title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: On 7 August 2018, Osinbajo fired the State Security Service boss, Lawal Daura for illegal invasion of National Assembly by armed and masked operatives of the department. Daura has been replaced with Matthew Seiyefa.


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: In January 2019, Osinbajo criticized the fact that social media is currently "under multi-jurisdictional regulation". He called for more collaboration among nations to reach a convention to regulate social media and counter hate speech.


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: On 2 February 2019, Osinbajo's helicopter crashed in Kabba, Kogi State. He survived, and delivered a previously-scheduled campaign speech after the crash. In the speech, he said he was "extremely grateful to the Lord for preserving our lives from the incident that just happened. Everyone of us is safe and no one is maimed."


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: On 29 May 2019, Professor Yemi Osinbajo took his oath of office to begin his second term at Eagle Square in the capital of Abuja.


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: Following the federal government's decision to close the nation's land borders in October 2019, Osinbajo explained that the government did so to gain the attention of other nations to the importance of policing the borders. He claimed that China and other nations were smuggling in products, including agricultural ones, undermining the Nigerian economy and threatening Nigerian agriculture. By closing the borders, Osinbajo claimed that the government was helping protect the economy and Nigeria's producers and farmers.


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: In October 2019, Osinbajo criticized the government's proposed social media regulations, stating he did "not think that government regulation is necessarily the way to go". Instead, he asked citizens to take more active steps to police social media. He stated that citizens and leaders, both political and religious, "owe a responsibility to our society and to everyone else, to ensure that we don't allow it to become an instrument" of war. He also warned people against using social media to spread "religious disinformation", which could lead to conflict and war.


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: During a visit on 3 November 2019 to Daura, the Emir of Daura, Faruk Umar, called Osinbajo "the most trustworthy Vice President of Nigeria" and thanked him for his loyalty to President Buhari's administration. The Emir gave him the title of Danmadamin Daura, the highest traditional title in the emirate.


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: On 31 March 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Vice president Osinbajo to chair an economic sustainability committee. The aim of the committee is to develop measures to cushion the effect of the coronavirus and eventually reposition the Nigerian economy.


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: In July 2020, his spokesman stated that Osinbajo has become a "political target", stating "I'm his spokesperson and all I know he wants to do is to do this job that he has been given very well and he doesn't have any other plans right now about any such thing. I can tell you that clearly."


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: In an exclusive report by "Peoples Gazette", Yemi Osinbajo's law firm, SimmonsCooper, was linked to an onshore money-laundering front, Ocean Trust Limited which is owned by the national leader of the All Progressives Congress and erstwhile boss of Osinbajo while as commissioner in Lagos State. The report established a link between the shell company and Osinbajo's law firm through bank transactions showing credit transfers to the law firm. The law firm had earlier denied any interaction or business relationship with the shell company, threatening to sue "The Punch" for linking it with Ocean Trust.


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: In an exclusive report by "Peoples Gazette", citing bank records, Osinbajo received 200 million naira in the run-up to the 2015 presidential election from Guaranty Trust Holding Company PLC's Investment One, in three tranches of N100 million, N50 million and N50 million in violation of federal campaign finance law which only approves the donation limit of N1 million to a candidate in a presidential race. The managing partners at Osinbajo's owned SimmonsCooper also donated the sum of N50 million in two payments of N25 million. Other lawyers with relationship with Osinbajo donated N10 million to the campaign bank account. All in violation of the electoral law. Osinbajo did not disclose these violations to the electoral body or police.


