About this item
A history of one of the most influential American companies of the last century.For decades, IBM shaped the way the world did business. IBM products were in every large organization, and IBM corporate culture established a management style that was imitated by companies around the globe. It was "Big Blue, " an icon. And yet over the years, IBM has gone through both failure and success, surviving flatlining revenue and forced reinvention. The company almost went out of business in the early 1990s, then came back strong with new business strategies and an emphasis on artificial intelligence. In this authoritative, monumental history, James Cortada tells the story of one of the most influential American companies of the last century.Cortada, a historian who worked at IBM for many years, describes IBM's technology breakthroughs, including the development of the punch card (used for automatic tabulation in the 1890 census) , the calculation and printing of the first Social Security checks in the 1930s, the introduction of the PC to a mass audience in the 1980s, and the company's shift in focus from hardware to software.
About the Author
James W. Cortada is the author of over two-dozen books on the history and use of information and computing in American society. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. He worked at IBM for thirty-eight years in sales, consulting, managerial, and research positions.
