They mostly learned from mistakes.. They had a big financial write-off on the pcjr, that failed miserably because of their own incompetent handling (Adrian black and tech tangents (and lgr?) have shown the issues at hand quite in depth) And they made similar efforts trying to "recapture" the market with the PS/2 in 1987 (which is where the green/purple connector originates from) but by then, they already had lost the market to their competitors, so they sort of suffered a similar fate as Kodak there..
@@mxbunnycatter Yeah, IBM would most likely still have a huge position in the market today if it weren't for clones taking over -(thanks Compaq)- and their own less successful attempts at hardware later on.
Video suggestion: Mattel. There are a lot of options on talking about this. You could make it one of your scandal video's even. Also a fantastic story type video, as the founder went through a lot of changes throughout her life. It's just a little thought, and I think you might like looking into the story.
Their relationship and missed opportunities with Nintendo could be interesting too. I mean, there were literally two incompatible Nintendo systems being sold in the same region and the same games had to be released as "Mattel Version" and "NES Version" as a result. It really held Nintendo back in those regions until the '90s.
That's even kinda true to this day, All Linux machines, Windows Machines, Chromebooks, and anything that isn't a Mac is a "PC". The term "Personal Computer" for non-Apple machines I think started around that IBM era.
@@jimmyhirr5773 Soon they will return to using RISC based CPUs in the future. They will be back to becoming a true Mac again. But still the compatibility that IBM did really made the computer industry advance ahead.
That's not dominant, that's stupid. Instead of being the only player, they became one of a hundred. If only the IBM brass had the common sense to dictate terms with then unknown Microsoft and Bill Gates, IBM would be the most valuable company today.
@@simonsays6307 "IBM would be the most valuable company today." I disagree. I mean Motorola invented, was king of the cell market. Kodak was #1 in digital camera sales for a few years, GM was the largest company in the world. Just because they developed it and was huge in the computer field doesn't mean the PC would be where it is today if it was totally under the control of IBM. I mean IBM hung on to Token Ring network and only got it up to 100Mb/s. Ethernet-with the open market is doing 10Gb/s and is so cheap it is in ever PC sold.
IBM didn't lose the microcomputer market because they entered it late. They lost it because: A. They built the PC from generic parts, which let anyone build clones; and B. They let Microsoft sell MS-DOS to all of their competitors so they were all software compatible. Look into the history of Compaq and it'll tell you most of what you need to know about that story.
It was only after I started working for them that I started using ThinkPads - they were free. Some time later I moved to ASUS for my personal use cuz they were so much better at Fallout 3 and Second Life!
I worked for them. They reduced their American workforce by about 50,000 while I was there. They stopped reporting how much they were cutting. Lots of cuts every year, eventually including me. Yet they remain very bloated when it comes to middle management. Oh well.
You and I might know each other! They were cruel (still are?) cruel to over-60s. I actually like Lee (all most stepped on his shoe at at 57 Mad once!) Each CEO since has dragged the company deeper à
I also worked for them during the services era, when they were shoving Lotus Notes down everyone's throat. The strategy in my division was to meet their service level agreement to extend a corporate support contract another 5 years, and once the ink dried, to move all the services to Bangalore or Brno to maximize profits and have the SLA crash. IBM didn't care, they got the money, screw the customer, screw the workers. lol
8:35 IBM came in at the perfect time actually. What happened was that their PCs became so popular that various other manufacturers would make IBM compatible clones. So what happened was IBM helped standardize computers by a shit ton. IBM still produced much better computers than their competitors but at their competitors made cheaper versions. Were still all using IBM computers since there are aspects in modern computers carried on by IBM
IBM did make the fatal mistake of trying to go with proprietary boards in I believe in their System 2. The problem was, that software people already owned purchased by businesses would not work on it. So, clone makers got together to actually standardize the PC. I believe that was EISA. And they had one major industry leader in the group to push the new standard - Microsoft. There were more computers with the standard so more software developers stuck with the standard. IBM did realize they failed in this and switched back, but they were losing market share and that is why they sold the business to Lenovo.