title: Yemi Osinbajo

text: The initiative was conceptualized, as a way to celebrate Prof Yemi Osinbajo's birthday by a group that refers to themselves as 'Friends of Prof'. With its aim stated as 'inspiring and promoting entrepreneurial endeavors within Nigeria in honor of the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo'. The initiative, In 2020, provided a number of start-ups and small businesses with one-off grants and plans to do same in 2021. Also, it plans to recognize Health workers at the fore front of the fight against COVID-19 while providing nationwide medical intervention.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: Dillon Brooks (born January 22, 1996) is a Canadian professional basketball player for the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Oregon Ducks, where he was named a consensus second-team All-American and earned conference player of the year honors in the Pac-12 in 2017. He is a member of the Canada national team.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: Brooks, a small forward from Mississauga, Ontario, went to the University of Oregon after playing at Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada. As a freshman, he averaged 11.5 points per game and was named to the Pac-12 Conference all-freshman team. As a sophomore, Brooks led the Ducks to the Pac-12 Conference regular season title and a top ten national ranking. At the close of the season, he was named first-team All-Pac-12 and a third-team All-American by the Sporting News. He was also named the District IX player of the year by the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA). Brooks averaged 16.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per game.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: After the conclusion of the 2015–16 season, Brooks said he would remain with Oregon for a third season. He suffered a foot injury in the summer of 2016 and did not play in Oregon's offseason trip to Spain. On November 7, 2016, Brooks was named to the Associated Press' preseason All-America team. During his three seasons of college career Brooks averaged 14.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 28.9 minutes per game.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: Shortly after the 2016–17 season, he declared himself eligible for the 2017 NBA draft and hired an agent, ending his college career.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: Brooks was drafted by the Houston Rockets with the 45th pick in the 2017 NBA draft and then was immediately traded to the Memphis Grizzlies. On July 21, 2017, the Grizzlies signed Brooks to his rookie scale contract. On October 18, 2017, during the Grizzlies' season opener, Brooks scored 19 points, the most points scored by a Canadian-born player in an NBA debut.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: On April 11, 2018, Brooks scored a career-high 36 points along with seven rebounds, one assist, and two steals in a 137–123 loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder. In December 2018, Brooks was thought to be involved in a failed three-way trade between Memphis, the Washington Wizards and the Phoenix Suns; the trade faltered over confusion between Brooks and his similarly-named teammate, MarShon Brooks, as the Memphis front office did not intend to trade Dillon while the other teams expected him and not MarShon.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: On January 5, 2019, Brooks suffered from a ruptured ligament in his right big toe and underwent a successful surgery to repair it on January 11, 2019. Brooks missed the remainder of the 2018–19 season.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: Brooks began the 2019–20 season as the Grizzlies' starting shooting guard. After averaging 16.1 points per game over the first half of the season, on February 5, 2020, he signed a three-year, $35 million extension with the Grizzlies.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: On February 28, 2020, Brooks scored a season-high 32 points, along with getting two rebounds, one assist and one block in a 104–101 loss against the Sacramento Kings.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: On May 23, 2021, Brooks made his NBA playoff debut, scoring a season-high 31 points, along with 7 rebounds, to help the Grizzlies to a 112–109 Game 1 victory over the top-seeded Utah Jazz. The Grizzlies would go on to get eliminated and lose the series in five games.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: On October 12, 2021, it was announced that Brooks would miss two to three weeks due to a fracture in his left hand. On December 19, he scored a career high 37 points in a 105–100 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. On January 8, 2022, during a 123–108 win over the Los Angeles Clippers, Brooks suffered a left ankle injury. The next day, he was ruled out for 3-to-5 weeks with injury, which was diagnosed as an ankle sprain. On April 16, during Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs, Brooks scored 24 points in a 117–130 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: In Game 2 of the 2022 Western Conference semifinals against the Golden State Warriors, Brooks was assessed a flagrant 2 and ejected after he chased down the Warriors' Gary Payton II and hit him in the head when he was in the air, going up for a fast-break layup; Payton fell hard and fractured his left elbow. Brooks was suspended for Game 3 of the series.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: On May 24, 2022, Brooks agreed to a three-year commitment to play with the Canadian senior men's national team.


title: Dillon Brooks

text: Brooks played for the Canadian national team in the 2015 Pan American Games, where the team won the silver medal.


title: Tom Keifer

text: Carl Thomas Keifer (born January 26, 1961, Springfield, Pennsylvania) is an American singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter for the glam metal/hard rock band Cinderella.


title: Tom Keifer

text: Tom Keifer grew up in a musical family and began playing guitar at a young age. Keifer soon fell in love with the blues and was heavily influenced by this kind of music.


