19 14, Flint recruited T. thomas T.Watson, the manager in charge, who had just been fired by the American cash register company (NCR), to take charge of this business. Watson was born in a poor peasant family. He is 40 years old, with quick thinking and outstanding ability. At the age of 0/7, he/Kloc-began to sell sewing machines door to door, and was attracted by NCR boss Patterson, who was in his thirties, and slowly climbed to the second place in the company. Patterson is recognized as the "father of modern sales" in American business history. Watson worked with him for 18 years and learned a whole set of business sales strategies. Later, because of "high merit", he was kicked out by the boss.
When Watson took office, his staff were all tobacco chewers, selling only butcher scales and coffee grinders. He used the slogan of "thinking" to motivate employees and cultivate enterprise team spirit. In the first four years, the company's revenue reached 2 million US dollars, and its business expanded to Europe, South America and Asia. Watson really hates CTR, a "mixed" name. After many twists and turns, he finally changed the name of the company to a gorgeous name-International Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated as IBM.
The outbreak of World War II not only enabled IBM to survive the Great Depression in the United States, but also allowed the company to expand at a high speed. During the war, Watson signed a contract with the US Department of Defense to manufacture a large number of arms such as machine guns, sights and engines. Two-thirds of the company's new factories are put into munitions production, and the production capacity has tripled. 1945, the company had 20,000 employees, and its sales soared to1400,000. At the same time, the war also made IBM enter the computer field for the first time.
1944, Watson invested 1 10,000 yuan to send four engineers to assist Dr. H.Aiken of the Naval Ordnance Bureau to successfully develop the famous "Mark Ⅰ I" computer at Harvard University. Mark Ⅰ Ⅰ belongs to electromagnetic computer, also known as "automatic sequence control computer", which consists of more than 3000 relays. The length of the machine is about 1 5m, the height is 2.4m, the dead weight reaches 31.5t, and the operation speed is1time per second. However, this machine became "yesterday's flower" soon after its birth, and the first generation of computer products such as ENIAC and UNIVAC assembled with electron tubes came out one after another, which made IBM face a major crisis of losing its traditional watchmaking business.
Watson ordered the rapid development of IBM's own "best, latest and largest supercomputer". 1947, after spending the same 1 10,000 dollars, IBM introduced the "Selected Sequence Control Computer" (SSEC). But this machine belongs to a "hodgepodge" of tradition and innovation. 12500 electron tube and 2 1400 relay are not assembled harmoniously, with a total length of 120 feet. Although it represents IBM's progress from watchmaking industry to computer field, the industry calls it a "huge technological dinosaur", and it is not even a computer that stores programs.
Watson, a 70-year-old man, is very famous, with the largest length in Who's Who in America, with an entry of 16.5 inches. He didn't want to face up to the fact that IBM was backward, but pretended to be calm and flaunted that IBM watchmakers were "the ENIAC”； of the poor"; Almost none of IBM's engineers know electronic technology, and even the chief designer can't figure out how to install electronic tubes. Even so, old Watson still thinks that it is enough for IBM to go so far in this new thing, and he even asserts that "the demand for computers in the world market is only about five."
(2)
In the early 1950s, thomas jr, the eldest son of Watson Sr, was ordered to carry out a fundamental reform of the company's development direction, and IBM began to transcend tradition. When I was a child, little Watson used to be a dude, but in the five years of World War II, he joined the army and flew bombers for 2500 hours, with the rank of Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. The war taught him to go forward bravely and strategize, and how to organize and unite his subordinates.
Watson Jr. first promoted Wally mcdowell, the company's only MIT graduate, as research director, hired von Neumann as company consultant, and recruited more than 4,000 energetic young engineers and technicians. At that time, the US Air Force was preparing to implement the semi-automatic ground air defense project (SAGE). Little Watson lost no time in winning this project for IBM, building an automation factory and training thousands of manufacturing and assembly workers. On this basis, IBM set out to develop a national defense general electronic computer.