CTR
IBM’s scientific lineage can be traced back more than a century. Its predecessor, CTR, was developed from three companies. The founders of the three companies were all fanatical believers in science, especially Hollerith, the founder of the core company, the Tabulating Machine Company, who was a great scientist in his own right. . It can be said that IBM has been bleeding with science since its inception.
At the end of the 19th century, the United States experienced rapid economic growth, accelerated urbanization, and rapid population expansion. Compiling census data became a task that was difficult to complete accurately. Hollerith, after graduating from the Columbia School of Mines, participated in the census work and was appreciated by the director, Walker, who recommended him to enter the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to become a mechanical engineer. Hollerith has since He studied like crazy, hoping to develop mechanical automation equipment for census work. What should I do if I don’t have experimental funds? He began to borrow money from his relatives, telling everyone how promising the research he was doing was and how great the return on investment would be, and promising interest and rewards.
After six years of hard work, Hollerith finally began to use the punch tabulator, a new device, in census information processing. However, because the results of the model machine were unsatisfactory, the person in charge of the census lost his patience, and Hollerith's relatives and friends also refused to lend money again. Hollerith broke off diplomatic relations with them all in anger.
But he was not discouraged on the road to scientific research. After further efforts, his past leader Billings helped him use the equipment in the health department. Later, with the help of his cousin, who was also an inventor, Hollerith improved the device and gradually began to put it into use. But when he participated in the bidding for a cooperation project with census agencies, Hollerith was once again defeated. From then on, he worked harder and immersed himself in improving the tabulation machine. Later, his research results were finally recognized, first applied to the New Jersey Department of Health and the Military Medical Service of the War Department, and later adopted by other major states. In 1889, when his tabulating machine was exhibited in Berlin, Paris and other places, it received rave reviews and was subsequently marketed in Europe and the United States.
As a scientist, Hollerith was not satisfied with this. He worked tirelessly to improve the machine for different countries and industries. As a result, following the census, health department, and military, markets such as railways, finance, and retail have also been breached. During this arduous scientific research process, Hollerith finally applied for 4 patents and invested the market profits crazily in technological transformation. As the products got better and better, he also owned his own tabulating machine company. Until the company was reorganized and he no longer had management responsibilities, he still retained the privileges of an inventor in the company: he could decide what products to develop on his own without listening to anyone's instructions.
It was from Hollerith that "emphasis on technology" became the core gene of IBM.