title: Tom Keifer

text: Keifer joined his first rock band while in junior high school. He soon learned to play the electric guitar. The young musician struggled with drug and alcohol abuse in high school, and considered dropping out of school to pursue a music career. However, his mother Adrienne bribed her son to stay in school by promising him a Gibson Les Paul guitar upon graduation. Keifer graduated and received the coveted instrument.


title: Tom Keifer

text: Soon, Keifer conquered his addictions, and began to focus on a career as a musician. He had started writing original material. He also found financial support by walking race horses at tracks and delivering film to developing outlets. Keifer came closer to his dream of being a successful artist by forming the hard rock band Cinderella with good friend and bassist Eric Brittingham. Despite being shy, Keifer took on the role of lead singer because they could not find anyone they liked to sing for the band. In articles, Keifer has said, "I don't feel comfortable when I'm up there singing and not playing guitar. I feel naked when it's just me and the microphone."


title: Tom Keifer

text: Cinderella was discovered initially by Gene Simmons of Kiss who unsuccessfully attempted to get the band signed.


title: Tom Keifer

text: It was then Jon Bon Jovi in 1985, at the Empire Rock Club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that convinced his Mercury A&R manager Derek Schulman to sign the band. Bon Jovi has been quoted as saying "I saw Tommy Keifer onstage delivering some pretty nifty, growling vocals. Then he whipped out this Les Paul and proceeded to lay into some astounding sounds. This guy struck me as a star right then and there."


title: Tom Keifer

text: Keifer and company experienced much success with their albums, "Night Songs", "Long Cold Winter", and "Heartbreak Station". Keifer enjoyed the reputation of being a prolific songwriter with hits such as "Shake Me", '"Nobody's Fool", "Gypsy Road", "Don't Know What You Got", "Coming Home", "Shelter Me", and "Heartbreak Station". He also enjoyed spending time with his wife, Emily, whom he had married in 1987 after years of dating. She also designed the band's unique logo and often accompanied her husband on tour.


title: Tom Keifer

text: After the "Heartbreak Station" tour Keifer lost his voice and was diagnosed with paralysis of the left vocal cord. In 1994 Cinderella released their fourth album, "Still Climbing". It received little attention, and the band broke up in 1995.


title: Tom Keifer

text: Keifer continued to undergo surgeries on his vocal cords. He also battled depression. He was forced to learn how to sing again because of the paralysis of his left cord, but he eventually began working on material for a solo album. He and Emily divorced, and he settled in Nashville, Tennessee, where he continued to work on his solo album. The album was put on hold after Cinderella reunited in 1997 and toured in 1998. They signed with Sony Music, but were dropped a few years later. They released a greatest hits album, "Once upon a…" and a live album, "Live at the Key Club". Cinderella toured the United States in 2000 and again in 2002.


title: Tom Keifer

text: Keifer has a daily regimen, including warm-ups and exercises, that may last longer than some of his shows; however, Keifer feels that he has his condition "under control."


title: Tom Keifer

text: Cinderella was the headliner of the 2005 Rock Never Stops Tour. Keifer and Cinderella completed their 20th anniversary tour with fellow rock veterans Poison in 2006, who were also celebrating twenty years in the music business. The tour was a rousing success and swiftly became one of the most successful tours of 2006, averaging about 12,000 people in attendance per night.


title: Tom Keifer

text: Cinderella had planned to tour in 2008 with Warrant, Lynch Mob, and Lynam. Unfortunately the tour had to be postponed after Keifer's left vocal cord hemorrhaged again, thereby making it impossible for him to sing in the immediate future. Keifer has recently worked with country artist Andy Griggs. He also appeared on an episode of "Extreme Makeover", where he helped a fan write a song. Keifer has finished his solo album, which was released on April 30, 2013.


title: Tom Keifer

text: As of May 2, 2013, Keifer has been touring his solo album "The Way Life Goes", moving from California, across the Midwest, culminating in Chicago. The tour also visited many countries, including Russia.


title: Tom Keifer

text: On Sunday July 22, 2017 Keifer was an act featured in Loud-N-Lima's 3-Day Music Festival in Lima, Ohio fеaturing many artists from the hair metal era's peak.