@@honolulublues5548 proprietary boards, proprietary disk interfaces, proprietary expansion slots... proprietary memory I think but am not as sure about? Yeah very much 180, IBM tried to justify it by saying it's 32-bit, it's the future, blah blah blah, but people didn't like not being able to use their old cards, and many customers complained after "never getting fired for buying IBM" before, as the cost this time involved many peripherals as well. Compaq had enough clout at that point to get unity among the clone-markers and create open standards that were backwards compatible as well as being roughly equivalent to IBM's new standards. Their cheap price, interoperability and back-compat meant a lot of businesses switched away from IBM, and home users basically never saw the new proprietary standards at all. IBM quickly switched later PS/2 models to the open standards as well. About the only new port that stuck around was mini-DIN for keyboard ("PS/2 port"), which was probably due to being electrically the same as the older larger keyboard connector. It's rare, but you can still buy a brand new motherboard with PS/2 keyboard ports, usually the highest-end models.
One thing you missed about IBM. They designed the technology used in instantaneous translation, first used in the Nuremberg Trials in 1945 and 46. Today, it's something we take for granted.
@@lee4hmz not really; the pcjr got a second life as the Tandy machine from RadioShack, but for IBM, this was a large financial write-off, as it flopped completely, likely because of their own incompetent strategy of trying to make it as incompatible as possible.. And using that infamous chiclet keyboard, instead of a model-M style kb, that became bog standard in later models of the IBM-PC
8:50 We _are_ using IBM computers right now. What killed off IBM's "home-grown" personal computers was the _clones_ . Otherwise, they laid a solid foundation for the Intel x86 personal computer which is still in use today.
IBM at this point mostly cares about the Enterprise level market, we still have some consumer level technologies but it's not our focus, for revenue it's all cloud right now, server hosting for large compaies and the like meanwhile R&D pisses our cash away on Watson type shit
You can even toss the PS4 and XBOX One in as well as they also use the same X86 architecture as well as modern-day desktop and laptop computers and the PS5 and Series X are the same architecture as well. It makes developing games for all the systems easier.
What killed it is when IBM tried to make proprietary hardware that the new computers would not run the current software of the time. Business owners spent a lot of money on that software and didn't want to give it up. The clone companies all got together and established EISA standards and companies started buying more clones. It didn't hurt that Bill Gates was with EISA on this issue.
@@AcornScorn Watson can pay off big-time once they get it working well for their target use cases (i.e. medical diagnosis). They're certainly closer to a usable product than Google or Amazon. The latter just give you a bunch of Lego bricks you have to put together yourself.
IBM buying Redhat isn't really news in the Linux world. They've been interested in them since the turn of the century when they started making those Linux commercials with that kid in them.
People hissed and laughed when IBM placed an order for a bunch of Macs when they don't realize IBM made the processors used in Macs from the early 90s until 2005...
My dad worked at IBM for 40 years, was like a family to him, Christmas parties in Manhattan, summer family parties in sands point L.I. Great times. He retired in 1992. Big Blue
akrites if they’re at least high school age they will know. They need to use them for the ACT/SAT. If they’re college age they definitely know, as they will use them for most of their tests.
My first job was a summer programming job at IBM last year. Thanks for covering such an influential company to both myself and in general. Modern PCs have a direct lineage to old IBM PCs.
"open source enterprise software" Translation: Enterprise is just another way of saying businesses (or maybe even government agencies). They're not really meant for average consumers. Open-source is...well, to REALLY oversimplify things, most software companies hide their code because they don't want people copying it. Open-source software creators however publically show their code to everyone and allow people to copy it because they believe this actually creates better software in the long run. Red Hat's business model was (is?) to give their software out for free but then charging customers for maintenance, installation, and support of said software - basically you aren't paying for the software, but for IT people who presumably know what they're doing.
