4 Trivia
IBM logo in Tokyo.
- The IBM Logo was designed by Paul Rand.
- IBM Japan is one of the successful few foreign companies in the Japanese market; the other major players are General Electric and Boeing.
- IBM invented many of the core technologies used in all forms of computing, including the first hard disk drive and the Winchester hard disk drive, the cursor (on computer screens), Dynamic RAM (DRAM), the Relational database, Thin Film recording heads, RISC architecture, the Scanning Tunneling Microscope, and the floppy disk. While the floppy disk is rapidly falling into disuse, the infamous Control Alt Delete keystroke (Bradly, 2001: "I invented it, but it was Bill that made it famous"), also invented at IBM, is still frequently used on PCs running Windows operating systems.
- The first black employee was hired in 1899 by the Computing Scale Corporation (as it was known at the time).
- IBM began hiring women to work as professional systems service staff in 1935. Thomas J. Watson Sr. wrote: "Men and women will do the same kind of work for equal pay. They will have the same treatment, the same responsibilities and the same opportunities for advancement."
- From 1933 to 1944, IBM punch card machines were installed at various German concentration camps. It has been alleged by a journalist that IBM president Thomas J. Watson, Sr. was aware of their use. Note however that concentration camps are a perfectly legal war disposition regulated by the Geneva convention. The problem lies with extermination camps, about which there were already a lot of war rumours, but nothing that could be confirmed or inferred formally before their discovery by allies in 1945. [6]
- From 1942 to 1944 IBM was one of nine companies contracted by the US Government to produce M1 Carbine rifles; these are now sought-after antiques.
- In 1944, IBM was the first corporation to support the United Negro College Fund.
- In 1953, IBM published the first US corporate mandate on equal employment opportunity, stating that the company would hire people based on their ability, "regardless of race, color or creed". Sexual orientation was added to the nondiscrimination policy in 1984.
- Whilst IBM did not invent the personal computer, architectures cloned from its design for the IBM PC (which relied on third-party componentry) became the industry standard, and are now often simply called the PC. The IBM PC was introduced on August 12 1981; Microsoft and Intel became monopoly suppliers of two of the key components of PC-compatible systems.
5 BlueEyes
BlueEyes is the name of a human recognition venture initiated by IBM to allow people to interact with computers in a more natural manner. The technology aims to enable devices to recognize and use natural input, such as facial expressions. The initial developments of this project include scroll mice and other input devices that sense the user's pulse, monitor his or her facial expressions, and the movement of his or her eyelids.
6 Acquisitions
6.1 Recent
