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International Computer Systems history
International Computer Systems company history timeline
His development of punched cards in 1886 set the industry standard for the next 80 years of tabulating and computing data input.
Hollerith was initially trying to reduce the time and complexity needed to tabulate the 1890 Census.
The Computing Scale Company of America was founded in 1901 in Dayton, Ohio.
On June 16, 1911, these four companies were amalgamated into a new holding company named the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), based in Endicott.
In 1911, Hollerith, now 51 and in failing health sold the business to Flint for $2.3 million (of which Hollerith got $1.2 million), who then founded CTR. When the diversified businesses of CTR proved difficult to manage, Flint turned for help to the former No.
Including the amalgamated subsidiaries, CTR had 1,300 employees with offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York; Dayton, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Washington, D.C. 1914: Thomas J. Watson arrives.
"Watson had never liked the clumsy hyphenated title of the CTR" and chose to replace it with the more expansive title "International Business Machines". First as a name for a 1917 Canadian subsidiary, then as a line in advertisements.
Premiered in Brazil in 1917, invited by the Brazilian Government to conduct the census, CTR opened an office in Brazil
In 1920, the company introduced the first complete school time control system, and launched its first printing tabulator.
In 1924 the company changed its name to "International Business Machines." IBM expanded into electric typewriters and other office machines.
Three years later the company introduced the first electric keypunch, and 1924's Carroll Rotary Press produced punched cards at previously unheard of speeds.
The first Hollerith tabulator in Japan was installed at Nippon Pottery (now Noritake) in September 1925, making it IBM customer #1 in Japan.
1925: First tabulator sold to Japan.
In 1928, the company held its first customer engineering education class, demonstrating an early recognition of the importance of tailoring solutions to fit customer needs.
The company also expanded its product line through innovative engineering. It also introduced the 80-column punched card in 1928, which doubled its information capacity.
In 1933 IBM purchased Electromatic Typewriters, Inc., and thereby entered the field of electric typewriters, in which it eventually became an industry leader.
After amalgamation, the individual companies continued to operate using their established names, as subsidiaries of CTR, until the holding company was eliminated in 1933.
To reduce the cash drain, the struggling Dayton Scale Division (the food services equipment business) was sold in 1933 to Hobart Manufacturing for stock.
Over the next two decades, the program would expand to include management education, volunteer study clubs, and the construction of the IBM Schoolhouse in 1933.
1933: Subsidiary companies are merged into IBM. The Tabulating Machine Company name, and others, disappear as subsidiary companies are merged into IBM.
1937: IBM produces 5 to 10 million punched cards every day.
1937: The first collator, the IBM 077 Collator.
1939: Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard founded Hewlett-Packard in a rented garage in Palo Alto, California.
1943: First female vice president.
1944: An Austrian engineer named Curt Herzstark spent his time at the Buchenwald concentration camp working on preliminary designs of a four-function calculator.
It had begun its development as part of a program to make a "super calculator" that would perform faster than 1944's IBM ASCC by using electronics.[108]
Other developments continued until in 1946 the first general– purpose digital computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was built.
Since 1946, with its announcement of Chinese and Arabic ideographic character typewriters, IBM has worked to overcome cultural and physical barriers to the use of technology.
1948: Researchers with the University of Manchester developed the "Manchester Baby," which was a machine designed to test memory technology.
1950: Remington-Rand built the ERA 1101, one of the world's first commercially produced computers.
1951: The UNIVAC 1 began attracting the attention of the public.
Despite introducing its first computer a year after Remington Rand's UNIVAC in 1951, within five years IBM had 85% of the market.
In 1952, IBM began working with MIT's Lincoln Laboratory to finalize the design of an air defense computer.
The use of the vacuum column in the IBM 701 system signals the beginning of the era of magnetic storage, as the technology becomes widely adopted throughout the industry.[114] 1952: First California research lab.
1952: First California research lab.
IBM NORC – 1954, the first supercomputer[310]
Further, IBM was ruled to have created a monopoly via its 1956 patent-sharing agreement with Sperry-Rand.
IBM opens its first research lab outside the United States, in the Swiss city of Zurich.[120] 1956: Changing hands.
The decree requires IBM to sell its computers as well as lease them and to service and sell parts for computers that IBM no longer owned.[118] 1956: Corporate design.
Still in compliance with the provisions of the 1956 Consent Decree, in just four ISSC becomes the second largest provider of computer services.
1956: First magnetic Hard disk drive.
1956: First European research lab.