@@honolulublues5548 CentOS is even closer to Red Hat than Fedora, well basically is identical to what Red Hat is. Here is a nice sintetized explanation: danielmiessler.com/study/fedora_redhat_centos/
I think the aquisition was about the Openshift engine, and not redhat per se. IBM has acknowledged that they lost the cloud battle against AWS and Azure. The future is applications moving their code from native format, thus requiring virtualization (VMWare and OS costs), over to container technology. That container technology can then run either local, on your cloud, aws cloud, anybody's cloud basically. It's just a comodity, with no big money to be made. That is where openshift comes in. Managing these now hybrid cloud solutions. Time will tell if they got it right.
@@smileyspeedster I mean realistically, OpenShift is just an enterprise management layer over Kubernetes. With native firewall rules and IAM where you don't have to fuck around with plugins like Calico. You also get a pretty GUI. If you're a large enterprise running on-prem virtualization, OpenShift is the logical next step once you can containerize all the internal business apps. Certainly beats trying to teach Windows admins how to run stuff in Kubernetes. I can see the market do well.
I worked for IBM's computer support field services division about 15 years ago. They are a company that has a very, very solid grasp of their business. They always know exactly what they're doing and how to plan for whatever they want to do next. They're pretty amazing, but without having to be flashy about it, which is what you get to be after over 100 years in existence. Great company.
I love how you handle your videos. Like, when you start to go on a bit of a tangent, you always apologize and assure us you will be back to the main point. It is incredibly considerate of our time, even when I'm sure most of us are happy to listen to the tangents since we are just here to have you give us all this info in such a well-stated manner and share your unique point of view. Anyway, thanks for being considerate and thank you for continuing to make these videos.
I work at IBM currently, I work in the Fulfillment,and FAB departments for their mainframes. What I do is I put them through a lot of tests before they get shipped out to the customer. I love working at IBM its the best job I've ever had without a doubt.
We're using P8s at my job. They can take any loads we throw at them but IBMs licenses ain't cheap and they make cloud shifting difficult so we don't plan on keeping them after the end of support.
Super computers And as of now (changes often) the top 2 fastest supercomputers in the world are IBM's, but are soon to be replaced due to government wanting to deal with a single source for hardware i.e. both CPU's as well as GPU compute cards, the compute cards IBM does not make themselfs and rely on Nvidia and/or AMD's gpu arm. Irony with the single hardware source is when Intel were manufacturing chips for IBM, IBM demanded a second source for Intels chips which resulted in AMD being the second supplier of Intel chips. Also and being a computer nerd, it's funny watching the intel/amd fans at war with things like (on the AMD side, which it normally is) AMD developed FinFit microprocessor architecture, yeah that was IBM Or, first to deploy PCIe version 4.0, Again, that was IBM. List goes on, but those are the biggest misinformation atm.
@@larrypaul2462 You may not realize this but at one time IBM was the largest chip maker in the world. The world didn't know it because all the chips went into IBM machines and not the marketplace.
I work for IBM, and I swear it took me six months after starting to entirely wrap my head around all of the different ventures the company is involved in. They’re far less of a household name than they once were, but they definitely always have the future in mind when making decisions.
@@retronuggets4315 hardware support for their enterprise storage and compute products, primarily. Nothing super glamorous! The corporate datacenter is definitely where they still have their biggest foothold in terms of name recognition. The newer Z frame stuff is really cool and genuinely innovative in a lot of ways but I’d wager the company will never have a big consumer-facing presence again.
The coauthors, Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick, were apparently appalled when he realized that because it was definitely not their intention and they were on good terms with IBM (they consulted with IBM to help create HAL’s character and aesthetic for both the book and the movie) and didn’t want to antagonize them with claims that HAL was some kind of secret dig at the company. Clarke actually specifically added a scene to the sequel, 2010: Odyssey Two, where HAL’s creator refutes the connection in-universe, saying that HAL 9000 stands for Heuristic ALgorithmic 9000-series computer.
Talking 2001, the pads used by the astronauts have a design that looks like part of the ThinkPad line. I wouldn't be surprised if IBM designers were influenced by 2001.
