logistics more efficiently (as per 1st bullet point by Fastfission, several §s above). JackyR 16:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Hollerith was also consulted on making a decryption machine for the Germans [11]. However, they were not informed on the purpose of the machine which may have resulted in Hollerith providing a two year manufacturing estimate.

Gaming consoles - missing Revolution!

From Nintendo Revolution: Nintendo has announced that IBM has been working with the development of the CPU, codenamed "Broadway." Seems like Nintendo should be given the honour of being listed with the XBox 360 and PS3. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.161.239.207 (talk • contribs) 17:52, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

HUGE gap in history (between 1960s and 1992)

What on earth happened with IBM between its 1960s success and its 1992 ultra-loss? I mean I know there was the rise of Intel, Microsoft, Apple...things like that...what else...maybe the end of the Cold War? Did that do anything? Someone with knowledge of IBM history should fill in that big gap between 1960s and 1992... Even then, someone should specify exactly how IBM restructured AFTER 1992 to return to its current profitability and success. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.193.247.111 (talk • contribs) 10:24, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

IBM Japan

I read that, unlike other Japanese branches of foreign companies, IBM Japan was successful and well-accepted in the protective Japanese market because it was run as a Japanese company rather than a Japanese branch. --Error 01:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Working Mother Magazine's Top 10 for 2004 link

The link leads to the 2005 list which includes HP. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.68.155.225 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Fixed - David Björklund (talk) 10:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Paul Rand

Not a lot of mention of the Paul Rand-designed logo in this article? — Wackymacs 14:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

"Big Blue"

I just came here because I was curious to know the story behind IBM's nickname Big Blue. There doesn't seem to be one here, so I'm requesting that someone in the know adds it to the article. Thanks. Druff 16:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I found some info and wrote a little piece about it. - David Björklund (talk) 08:56, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
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