The company’s history, however, can be traced back to 1890, when the United States was receiving waves of immigrants. To meet the needs of measuring population the US Census Bureau sponsored a contest to find the most efficient means of tabulating census data.
The contest was won by German immigrant and Census Bureau statistician, Herman Hollerith. Hollerith formed the Punch Card Tabulating Machine Co. in 1896.
A merger of three 19th-century companies—the Punch Card Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company and the Computing Scale Company of America—creates the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) on June 16, 1911.
The new organization is based in New York City and has 1,300 employees. The company manufactured and sold products ranging from commercial scales and industrial time recorder to meat and cheese slicers, tabulators and punch cards.
In the beginning the company operated in New York City only. Within a short period of time, however, it quickly expanded its office and plants to other parts of New York State, Washington, DC, Ohio, Michigan and Toronto, Canada.
Thomas J. Watson Sr. joins CTR in 1914 and became the president of the company within eleven months. Over the next two decades Watson transforms the company into a growing leader of innovation and technology and a prototype for the newly emergent multinational corporation.
In 1914 Thomas J. Watson joined the company and became the president of the company within eleven months. Under his leadership the company continued to expand its products and services. At that time the company focused on producing large scales custom built tabulating solutions for businesses.
Within ten years Watson had expanded the company’s business operations to Europe, South America, Asia and Australia and in 1924 the company was renamed International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) to reflect the firm’s worldwide expansion. The company has operated under the IBM name in Canada since 1917.
IBM refers to the decades between 1939 and 1963 as the ‘Era of Innovation’. During this period the company’s product line expanded significantly.
In 1985 IBM introduced local area networks (LAN), which permitted PC users to exchange information and share printers and files within a building or complex. IBM established a foundation for network computing and numerous applications of PCs.
During the 1980s, IBM's significant investment in building a world class research organization produced four Nobel Prize winners in physics, achieved breakthroughs in mathematics, memory storage and telecommunications, and made great strides in expanding computing capabilities.
In 1993 Louis V. Gerstner, Jr, a former executive at American Express, Nabisco and McKinsey & Co., joined IBM as CEO. Gerstner emphasized the need to provide integrated solutions for the company’s customers. He also decided to keep company, together instead of splitting it into separate independent companies. Today IBM’s strength lies in its combined expertise in solutions, services, products and technologies.
IBM in history