My dad worked at IBM when I was a kid and we had thousands of old punch cards all the time. We used them all the time for everything. We used them to take notes, prototypes for board games, floss your teeth, start fires. He took cases of them home when they became obsolete. It was a huge part of my childhood.
TIL that they owned a portion of lenovo with the sale deal.. I guess that was their way of outsourcing production while focusing on IT solutions in the US.. interesting to say the least
What blows my mind is that some of those old mainframes are still working and being used to this day. Some near-extinct coding languages are kept alive purely because these old mainframes never quit.
Mainframes are not old, IBM makes brand new mainframes, they run 64-bit processors and can have terabytes of ram (or in IBM parlance storage) and petabytes of disc storage (IBM parlance DASD). COBOL is nowhere near extinct, it is a current language with the last ANSI standard version being from 2015. Very few organizations would have anything older than a late 90's S/390 mainframe in current use. Bank of America a couple of years ago bought 12 of IBM's biggest mainframes for their data centers, 95% of the world's credit card transactions run through a mainframe and COBOL code at some point. It is estimated that there are 45 billion lines of COBOL code in current use around the world and about 1.5 billion lines get added each year. Now COBOL is not a popular language with current college computer science courses, a lot of that has to do with the fact that COBOL really does not do "cool things" so it is not very exciting, it is also not a fun language to learn as say something like RUBY or DRUPAL would be, and lastly, IBM really stopped evangelizing it to schools, so people not connected to the sectors that still use it just decided to shift resources elsewhere.
@@mspysu79 he specifically said "some of those old mainframes" and not "mainframes are old." And it is true that basically all of the biggest companies in the world use mainframes running COBOL, but it still is a very niche language when you look at the amount of available jobs and how many people actively use it when designing software compared to other languages. Although this demand has changed in the past month or two due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
@@cronchcrunch Our service developed very recently a Z/OS assembly module to extract transactions from our IDMS database. Only 1 (one) guy can maintain it. If he dies or retires, we're screwed, we'll have to shutdown dozens of system that depends on that module.
@@honolulublues5548 I work at a computer repair shop, and I'll put it like this: there are dozens and dozens of broken HP's in my scrap pile, but only a few Lenovo and Dell products. ...and enough broken Acer's to fill a semi truck.
My 70 year old mother worked for IBM in the ‘60’s and worked with the tabulating machines.I learned to type on an IBM electric typewriter and then on IBM PC’s in the ‘80’s, I remember when Window’s software said “IBM Compatible.” I really enjoy your videos!!!
Here's an interesting note about IBM as well during WWII IBM actually manufactured M1 carbines for the US military. Always thought it was interesting to see a rifle with the IBM logo stamped on it
Excellent vid! @8:07 IBM System 360 is where I started my IT career in 1979. Still in IT all these years later. That System 360 was a handful to operate!
Technology is always used in a lot of ways and by a lot of people, so every technology will be used by "bad" (what exactly bad means depends on your opinion) people, and because of that in my opinion technology is nearly never good or bad or something along those lines by itself, but the people using that technology are.
I'm early so on the off chance you see this, thanks for making these videos. It's really fun to watch and learn about things I thought I would never care about.
@company man To answer your question at the end... yep, I knew all you said about the company as I am from the area IBM started and grew. It is also the birthplace of Dick's Sporting Goods, Whirlpool, Valvoline, Endicott-Johnson Shoes (the company to thank for the 8 hour work day, not Ford), HQ of McIntosh Labs, and the home of the flight simulator...
IBM is the GE of the tech companies. They were once the biggest company 40 years ago, but they failed to evolve with their competitors, so they focus on business enterprises instead of PCs and computer equipment. Even Warren Buffett has regret investing in IBM instead of Microsoft and Amazon.
To be fair, its really difficult to adapt to changing technology. it seems obvious now since we already saw the outcome. But if I told you that a book store in 2001 was gonna be the most valuable company in the world, you would call me insane.
@@Markimark151 Yeah. I cant even remember the last time I read a book. Iv read plenty of articles, on wikipedia about electronics n stuff for my projects and read plenty of articles but never from an actual physical medium. in a way that is kinda sad.