title: Tom Keifer

text: In a November 23, 2009, interview with Metalzone, Tom Keifer said Cinderella have never really gone away. They've been kind of on a break because he injured his voice a few years back and has been trying to rehabilitate his vocal cords and train it back to where he can be able to perform a Cinderella show again.


title: Tom Keifer

text: "I thought that I was there in the summer of 2008 for the tour for the States here, and we ended up having to cancel that tour because I re-injured my voice. Since then I've been working on trying to get it strong again, which I am glad to say it's very strong now and we're looking to be back out on the road in 2010." When asked about his solo record, (as of April 2010) he said "It’s pretty much finished. I’m booking a mastering date, probably in May sometime, before we hit the road for the summer. Then I will be looking for a label for it". When asked about the possibility of a new Cinderella record, Tom said it is probable but the band would need to be all in for it, and the record label would need to be for it.


title: Tom Keifer

text: "The idea for a solo record started in the Nineties when the band parted ways and we left Universal," said the frontman. "There was just a changing of the guard in the industry at that time and I started thinking about a solo record. I wrote for it for many years and the songs just kept going on the pile and I never got around to actually making a record... We started cutting tracks for this record in 2003 and I went to the pile of songs that had been building up and picked some that I liked and I've just been working on it ever since. It was produced independently of a label, because the idea from the beginning was to just work and record until I was happy with it. I wrote with a lot of different people – my wife, Savannah, who's a great writer, co-wrote a lot of the songs on the record and also co-produced the record with me, and a good friend of ours, Chuck Turner, who's a great engineer and producer. So from the beginning, the attitude was, 'Let's have fun and just make a great record and it'll be done when it's done.' Little did we know it'd be nine years later... it's done and we went through some crazy stuff and mixed and remixed and reworked things over and over and probably made a lot of mistakes along the way, but finally got it where we were all happy with it, so here it is."


title: The Legend of 1900

text: The Legend of 1900 (, 'The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean') is a 1998 Italian drama film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and starring Tim Roth, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Mélanie Thierry. It was Tornatore's first English-language film. The film is inspired by "Novecento", a monologue by Alessandro Baricco. The film was nominated for a variety of awards worldwide, winning several for its soundtrack.


title: The Legend of 1900

text: The story is told in the midst of the plot as a series of flashbacks. Max Tooney, a musician, enters a secondhand music shop just before closing time, badly in need of money. He has only his old Conn trumpet, which he sells for less than he had hoped. Clearly torn at parting from his prized possession, he asks to play it one last time. The shopkeeper agrees, and as he plays, the vendor immediately recognizes that the played song is the same recorded on a broken record matrix (master disc) he found inside a recently acquired secondhand piano. He asks who the piece is by, and Max tells him the story of 1900.


title: The Legend of 1900

text: 1900 was found abandoned in the first class dining room of the four stacker ocean liner SS "Virginian", a baby in a box. Danny Boodman, a coal-man from the boiler room, is determined to raise the boy as his own. He names the boy Danny Boodman T. D. Lemon 1900 (a combination of his own name, an advertisement found on the box and the year he was found) and hides him from the ship's officers. A few years later Danny is killed in a workplace accident; when police officers, called by captain Smith, come on the ship to pick him up and bring him to the orphanage, 1900 hides and nobody sees him for several days, until he reappears playing a piano very well without having ever been taught.


title: The Legend of 1900

text: 1900 shows a particular gift for music and eventually grows up, joining the ship's orchestra. When Max is hired as a member of the orchestra in 1927, the two musicians become close friends, with 1900 that never leaves the vessel. The outside world is too "big" for his imagination at this point. He stays current with outside musical trends as passengers explain new music trends or styles, which he immediately picks up and starts playing for them.


title: The Legend of 1900

text: His reputation as a pianist is so renowned that Jelly Roll Morton, of New Orleans jazz fame, hearing of 1900's skill, comes aboard to challenge him to a piano duel. After hearing Jelly Roll Morton's first tune, 1900 plays a piece so simple and well known ("Silent Night") that the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz feels mocked. As Morton becomes more determined to display his talent, he plays an impressive tune ("The Crave") that brings tears to 1900's eyes. 1900 calmly sits down at the piano and plays from memory the entire tune that Morton had just played. His playing fails to impress the crowd until his original piece ("Enduring Movement"), of such virtuosity and superhuman speed that the metal piano strings become hot enough to light a cigarette, which he hands to Morton as a gesture of victory.


