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The International Business Machine corporation - IBM
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The International Business Machine corporation (also known as “Big Blue” in Richard Delamarter’s 1986 expose), founded by Thomas J.Watson, long dominated the computer industry in the US. Watson had come up through National Cash Register, where he was jailed with other executives in 1912 for antitrust violations.
Joining and taking over the CTR corporation, he expanded from calculating machines to massive computers and peripheral attachments that made IBM the most profitable company in the world in the postwar period. At the same time, the company became known for its crushing of competitors and regulation of workers (down to their white shirts).
IBM faced its own lengthy antitrust suit from 1969 to 1982. IBM stumbled as personal computers hit the market, although it recovered with an industry standard in the 1980s.
Nonetheless, it no longer provided the secure employment or national symbol that it once was despite continuing power. Its history and style are often opposed to the West Coast Apple and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs; parallels, however, may also be telling.
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