IBM

IBM was incorporated in the state of New York on June 15, 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. The company focused on providing large-scale, custom-built tabulating solutions for businesses, leaving the market for small office products to others.

In 1914, Thomas J. Watson joined the company as general manager. During Watson's first four years, revenues doubled to $2 million. He also expanded the company's operations to Europe, South America, Asia and Australia. In 1924, to reflect C-T-R's growing worldwide presence, its name was changed to International Business Machines Corp., or IBM.

On August 12, 1981, IBM executives held a press conference in New York to introduce a momentous new computer- the IBM Personal Computer, or the PC, as it became known. This was the culmination of many events at IBM over the previous few years.

The PC business required something different. This new market was moving quite fast, and a new entrant would have to move quickly. Apple, Tandy and Commodore had all produced ground-breaking machines during the previous two years. Any computer from IBM would need to target individuals as well as businesses, even if the ultimate aim was to continue to sell

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With its e-sourcing program, a part of its global services division, IBM aims to build all IT services into a utility, delivered like electricity and water. IBM e-sourcing has its tentacles everywhere, even with companies like AT&T and Qwest who are considered potential e-sourcing rivals. Software companies such as Siebel and i2 Technologies are joined on the partner roster by telecoms such as Telecom Italia.

Perhaps the business world was again ready for integrated IT solutions. Piece-part technologies took precedence over integrated solutions.

"IBM has taken a hard look at themselves in the mirror and said, We know we're not nimble, so let's go partner with some of these best-of-breed solution providers and products [to] become nimble,'" Chamberlin says.

With the resignation of CEO John Akers, IBM brought in Lou Gerstner as CEO. IBM is providing managed services in Equinix datacenters. They see the future of services; they know they have to be nimble; and they've taken some pretty good steps towards doing that.

In 1993, IBM's annual loss hit $8 billion. How the power of design helped rebuild trust in the IBM brand is a compelling story. In other words, customers would pay for memory, application use, and computing power as they're used, and only when they're used. Businesses' purchasing decisions were put in the hands of individuals and departments - not the places where IBM had long-standing customer relationships.

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