title: The Legend of 1900

text: A record producer, hearing of 1900's prowess and knowing that he doesn't want to leave the ship, brings a recording apparatus aboard and cuts a demo record of a 1900 original composition. He creates the piece, inspired by a woman (The Girl) who has just boarded and mesmerizes him. When he hears the recording, 1900 takes the master disc, offended at the prospect of anyone hearing the music without him having performed it live. He then tries to give the master to The Girl who inspired it, but is unable to and breaks it into pieces.


title: The Legend of 1900

text: The story flashes back to the mid-1940s periodically, as Max (who has left the ship's orchestra in 1933) is seen trying to lure 1900 out of the now-deserted hull of the vessel, because the shopkeeper has revealed that the piano where the record had been found was recovered from the ship. Having served as a hospital ship and transport in World War II, it is scheduled to be scuttled and sunk far offshore. Max manages to get aboard with the recording 1900 made long ago and plays it, hoping to find him out. Max and 1900 finally meet again and 1900 is irremovable about sinking with the ship, being daunted by the immenseness of the world. He feels his fate is tied to the ship, and cannot bring himself to leave the only home he has ever known. Max feels useless that he couldn't save his friend and the two have a touching last conversation.


title: The Legend of 1900

text: The shopkeeper asks Max how the record got into the secondhand piano. Max indicates that he put it there, and the shopkeeper tells him he wasn't so useless after all. Then, as Max is leaving the store, the shopkeeper gives him the trumpet back, without asking for money and saying "A good story is worth more than an old trumpet," and Max walks out as another customer walks in.


title: The Legend of 1900

text: "The Legend of 1900" received mixed critical reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 54% based on 41 reviews. On Metacritic, the film has a 58/100 rating based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: The Legend of 1900

