Book details of 'Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology'

Title	Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology
Author(s)	Emerson W. Pugh
ISBN	0262161478
Language	English
Published	March 1995
Publisher	MIT Press

---

Back to shelf Computer history/fun
Amazon.com info for Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology

Score:

Vote for this book

The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
IBM, International Business Machines Corporation, is certainly a significant presence in the development of the modern computer industry. A study of the growth of IBM is therefore of definite interest. Pugh's book gives an overview of the milestones and manpower that have contributed to IBM. Originally begun as internal documentation and history, the book benefits from the understanding of an IBM insider and access to IBM archival materials. These strengths, however, are also liabilities. The sweeping coverage affords very little background to major decisions, or analysis of outcomes. Watson Senior's choice to continue building (and warehousing) machinery into the Depression could have been catastrophic if not for the Social Security Act, and the increased need for those machines. There are open, though terse, admissions of policies based on political rather than business or technical reasons, but the general representation tends to pass quickly over events not flattering to the company or its major personnel. The portrayal of the early development of computing could almost convince one that IBM *did* invent the computer. Still, this book does present much information that is usually carefully covered behind the blue facade. A good read and an interesting addition to any computer history library. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1995
Add my review for Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology

Book description:

No company of the twentieth century achieved greater success and engendered more admiration, respect, envy, fear, and hatred than IBM. Building IBM tells the story of that company -- how it was formed, how it grew, and how it shaped and dominated the information processing industry. Emerson Pugh presents substantial new material about the company in the period before 1945 as well as a new interpretation of the postwar era. Granted unrestricted access to IBM's archival records and with no constraints on the way he chose to treat the information they contained, Pugh dispels many widely held myths about IBM and its leaders and provides new insights on the origins and development of the computer industry. Pugh begins the story with Herman Hollerith's invention of punched-card machines used for tabulating the U.S. Census of 1890, showing how Hollerith's inventions and the business he established provided the primary basis for IBM. He tells 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, exhibited remarkable technological insight and leadership -- in addition to his widely heralded salesmanship -- to build Hollerith's business into a virtual monopoly of the rapidly growing punched-card equipment business. The fascinating 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 probems IBM experienced in the 1990s.