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Iron Mountain history
Iron Mountain company history timeline
Data fortress When Iron Mountain Atomic Storage Corporation opened in August 1951, its concrete-and-steel building contained 90 vaults with a combined 130,000 cubic feet of storage space
These days, Iron Mountain, an information management services company based in Boston, has three main functions: record management, data protection, and information destruction (that’s shredding to you and me). But it was a different world when the company was first launched in 1951.
1955: Company expands legal profession records storage and management services.
1959: Xerox introduced the first commercially successful paper copy machine, Xerox 914, which paved the way for information management across all industries in the coming decades.
1960: Active file management services are expanded.
In 1961, the company began storing priceless art, like Claude Monet’s “Boating on the River Epte,” in its vaults.
1969: The initial internet prototype, ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), delivered its first message between two computers.
1969: Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.
1970: IBM introduced the first floppy disk, which changed the way information was stored and moved between multiple locations.
1970: Underground records storage facilities are enhanced.
Iron Mountain went on to purchase its second New York site in 1975.
1975: Microsoft, which would go on to develop the main PC operating system around the world (Windows), was founded.
In 1978, the company opened its first above-ground records-storage facility.
Iron Mountain’s Boston roots go back to 1980 when it opened its first New England facility.
In 1980, it expanded to Rhode Island through the purchase of a former Industrial National Bank (a precursor to FleetBoston) cold site and data tape repository in Glocester, Rhode Island.
Since 1980, Iron Mountain grew through acquisitions.
1982: First Compact Discs (CDs) were released for public use.
In 1983, Iron Mountain expanded further in New England with the purchase of New England Storage Warehouse in Boston.
In 1988, Iron Mountain extended its reach into 12 more United States markets by acquiring Bell & Howell Records Management, Inc.
1994: Amazon was founded as an online marketplace for books.
During four years beginning in 1994, Iron Mountain acquired no less than 62 companies, enabling the firm to establish a new presence in 46 markets.
Expansion continued to increase; by 1995, Iron Mountain had grown to exceed $100 million in annual revenue.
Upon reaching an annual revenue of $100 million, Iron Mountain became a publicly traded company in 1996.
1997: Speech recognition software was developed by Dragon Systems and implemented on Windows operating systems.
In 1997, Iron Mountain became a leading software escrow company with the acquisition of Data Securities International (DSI).
1998: Google was founded, utilizing relationships between websites to complete an online search for the first time.
In October 1999, the company announced a deal to merge with its chief rival, Pierce Leahy Corporation in a stock swap valued at around $1.1 billion.
Three years later in 1999, it expanded its Records Management and Data Security services to include records, film, and sound archive storage offerings.
1999: Iron Mountain acquires its top competitor Pierce Leahy.
In February 2000, Iron Mountain Incorporated announced the completion of its acquisition of Pierce Leahy Corp. (NYSE:PLH) in a stock-for-stock merger valued at approximately $1.1 billion.
In 2001, it launched its two key information protection and storage technologies:
In 2002, Microsoft founder Bill Gates moved his entire Corbis collection of photographs into Iron Mountain's vaults for preservation and digitization.
In 2004, Iron Mountain formed a digital assets division called "Iron Mountain Digital", following the acquisition of Connected Corporation, a maker of online PC backup software.
2006: Twitter was founded as a microblogging site.
To preserve all past, present, and future media formats, Iron Mountain launched Entertainment Services (IMES) in 2007.
In 2007 Iron Mountain acquired Stratify Inc., one of the larger e-discovery service providers at the production end of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM). The acquired businesses of LiveVault and Stratify Inc. were consolidated into Iron Mountain Digital.
He remained in the former position until June 2008, when he was replaced by Bob Brennan, but he remained in the chairman's seat.
2008: Barack Obama was elected the first Black US President.
In February 2010, Iron Mountain acquired a California-based eDiscovery and content archiving software provider, Mimosa Systems.
2010: Apple launched the iPad, creating the mobile tablet market.
However, the company announced Brennan's departure in April 2011, and Reese resumed his former title.
On May 16, 2011, Iron Mountain decided to divest Iron Mountain Digital, which was acquired by the British enterprise search and knowledge management firm Autonomy corporation for $380 million.
To continue serving companies’ growing need for electronic information storage, Iron Mountain established its Data Centers division in 2013.
As of January 1, 2014, Iron Mountain successfully converted to a real estate investment trust after approval of private letter ruling requests by the IRS to classify steel racking structures as qualified real estate assets.
At the end of April 2015, Iron Mountain announced it would acquire Australian data protection services provider Recall Holdings for around $2.2 billion in cash and stock.
Demonstrating its commitment to sustainability, Iron Mountain introduced Secure IT Asset Disposition Services in 2015.
At the end of March 2016, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission released a statement saying it would not block the acquisition of Recall pursuant to Iron Mountain's agreement to divest most of its Australian business.
In 2016, Fortune magazine listed Iron Mountain at number 729 on its list of the largest 1000 public companies in the United States.
In December 2017, the company purchased IO Data Centers' US division for $1.3 billion, which includes four colocation data centers in New Jersey, Ohio and two in Arizona.
For enhanced data protection, Iron Mountain introduced its multi-tiered storage offering, Iron Cloud for Enterprise Data Management, in 2017.
In February 2021 , the company purchased Infofort' information management solutions provider in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) region
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Iron Mountain competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hummingbird Trading | 1984 | $236.1M | 1,501 | 1 |
| Recall Holdings | 1999 | $1.9B | 7,500 | 7 |
| SourceHOV | 1985 | $19.0M | 16,000 | - |
| United Solutions | 1983 | $1.0M | 5 | 5 |
| Archive Systems | 1991 | $28.9M | 350 | - |
| Canon | 1937 | $3.8B | 11,167 | 717 |
| PDP | 1990 | $126.7M | 92 | - |
| First Advantage | 2003 | $860.2M | 5,500 | 49 |
| Flexprint | 2005 | $58.7M | 375 | - |
| Forward Edge | 2005 | $1.1M | 50 | 2 |
Iron Mountain history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Iron Mountain, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Iron Mountain. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Iron Mountain. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Iron Mountain. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Iron Mountain and its employees or that of Zippia.
Iron Mountain may also be known as or be related to Iron Mountain, Iron Mountain Incorporated and Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management, Inc.