Word: tomming
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...years later, Watson not only succeeded his father but also would eventually surpass him. IBM is now synonymous with computers, even though the company did not invent the device that would change our life, nor had it shipped a single computer before Tom Jr. took over...
...Under Tom Jr., Big Blue put its logo on 70% of the world's computers and so thoroughly dominated the industry that even rivals like Univac--which built the first large commercial computer--were dismissed as merely part of "the Bunch." And while newcomers such as Compaq and Microsoft brought the company to its knees in the 1980s, the colossus that Watson inherited and reinvented in the 1950s and '60s stands strong again today, the sixth largest U.S. company...
World War II liberated Tom Watson Jr. from his demons. His success in promoting the use of flight simulators earned him a job as aide and pilot for Major General Follett Bradley, the Army Air Forces' inspector general. Watson flew throughout Asia, Africa and the Pacific, displaying steel nerves and shrewd foresight and planning skills. He was set to fly for United Air Lines after the war when a chance conversation with Bradley changed his course. Informed of Watson's job plans, the general said, "Really? I always thought you'd go back and run the IBM company." A stunned...
...that Watson went home to was an American icon. It was the outgrowth of a debt-ridden maker of scales, time clocks and accounting machines that his father took charge of in 1914--the year Tom Jr. was born. The elder Watson created a fanatically loyal work force at IBM--the company's name since 1924--hanging THINK signs everywhere, leading employee sing-alongs (corporate anthem: Hail to IBM) and dictating everything from office attire (white shirt, dark suit) to policies on smoking and drinking (forbidden on the job and strongly discouraged off it). IBM dominated the market for punch...
Back from the war, Tom Jr. saw IBM afresh and quickly realized that its future lay in computers, not a 19th century information technology like tabulators. Even the first primitive vacuum-tube machines could calculate 10 times as fast as IBM's tabulators. Many people, however, including Watson's father, couldn't believe the company's core products were headed for extinction. Nonetheless, Tom Jr., who became IBM president in 1952, never retreated. He recruited electronics experts and brought in luminaries like computer pioneer John von Neumann to teach the company's engineers and scientists. By 1963, IBM had grabbed...