B005HFI0X2 EBOK Read Online Free Page B
Author: Michael Lind
human rivals, to win the prize of $1 million. In his final Jeopardy response, Jennings, alluding to a line in an episode of the TV cartoon show The Simpsons , wrote: “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.” IBM had influenced popular culture before. The company’s name is thought to have inspired the intelligent computer in Stanley Kubrick’s and Arthur C. Clarke’s 1968 science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey , each letter of whose name is one letter removed from IBM: HAL.
Watson was named after IBM’s founder, Thomas J. Watson Sr. The son of a farmer and lumber dealer in upstate New York, Watson began his career peddling pianos, organs, and sewing machines. He discovered his talents as a salesman as a protégé of John H. Patterson, the dynamic and eccentric president of National Cash Register (NCR). Along with Patterson and other NCR managers, Watson was accused by the government of violating antitrust laws as part of a scheme to dominate the used cash register market. Like Patterson, Watson was cleared, but six months later the temperamental Patterson fired him for disagreeing with him in public.
In 1914, Watson became head of the Computer Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR), whose name he changed to International Business Machines in 1924. Founded a few years before his arrival, in 1911, CTR was the product of mergers of several other companies. The most important was the Tabulating Machine Company, whose founder, as we saw earlier, was the inventor and former Census Bureau official Herman Hollerith.
Watson was a rare combination of technological visionary, marketing genius, and supersalesman. In the late twentieth century, the stereotypical tech company founder in the popular mind was a brilliant bohemian from the San Francisco Bay area who favored informality and a casual approach to organization. Watson could not have been further from that archetype.
A strict Methodist, Watson insisted that his male employees wear only white shirts and dark suits and avoid embarrassing themselves with alcohol. Influenced by Patterson’s methods, Watson created a revival-like atmosphere to inspire his sales force at meetings and the conventions of his One Hundred Percent Club. Alleged to have influenced Japanese and other East Asian managers, Watson motivated employees with inspirational slogans like the Five C’s—Conception, Consistency, Cooperation, Courage, and Confidence—and hymnlike songs, including this, from his days at CTR:
Mr. Watson is the man we’re working for
He’s the leader of the CTR
He’s the fairest, squarest man we know. 26
One of his mottoes was: “IBM products are not bought; they are sold.” His most famous slogan became a fixture in IBM offices and advertisements:
T-H-I-N-K.
In 1929, Watson funded a statistical laboratory at Columbia University, where Wallace J. Eckert worked closely with IBM. At Harvard in 1936, Howard Aiken, a graduate student in physics, proposed the creation of a massive computer, inspired by the work of the nineteenth-century British theorist of computing, Charles Babbage. IBM’s chief engineer, James Bryce, brought the idea to the attention of Watson, who funded the project and assigned engineers to assist Aiken. The result was the five-ton Harvard Mark I, completed in 1943. Furious that Aiken neglected to mention IBM’s support at the press conference, Watson got his revenge by establishing the Watson Computer Laboratory at Columbia in 1945. Led by Wallace Eckert, the Columbia laboratory developed the selective sequence electronic calculator, which overshadowed Harvard’s Mark I when it debuted in 1948. Displayed on the ground floor of IBM’s headquarters in New York City, the computer became a sensation.
FROM SAGE TO SABRE
According to legend, a myopic Watson stated after World War II that there was only a market for a dozen or so computers in the world. In reality, IBM was working on numerous computer projects at the time. When the
Watson was named after IBM’s founder, Thomas J. Watson Sr. The son of a farmer and lumber dealer in upstate New York, Watson began his career peddling pianos, organs, and sewing machines. He discovered his talents as a salesman as a protégé of John H. Patterson, the dynamic and eccentric president of National Cash Register (NCR). Along with Patterson and other NCR managers, Watson was accused by the government of violating antitrust laws as part of a scheme to dominate the used cash register market. Like Patterson, Watson was cleared, but six months later the temperamental Patterson fired him for disagreeing with him in public.
In 1914, Watson became head of the Computer Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR), whose name he changed to International Business Machines in 1924. Founded a few years before his arrival, in 1911, CTR was the product of mergers of several other companies. The most important was the Tabulating Machine Company, whose founder, as we saw earlier, was the inventor and former Census Bureau official Herman Hollerith.
Watson was a rare combination of technological visionary, marketing genius, and supersalesman. In the late twentieth century, the stereotypical tech company founder in the popular mind was a brilliant bohemian from the San Francisco Bay area who favored informality and a casual approach to organization. Watson could not have been further from that archetype.
A strict Methodist, Watson insisted that his male employees wear only white shirts and dark suits and avoid embarrassing themselves with alcohol. Influenced by Patterson’s methods, Watson created a revival-like atmosphere to inspire his sales force at meetings and the conventions of his One Hundred Percent Club. Alleged to have influenced Japanese and other East Asian managers, Watson motivated employees with inspirational slogans like the Five C’s—Conception, Consistency, Cooperation, Courage, and Confidence—and hymnlike songs, including this, from his days at CTR:
Mr. Watson is the man we’re working for
He’s the leader of the CTR
He’s the fairest, squarest man we know. 26
One of his mottoes was: “IBM products are not bought; they are sold.” His most famous slogan became a fixture in IBM offices and advertisements:
T-H-I-N-K.
In 1929, Watson funded a statistical laboratory at Columbia University, where Wallace J. Eckert worked closely with IBM. At Harvard in 1936, Howard Aiken, a graduate student in physics, proposed the creation of a massive computer, inspired by the work of the nineteenth-century British theorist of computing, Charles Babbage. IBM’s chief engineer, James Bryce, brought the idea to the attention of Watson, who funded the project and assigned engineers to assist Aiken. The result was the five-ton Harvard Mark I, completed in 1943. Furious that Aiken neglected to mention IBM’s support at the press conference, Watson got his revenge by establishing the Watson Computer Laboratory at Columbia in 1945. Led by Wallace Eckert, the Columbia laboratory developed the selective sequence electronic calculator, which overshadowed Harvard’s Mark I when it debuted in 1948. Displayed on the ground floor of IBM’s headquarters in New York City, the computer became a sensation.
FROM SAGE TO SABRE
According to legend, a myopic Watson stated after World War II that there was only a market for a dozen or so computers in the world. In reality, IBM was working on numerous computer projects at the time. When the
Readers choose
Rhonda Woodward
RaeLynn Blue
Catherine Butler
Emily Kimelman
Andre Dubus
Chris Fabry
Vivian Arend
Hannah Howell
Lisa G Riley
Aubrie Dionne