text: The film grossed $4 million in Italy and $259,127 in the United States. On 15 November 2019 the film was given a wide release in China and made 130 million yuan (the equivalent of about $18.4 million) in its first two weeks.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: The technology company Facebook, Inc. held its initial public offering (IPO) on Friday, May 18, 2012. The IPO was one of the biggest in technology and Internet history, with a peak market capitalization of over $104 billion.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: For years, Facebook and Zuckerberg resisted both buyouts and taking the company public. The main reason that the company decided to go public is because it crossed the threshold of 500 shareholders, according to Reuters financial blogger Felix Salmon.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Facebook reportedly turned down a $75 million offer from Viacom in 2006. That same year, Yahoo! attempted to buy the company for $1 billion but Zuckerberg refused. Also that year, "BusinessWeek" reported a $2 billion valuation for the company.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Facebook did accept investments from companies, and these investments suggested fluctuating valuations for the firm. In 2007 Microsoft beat out Google to purchase a 1.6% stake for $240 million, giving Facebook a notional value of $15 billion at the time. Microsoft purchased preferred stock, which meant that the company's actual valuation would be considerably lower than $15 billion. Meanwhile, that valuation dropped to $10 billion in 2009, when Digital Sky Technologies bought a nearly 2% stake for $200 million - a larger stake than Microsoft had purchased at a lower price. An investment report in 2011 valued the company at $50 billion.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Zuckerberg wanted to wait to conduct an initial public offering, saying in 2010 that "we are definitely in no rush." But since by 2012 Facebook had more than 500 round lot (over 100 shares) stockholders, Facebook was subject to the SEC disclosure rules starting the next year, 2013. Zuckerberg had little choice as to whether an IPO had to be done at once.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Facebook filed for an initial public offering on February 1, 2012 by filing their S1 document with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The preliminary prospectus announced that the company had 845 million active monthly users and that its website featured 2.7 billion daily likes and comments. The filing noted that the company's increases in membership, as well as its incomes, were slowing and that the deceleration was likely to continue.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: To ensure that early investors would retain control of the company, Facebook in 2009 instituted a dual-class stock structure. After the IPO, Zuckerberg was to retain a 22% ownership share in Facebook and was to own 57% of the voting shares. The document also stated that the company was seeking to raise 5 billion, which would make it one of the largest IPOs in tech history and the biggest in Internet history.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: The roadshow faced a "rough start" initially. Zuckerberg raised controversy for wearing a hoodie (rather than a customary business suit) to the first meeting with investors. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter called it a "mark of immaturity." A half-hour-long video played during that meeting also frustrated investors who wanted to discuss more technical details, and was dropped for future meetings.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Prior to the official valuation, the target price of the stock steadily increased. In early May, the company was aiming for a valuation somewhere from $28 to $35 per share ($77 billion to $96 billion). On May 14, it raised the targets from $34 to $38 per share. Some investors even suggested a $40 valuation, although a dip in the stock market on the day before the IPO ended such speculation.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Strong demand, especially from retail investors, suggested Facebook could choose a relatively high offering price. Ultimately underwriters settled on a price of $38 per share, at the top of its target range. This price valued the company at $104 billion, the largest valuation to date for a newly public company.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: On May 16, two days before the IPO, Facebook announced that it would sell 25% more shares than originally planned due to high demand. This meant the stock would debut with 421 million shares.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: The Facebook IPO brought inevitable comparisons with other technology company offerings. Some investors expressed keen interest in Facebook because they felt they had missed out on the massive gains Google saw in the wake of its IPO. LinkedIn stock, meanwhile, had doubled on its first day.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: At $26.81 per share, which Facebook closed at a week after its IPO, Facebook was valued like "an ultra-growth company," according to Robert Leclerc of the Financial Post. Its PE ratio was 85, despite a decline in both earnings and revenue in the first quarter of 2012.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: A number of commentators argued retrospectively that Facebook had been heavily overvalued because of an illiquid private market on SecondMarket, where trades of stock were minimal and thus pricing unstable. Facebook's aggregate valuation went up from January 2011 to April 2012, before plummeting after the IPO in May - but this was in a largely illiquid market, with less than 120 trades each quarter during 2010 and 2011. "Valuations in the private market are going to make it 'difficult to go public'", according to Mary Meeker, an American venture capitalist and former Wall Street securities analyst.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Prior to the IPO, several investors set price targets for the company. On May 14, before the offering price was announced, Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia pegged the company at $46 in an interview with "The Street". The interviewer cautioned Bhatia against what she perceived as Bhatia's low valuation, suggesting the stock could rise to "60, 70, 80 dollars" and could shoot up to $60 on the first day of trading. On May 17, the day before the offering, analyst Jim Krapfel of Morningstar suggested that only a 50% or better increase on the first day would be seen positively; "anything under that would be underwhelming." Lee Simmons of Dun & Bradstreet predicted more modest first-day gains, in the range of 10 to 20%. No analysts Reuters interviewed projected a first-day decrease. Others were less optimistic. Much of Wall Street expressed concerns over what it saw as a high valuation. Citing the price-to-earnings ratio of 108 for 2011, critics stated that the company would have to undergo "almost ridiculous financial growth [for the valuation] to make sense." Other companies trade at far lower ratios, although there are notable exceptions. Writers at TechCrunch expressed similar skepticism, stating, "That's a big multiple to live up to, and [Facebook] will likely need to add bold new revenue streams to justify the mammoth valuation".


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Early investors themselves were said to express similar skepticism. Warning signs before the IPO indicated that several such investors were interested in selling their shares of the company. Accel Partners planned to offload as many as 28% of their shares, while Goldman Sachs was ready to sell up to 50% of theirs. Rolfe Winkler of the "Wall Street Journal" suggested that, given insider worries, the public should avoid snapping up the stock. Facebook employees were less concerned, with Mark Zuckerberg planning to sell just 6%.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Striking an optimistic tone, "The New York Times" predicted that the offering would overcome questions about Facebook's difficulties in attracting advertisers to transform the company into a "must-own stock". Jimmy Lee of JPMorgan Chase described it as "the next great blue-chip".