Back in 1991, I recall one of our tag lines, when we answered the phone, "Thank You for calling Radio Shack, where our computers are 95% IBM-Compatible". Someone would always ask about the other 5%.... ;) Nicely laid-out, with the history of IBM. It's clear that their past, was building blocks to their present iteration of themselves. I see many striking similarities to the Bell System or AT&T of old. Even the legal aspects (i.e. monopoly) of dominating a market, regardless of what they were building, had the feds getting upset. If AT&T, IBM, & Motorola would have combined forces, I can only wonder what we'd have today. Probably the Master Control Program (Tron) or Skynet (Terminator) running things.
The IBM Selectric Typewriter line is a huge part of 20th century Americana. They used a mechanism known as a *wiffletree* that was basically a very early Digital-to-analog converter. MTV news used to have a quick intro animation of a Courier typeball used in the Selectric line. There was a Selectric model in A Clockwork Orange that was used by the writer. Fun fact: in the AMC series _Mad_ _Men_ they have Selectric typewriters in the office pool but they were the wrong models. They were using the second version that actually didn't come out until a few years later.
I remember ibm laptops when I was younger . They had that that red trackpoint button that controlled the mouse cursor. I think you see them recently on Lenovos
I have the red button, trackpad, and a seperate mouse on my new Lenovo. I've been using ThinkPads before Judge Ito finally put tape over the ThinkPad logo during the O.J. Simpson trial. So I had 3 ThinkPads made by IBM and now on my 3rd and LAST Lenovo ThinkPad. HUGE difference in customer service of the two companies. My last two Lenovo's died. All my IBM ThinkPads still work from 1997, they just got flakey with each major Windows upgrade... At no extra charge in 2005, IBM engineers solved a problem on my ThinkPad T at 3:30 in the morning! U.S. based customer service engineer on duty in Atlanta, Georgia. I had just called to get a recording to see what time they opened. That gal fixed me up right then!!! Lenovo I've needed many times... all I get there is a big F U. I like their keyboards still and they are what I need port wise on the road.
Nice post- I joined IBM in 95, repairing computers, cash registers and self checkouts ,terminals (like the one at the close of your video), printers and communication devices. I'd been with a third party vendor, the preceeding ten years, doing the same. Like their pc line, (I serviced lenovo after the sale, as an IBM tech) the point of sale interests, were sold to Toshiba (along with me). In the early part of the millennia I began to notice the shift from hardware, to services. I'd always told people, Software was where the money was, so it wasn't surprising to see a clever place like IBM, transition to that direction.
I have a 2001 IBM Thinkpad a22m, and to be honest, despite being nearly two decades old, it's probably one of the best laptops I've ever owned. Sure I can't get on the internet, but for word processing, gaming, anything productivity, it's still reliable and easy to use to the point that I do use it in everyday life. Also the keyboard way outclasses any new laptop, to be sure.
Context to how successful redhat is: They had 64(this is an iconic software number) successive quarters of growth. That is 15years or something, of consistent successive growth. That was a couple years ago.
My father was an IBMer. The then small town in Virginia where we lived was dominated by IBM and if your dad didn't work at IBM, your friend's dad did. I remember the very early PCs he brought home with the small black and green screens and the ginormous floppy discs.
@@MrChadsimoneaux Hitler and his troops used tabulating machines made by Dehomag, a German subsidiary of IBM. Dehomag was placed under the control of the Reich government just before the war broke out. If Hitler took over the German subsidiary, what's the parent company (IBM) to do about it? Wire-up remote self-destruct devices in all the German tabulating machines?
My Grandfather who was a machinist for IBM at their Endicott, New York facility for over 32 years and retired in 1970, made machine gun barrels for the U.S. Army during WW II!
RCA, called by people who worked there not the Radio Corporation of America "Rebranding Corporation of America" or Rugs Chickens and Autos. Ruined by bad management, a fractured structure, and way too much interest in diversification. Finally killed off by GE who only bought RCA for NBC and its defense/aerospace division.