IBM introduces the world's first magnetic hard disk for data storage. It was the first major meeting IBM had ever held without Thomas J. Watson Sr., and it marked the emergence of the second generation of IBM leadership.[122] 1956: Artificial intelligence.
In 1957 she joined IBM’s Vanguard Computing Center in Washington, D.C., where she wrote computer programs that tracked orbits for the uncrewed Vanguard satellite and the crewed Mercury spacecraft.
Concerned that IBM was too slow in adapting transistor technology Watson requested a corporate policy regarding their use, resulting in this unambiguous 1957 product development policy statement: "It shall be the policy of IBM to use solid-state circuitry in all machine developments.
^ a b IBM Archives: Text of IBM's October 24, 1958 press release announcing the sale of its time equipment (clocks, et al.) business to Simplex Time Recorder Company.
IBM formalized this practice into policy in 1958 with the creation of the Open Door Program.[127]
Time recorders (punch clocks, school, and factory clocks) – founding to 1958, sold to Simplex Time Recorder Company.
The company began four decades of Olympic sponsorship with the 1960 Winter Games in Squaw Valley, California.
But it is a visionary product that pioneers numerous revolutionary computing technologies which are soon widely adopted by the computer industry.[139][140] 1961: Thomas J. Watson Research Center.
In 1962 she joined the aerospace firm North American Aviation, where she worked on celestial mechanics and trajectory calculations for the Apollo project.
1962: SABRE. Two IBM 7090 mainframes formed the backbone of the SABRE reservation system for American Airlines.
The concept of a compatible "family" of computers transforms the industry.[147] 1964: Word processing.
Referred to then as "power typing," the feature of revising stored text improved office efficiency by allowing typists to type at "rough draft" speed without the pressure of worrying about mistakes.[148] 1964: New corporate headquarters.
IBM hires its first black salesman, 18 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[110]
IBM System/360 – 1964, the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, small to large, commercial and scientific
IBM scientists complete the most precise computation of the Moon's orbit and develop a fabrication technique to connect hundreds of circuits on a silicon wafer.[150] 1965: New York World's Fair.
DRAM chips become the mainstay of modern computer memory systems: the "crude oil" of the information age is born.[152] 1966: IBM System/4 Pi.
On March 16, 1967, a headline in the Boca Raton News[138] announced “IBM to hire 400 by year’s end.” The plan was for IBM to lease facilities to start making computers until the new site could be developed.
In 1968, CDC opened fire: it sued IBM for allegedly attempting to monopolize the industry.
In 1969, the United States government began requiring that software be sold separately, allowing individual entrepreneurs to offer competition.
The United States's 1969 antitrust lawsuit was followed by about 18 private antitrust complaints all but one of which IBM ultimately won.
Two years later, the International Organization for Standardization adopts the IBM design, making it a world standard.[159] 1969: First moon landing.
Also in 1973, bank customers began making withdrawals, transfers and other account inquiries via the IBM 3614 Consumer Transaction Facility, an early form of today's Automatic Teller Machines.
There was some sentiment that the charges were true." [300] In 1973 IBM settled the CDC case for about $80 million in cash and the transfer of assets including the IBM Service Bureau Corp to CDC.[299]
Winchester technology was adopted by the industry and used for the next two decades.[168] 1973: Nobel Prize.
IBM has invested more than $1 billion since 1973 to provide environmental protection for the communities in which IBM facilities are located.[222]
In 1974, IBM announced Systems Network Architecture (SNA), a networking protocol for computing systems.
More importantly, his work in the field of semiconductors lays a foundation for further exploration in the electronic transport of solids.[169] 1974: SNA. IBM announces Systems Network Architecture (SNA), a networking protocol for computing systems.
Separately Telex was found guilty of misappropriated IBM trade secrets.[304] The judgment against IBM was overturned on appeal and on October 4, 1975, both parties announced they were terminating their actions against each other.[305]
Founded in 1976, CA serves organizations in more than 100 countries, including 99% of Fortune 500 companies.
1976: Steve Wozniak was instrumental in the design and release of the Apple-1 single-board computer.
The Enterprise, the first vehicle in the United States Space Shuttle program, makes its debut at Palmdale, California, carrying IBM AP-101 flight computers and special hardware built by IBM. 1976: Laser printer.
1977: Tandy produced the very first desktop computer.
Computer Associates began expanding, hiring salespeople and programmers, and in 1978 Wang's brother Tony, a lawyer, joined the firm.
1979: Atari released two gaming microcomputers, the Model 400 and the Model 800.