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Some analysts expressed concern over Facebook's revenue model; namely, its advertising practices. Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research Group argued that, "Although Facebook is very promising, it's an unproven ad model." To better monetize user involvement, the company could improve advertising. Yet such efforts could undermine user privacy. Also, some advertisers expressed concern over the value of the advertisements they purchased on Facebook. General Motors announced it would pull its $10 million campaign from the social network just days before the IPO. The automobile company asked for "bigger, flashier" advertisements but Facebook refused.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: In the immediate build-up to the offering, public interest swelled. Some said it is "as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a business story." Meanwhile, Facebook itself celebrated the occasion with an all-night "hackathon" on the night before the IPO. Zuckerberg rang a bell from Hacker Square on Facebook campus in Menlo Park, California, to announce the offering, as is customary for CEOs on the day their companies go public.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Trading was to begin at 11:00am Eastern Time on Friday, May 18, 2012. However, trading was delayed until 11:30am Eastern Time due to technical problems with the NASDAQ exchange. Those early jitters would foretell ongoing problems; the first day of trading was marred by numerous technical glitches that prevented orders from going through,<ref name="forbes 2012/05/20">Tepid honeymoon of facebook and nasdaq does not deliver the big bang. forbes.com</ref> or even confused investors as to whether or not their orders were successful.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Initial trading saw the stock shoot up to as much as $45. Yet the early rally was unsustainable. The stock struggled to stay above the IPO price for most of the day, forcing underwriters to buy back shares to support the price. Only the aforementioned technical glitches and underwriter support prevented the stock price from falling below the IPO price on the first day of trading.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: At closing bell, shares were valued at $38.23, only $0.23 above the IPO price and down $3.82 from the opening bell value. The opening was widely described by the financial press as a disappointment.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Despite technical problems and a relatively low closing value, the stock set a new record for trading volume of an IPO (460 million shares). The IPO also ended up raising $16 billion, making it the third largest in U.S. history (just ahead of AT&T Wireless and behind only General Motors and Visa Inc.). The stock price left the company with a higher market capitalization than all but a few U.S. corporations – surpassing heavyweights such as Amazon.com, McDonald's, Disney, and Kraft Foods – and made Zuckerberg's stock worth $19 billion.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Facebook's share value fell during nine of the next thirteen trading days, posting gains during just four. The next day of trading after the IPO (May 21), the stock closed below its offering price, at $34.03. The stock saw another large loss the next day, closing at $31.00. A 'circuit breaker' was used in an attempt to slow down the decline in the stock price. The stock increased modestly in coming days, and Facebook closed its first full week of trading at $31.91. The stock returned to losses for most of its second full week, and had lost over a quarter of its starting value by the end of May. This led the "Wall Street Journal" to call the IPO a "fiasco." The stock closed its second full week of trading on June 1 at $27.72. By June 6 investors had lost $40 billion. Facebook ended its third full week at $27.10, slightly lower than a week previous. The stock stayed below the $38 mark for months and finally bottomed out in September 2012 below $18.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: The shares didn't get back to the initial $38 again until August the following year, a full 16 months later.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Price targets for the new stock ranged considerably. On June 4, seven of fifteen analysts polled by FactSet Research suggested prices above the stock's price, effectively advising a "buy." Four of fifteen suggested a "hold," while another four of fifteen suggested "sell." Sanford Bernstein was the lowest of the group, pegging the stock at $25.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: On December 11, 2013, Standard & Poor's announced that Facebook would join its S&P 500 index "after the close of trading on December 20," Reuters reported.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: The IPO had immediate impacts on the stock market. Other technology companies took hits, while the exchanges as a whole saw dampened prices. Investment firms faced considerable losses due to technical glitches. Bloomberg estimated that retail investors may have lost approximately $630 million on Facebook stock since its debut. UBS alone may have lost as much as $350 million. The Nasdaq stock exchange offered $40 million to investment firms plagued by offering-day computer glitches. While considerably higher than the usual $3 million limit on reimbursements, it was unlikely to make up for large investor losses. Additionally, the rival New York Stock Exchange lampooned the move as a "harmful precedent" and an unnecessary subsidy in the wake of Nasdaq's missteps. Nasdaq claimed to fix the problems that beset the offering, and hired IBM for a technical review.