I did a lot of traveling for work last year and my main computer was an IBM X41 tablet PC, the last IBM before selling to Lenovo. I love this little computer
OH my watching your video using a Lenovo Laptop and you just mentioned IBM a company I used to work for (Customer Service Dept) I knew they were involved in a lot of companies I did not know Lenovo was one of them amazing good work as always keep up the hood work and stay safe in these trying times from a fan in the Philippines.
Kind of hard to do since WCW was always a subsidiary to Turner Broadcasting. A better one to do is the history of WarnerMedia, since they own Turner Broadcasting, and have a history that stretches before and after WCW.
I worked for them a couple years around 2000. What killed their PC division was mainly Dell. They couldn't complete with their price. Great vid as always, but some notables you could add: selling off Hard Drive Division to Hitachi, movie 2001 computer HAL being taken from subtracting one letter from each in IBM, and one of the weirdest name changes while I was there, changing the Hard Drive Division (HDD) to Storage Technology Division (STD).
I still use my old IBM keyboard from the 1980's for my Lenovo Windows 10 computer. Adapters work well, and the feel and sound is marvelous. I still have the DOS IBM computer, but I don't use it...it still works.
But look at Microsoft raking over because Apple MacBook suck now so Microsoft start taking over 🙄 now laptops are selling again because js many things you can't do with your phone ir tablet
These are my favourite kinds of episodes, the ones that cover long running companies also become a bit of a history lesson. Tabulating machines, that's new to me.
I worked for IBM from 1977 until 2016 (lol, one month short of 20 years, they might have planned that). They were customers of my independent consultantancy for 4 or 5 years before that. I was nearing 66 when I retired. I've never looked back.
Man it's funny I work at IBM (Low level sysAdmin/Project manager) it seems our main goal is to get in the cloud market and use our red hat acquisition to its fullest
It'd be hard to beat AWS though and Azure which is Windows users' default.. which makes them 90 percent of the PC market. I am not sure what IBM will do.
My dads office gave me an IBM Selectric II self correcting typewriter in the early 80s when they shifted to PCs.... It was a small desk top of metal but it was fun to use for a while. It was so sleek.
Your company would most likely receive a massive fine for doing that, just like you would these days if your company was caught using pirated software.
I’m older than your usual viewer, so I knew where you were going from the beginning. When I was thinking about an office job, learning how to ‘key cards’ was something I had been deciding whether to do or not. That was in the early seventies. Glad I went to factory because key punch went the way of the dinosaur!
@1000 Subs with just Playlists Yeah that would be a much better video. It is amazing what some people are able to get away with. I know money helps but charisma can get a person far.
Wow it’s almost like the US didn’t take in a large amount of Nazi scientists either, or brands like Mercedes Benz and BMW’s histories with the nazis. Wow that’s fucking crazyyyy. Grow the fuck up. If you’re a company during world war 2, you’re gonna do what you have to to survive.
@@aheh605 BMW and mercedes are German companies and operation paper clip was a secret operation that the american public did not know about or would not have super been happy to hear there were nazis running around NASA. Your point isn't valid at all this is an AMERICAN company that was doing business with NAZIs during WW2. That is a treasonous move. I appreciate what you're trying to say about companies doing what they had to do but IBM was never located in a country occupied by NAZIs forcing them do make it work or siding with a ruling regime. This is a greedy business doing a treasonous thing. Soooo maybe before you want to come with that level of aggression you'd want to get your facts in order so you don't look like a twat ....but what the fuck do I know ?
Forgot about AIX. My father used to work at Control Data, they failed in the 90's. To this day I still have to deal with Mainframes. One of their most successful products is IBM On Demand, which stores the majority of all transactional data. The first thing they give a client after installation is instructions on issuing a Crit Sit to support.
Eh, both companies are doing quite well IMO. Intel has almost always had the top end of the market, and AMD has almost always been best "bang for your buck" (except between 2012-2018 or so).
All those American engineers forced to train visa-card holding engineers from other "cheaper countries" and then being layed off. Real shame. Glad IBM struggles today.