IBM-developed Data Encryption Standard (DES), a cryptographic algorithm, is adopted by the United States National Bureau of Standards as a national standard.[194] 1979: Retail checkout.
The result is higher-capacity and higher-performance disk drives.[196] 1979: Overcoming barriers to technology use.
1979: First multi-function copier/printer.
In 1979, IBM applies holographic scanner technology in IBM's supermarket checkout station to read the UPC stripes on merchandise, one of the first major commercial uses of holography.
Sales of SORT generated enough money for Wang to buy new programs from smaller firms and market them to customers who already owned SORT. Wang's success allowed him to buy out the original Swiss company in 1980.
1981: IBM released the very first IBM PC to the public.
IBM was again a major part of it, not because it lit the fire, which it did not, but because it introduced a personal computer (PC) in 1981 that became the standard of the new era of computing.
Computer Associates grew rapidly through acquisitions, buying Capex in 1982 for $22 million in a stock swap.
1982: Commodore released its C64 computer to the public.
The United States government launches what would become a 13-year-long antitrust suit against IBM. The suit becomes a draining war of attrition, and is eventually dropped in 1982,[156] after IBM's share of the mainframe market declined from 70% to 62%.[157]
In 1983, Wang purchased Stewart P. Orr Associates for $2 million and Information Unlimited Software for $10 million.
Easywriter, a word-processing program bought in 1983, also brought CA strength in the personal computer market.
SAGE had the largest computer footprint ever and continued in service until 1984.[105]
The IBM PC AT's 1984 debut startled the industry.
IBM terminates the product after 18 months of disappointing sales.[203] 1984: IBM 3480 magnetic tape system.
John Akers became IBM's CEO in 1985.
Over the next five years, IBM provides more than $30 million in products and support to a supercomputer facility established at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.[209] 1985: Token Ring Network.
1986: Compaq was the first to launch a computer with an Intel 80386 chip in it.
IBM Fellows Gerd K. Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer of the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory win the 1986 Nobel Prize in physics for their work in scanning tunneling microscopy.
Today, Almaden is IBM's second-largest laboratory focused on storage systems, technology and computer science.[211] 1986: Nobel Prize: Scanning tunneling microscopy.
It also purchased Software International, a maker of financial applications, for $24 million. It made an important move into applications in 1986 with the $67 million purchase of Integrated System Software Corp., which specialized in graphics software.
Binnig and Rohrer are recognized for developing a powerful microscopy technique which permits scientists to make images of surfaces so detailed that individual atoms may be seen.[212] 1987: Nobel Prize: High-Temperature Superconductivity.
1987: CA International acquires rival Uccel for $830 million.
The effort leads to the establishment of the High Integrity Computing Laboratory (HICL) at IBM. HICL goes on to pioneer the science of theoretical and observational computer virus epidemiology.[214] 1987: Special needs access.
By 1988, Computer Associates employed 4,500 people in 22 countries and reported $842.1 million in sales.
1988: Steve Jobs releases the NeXT Cube.
And in 1988, IBM announced the AS/400, intended to represent a point of convergence for both System/36 customers and System/38 customers.
And in 1988 the IBM Personal System/2 Screen Reader is announced, permitting blind or visually impaired people to hear the text as it is displayed on the screen in the same way a sighted person would see it.
Sold to Eastman Kodak in 1988.
Mills, D. Quinn (1988) The IBM Lesson: the profitable art of full employment, Times Books, 216pp
With the acquisition of Uccel and Cullinet, Computer Associates became the first software firm to top $1 billion in sales, in 1989.
The NSFNET upgrade boosts network capacity, not only making it faster, but also allowing more intensive forms of data, such as the graphics now common on the World Wide Web, to travel across the Internet.[217] 1989: Silicon germanium transistors.
CA responded by unveiling Computing Architecture 1990s in April 1990, a software strategy intended to bring some order to the group of software products it had acquired during the past decade.
Supercalc 5, released in 1990, included graphics and database management, making it competitive with Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft Excel.
SNA becomes the most widely used system for data processing until more open architecture standards were approved in the 1990s.[170]
Continuing its push to work with different computer platforms, CA agreed in 1991 to make many of its products work with Hewlett-Packard's Unix-based computers and reached a licensing agreement with Apple Computer to allow its databases to be accessed through Apple's Macintosh computers.
Computer Associates' ambitious restructuring was hindered in a legal dispute with rival Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS) beginning in 1991.
1991: Apple redesigned its portable computers and launched the PowerBook.
