Building IBM : Shaping an Industry and Its Technology

This text tells the history of IBM - how it was formed, how it grew and how it shaped and dominated the information processing industry.

It presents material about the company in the period before 1945 as well as an interpretation of the post-war era. Granted unrestricted access to IBM's archival records the author attempts to dispel many widely held myths about IBM and its leaders and provides new insights on the origins and development of the computer industry. The book begins with Herman Hollerith's invention of punched-card machines used for tabulating the US Census of 1890, showing how Hollerith's inventions and the business he established provided the primary basis for IBM.

It describes why Hollerith merged his company in 1911 with two other companies to create the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, which changed its name in 1924 to International Business Machines.

Thomas J. Watson, who was hired in 1914 to manage the merged companies, built Hollerith's business into a virtual monopoly of the rapidly growing punched-card equipment business. The inside story of the transfer of authority from the senior Watson to his older son, Thomas J.

Watson Jr., and the company's rapid domination of the computer industry occupy the latter half of the book.

In two final chapters, Pugh examines conditions and events of the 1970s and 1980s and identifies the underlying causes of the severe problems IBM experienced in the 1990s.