IBM produces and sells computer hardware, middleware and software, and provides hosting and consulting services in fields ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. IBM is also a large research institution, which has maintained the record of the largest number of American patents produced by enterprises every year for 28 consecutive years (up to 2020).
IBM's inventions include ATM, floppy disk, hard disk, magnetic stripe card, relational database, SQL programming language, UPC barcode and dynamic random access memory (DRAM). IBM mainframe represented by System/360 was the main computing platform in 1960s and 1970s.
IBM is one of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and one of the largest employers in the world, with more than 345,000 employees by 2020.
In fiscal year 2020, IBM reported revenue of $5.6 billion and annual revenue of $73.6 billion. In the past nine years, IBM's revenue has been declining for eight years.
As of April 20021year, the market value of IBM exceeded127 billion USD. In the ranking of total revenue of Fortune 500 American companies in 2020, IBM ranked 38th. ? IBM has been criticized for using "financial engineering" to achieve its quarterly earnings target, rather than long-term investment.
scope of business
As a long-term leader in the computer industry, IBM has made the most remarkable achievements in mainframe/minicomputer and ThinkPad. The personal computer (PC) standard it founded is still in use and development. In 2004, IBM sold its personal computer business to Lenovo Group, a computer manufacturer in China, which officially marked the overall transformation from "massive" product business to "high-value" business.
In addition, IBM still leads the industry in mainframes, supercomputers (mainly represented by Deep Blue, Blue Gene and Watson), UNIX and servers.
In terms of software, IBM Software Group is divided into software industry solutions and middleware products, including business analysis software (Cognos, SPSS), enterprise content management software, information management software (DB2, Infomix, InfoSphere) and ICS collaboration (including Lotus, etc.). ) and Rational software (software lifecycle management).
IBM has also made great achievements in materials, chemistry, physics and other scientific fields. Hard disk technology, scanning tunneling microscope (STM), copper wire technology and atomic etching technology were all invented by IBM Research Institute.