Since 1991, the company has lost $16 billion, and many feel IBM is no longer a viable player in the industry.[243]
CA-Textor, released in 1992, was an entry-level word processor designed to work with Microsoft's Windows graphic interface.
The new business becomes one of IBM's primary revenue streams.[223] 1992: Thinkpad.
1993: Hand-held computers took a step forward with the release of Apple's Newton.
CA had also bought another client-server software specialist in 1994, the ASK Group.
Consisting of the RAMAC Array Direct Access Storage Device (DASD) and the RAMAC Array Subsystem, the products become one of IBM's most successful storage product launches ever, with almost 2,000 systems shipped to customers in its first three months of availability.[247] 1994: Speech recognition.
Starting in 1995 with its acquisition of Lotus Development Corp., IBM built up its software portfolio from one brand, DB2, to five: DB2, Lotus, WebSphere, Tivoli, and Rational.
The company's revenue grew to over $3.5 billion in 1996, and earnings and CA's stock price also rose year by year through the first half of the decade.
1996: Domestic partner benefits.
By the mid-1990s, about one-third of CA's sales were in client-server software products. It also acquired Cheyenne Software Inc. in 1996, a company that specialized in data storage software on network computers.
The company relaunched its premier client-server software in 1997, Unicenter TNG, hoping for more of the booming network market.
The 32-node IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer, Deep Blue, defeats World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in the first known instance of a computer vanquishing a reigning world champion chess player in a tournament-style competition.[254] 1997: eBusiness.
IBM announces Domestic Partner Benefits for gay and lesbian employees.[253] 1997: Deep Blue.
Charles Wang, second-in-command Sanjay Kumar, and another top executive were given huge bonuses in 1998, for which the company had to take a $675 million charge against earnings to pay.
In August 2000, Charles Wang agreed to step out of the CEO role and not handle the day-to-day business of the company.
In 2000, a court order required the executives to pay back about half the bonus, some $550 million.
2000: Founder Wang resigns as CEO.
2000: A Japanese company introduced the first camera phone.
Nevertheless, investors seemed dissatisfied with CA's prospects, and the board faced a proxy battle in the summer of 2001.
IBM launches its low-power initiative to improve the energy efficiency of IT and accelerates the development of ultra-low power components and power-efficient servers, storage systems, personal computers and ThinkPad notebook computers.[264] 2001: Greater density & chip speeds.
^ IBM and the Holocaust, Edwin Black, 2001 Crown / Random House. see index.
^ Shankland, Stephen (July 30, 2002). "IBM grabs consulting giant for $3.5 billion". cnet.com.
The company ended up with two sets of numbers, which was confusing, and in 2002 the Securities and Exchange Commission was prompted to investigate CA's bookkeeping.
2002: The Japanese government created the Earth Simulator, which was a supercomputer.
2002: The Hard disk drive business is sold to Hitachi.[267]
2005: The Chinese company Lenovo acquired IBM's PC business.
2005: The PC division is sold.
The PC division (including Thinkpads) is sold to Chinese manufacturer, Lenovo.[270] 2006: Translation software.
2007: Amazon released the Kindle, a new electronic reading system.
2007: Apple introduced the iPhone to the world.
IBM's current active portfolio is about 26,000 patents in the US and over 40,000 patents worldwide is a direct result of that investment.[275] 2008: IBM Roadrunner No.1 Supercomputer.
2010: Apple released the first iPad.
In addition to cash, securities, and debt restructuring, IBM acquired an 18.9 percent stake in Lenovo, which acquired the right to market its personal computers under the IBM label through 2010.
2012: Raspberry Pi launched a computer the size of a credit card.
2015: Apple reduced its computer size even further with the launch of the Apple Watch.
^ Wattles, Jackie (October 28, 2018). "IBM to acquire cloud computing firm Red Hat for $34 billion". CNN.
The 2019 acquisition of Red Hat enabled IBM to change its focus on future platforms, according to IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna.[285]
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International Computer Systems competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Outsource | 1999 | $14.1M | 170 | - |
| Vital Solutions | 2002 | $8.5M | 150 | - |
| Premiere Response | - | $3.9M | 235 | - |
| Egs | - | $860,000 | 7 | - |
| Faneuil | 1993 | $142.0M | 1,636 | - |
| APAC Customer Services | 1973 | $750.0M | 505 | - |
| Edcor | 1981 | $6.6M | 175 | 1 |
| First American Payment Systems | 1990 | $21.4M | 330 | 64 |
| Affiliated Acceptance | 1989 | $7.4M | 20 | - |
| Direct Interactions | 2007 | $16.0M | 3,000 | - |
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