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: The IPO impacted both Facebook investors and the company itself. It was said to provide healthy rewards for venture capitalists who finally saw the fruits of their labor. In contrast, it was said to negatively affect individual investors such as Facebook employees, who saw once-valuable shares become less lucrative. More generally, the disappointing IPO was said to lower interest in the stock by investors. That would make it more difficult for the company to accumulate cash reserves for large future expenditures such as acquisitions. CBS News said "the Facebook brand takes a pretty big hit for this," mostly because of the public interest that had surrounded the offering.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Some suggested implications for companies other than Facebook specifically. The IPO could jeopardize profits for underwriters who face investors skeptical of the technology industry. In the long-run, the troubled process "makes it harder for the next social-media company that wants to go public." While the "Wall Street Journal" called for a broad perspective on the issue, they agreed that valuations and funding for future startup IPOs could take a hit. Online travel company Kayak.com delayed its IPO roadshow in the wake of Facebook's troubles. Analyst Trip Chowdhry suggested an even broader conclusion with regards to IPOs, arguing "that hype doesn't sell anymore, short of fundamentals." CBS News compared the situation to the dot-com bubble, warning that "You'd think we all would have learned our lesson" from that period of overvaluation.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: While expected to provide significant benefits to Nasdaq, the IPO resulted in a strained relationship between Facebook and the exchange. Facebook has considered moving its listing to a competing exchange.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Reuters' Alistair Barr reported that Facebook's lead underwriters, Morgan Stanley (MS), JP Morgan (JPM), and Goldman Sachs (GS) all cut their earnings forecasts for the company in the middle of the IPO roadshow. Some have filed lawsuits, alleging that an underwriter for Morgan Stanley selectively revealed adjusted earnings estimates to preferred clients. The remaining underwriters (MS, JPM, GS) and Facebook's CEO and board are also facing litigation. It is believed that adjustments to earnings estimates were communicated to the underwriters by a Facebook financial officer, who in turn used the information to cash out on their positions while leaving the general public with overpriced shares.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Additionally, a class-action lawsuit is being prepared due to the trading glitches, which led to botched orders. Apparently, the glitches prevented a number of investors from selling the stock during the first day of trading while the stock price was falling - forcing them to incur bigger losses when their trades finally went through.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: In June 2012, Facebook asked for all the lawsuits to be consolidated into one, because of overlap in their content.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Morgan Stanley settled allegations of improperly influencing research analysts for $5 million in December 2012.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Facebook's IPO is now under investigation and has been compared to pump and dump schemes. Government officials called for investigations in the following weeks. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Chairman Rick Ketchum called for a review of the circumstances surrounding the troubled IPO. On 22 May, regulators from Wall Street's Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced that they had begun to investigate whether banks underwriting Facebook had improperly shared information only with select clients, rather than the general public. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin subpoenaed Morgan Stanley over the same issue. The allegations sparked "fury" among some investors and led to the immediate filing of several lawsuits, one of them a class action suit claiming more than $2.5 billion in losses due to the IPO.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Before the creation of secondary market exchanges like SecondMarket and SharesPost, shares of private companies had very little liquidity; however, this is no longer the case. Facebook employees had been finding private buyers to unload their shares as early as 2007, and when SharesPost launched in 2009, early employees started exiting en masse. Class B shares of Facebook traded as high as $44.50/share ($46.30/share after commissions) on SharesPost prior to the IPO.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: The reputation of both Morgan Stanley, the primary IPO underwriter, and NASDAQ were damaged in the fallout from the botched offering.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: In interviews with the media, bankers seemed sanguine about the outcome. "We think Morgan has done pretty well on the deal," one person at a bank that was one of Facebook's other underwriters told CNN Money. "Reputation of the bank aside, Facebook hasn't been a bad trade for Morgan." This is because even as the share prices dropped Morgan "racked up big profits" trading the shares.


title: Initial public offering of Facebook

text: Morgan's reputation in technology IPOs was "in trouble" after the Facebook offering. Underwriting equity offerings became an important part of Morgan's business after the financial crisis, generating $1.2 billion in fees since 2010. But by signing off on an offering price that was too high, or attempting to sell too many shares to the market, Morgan compounded problems, senior editor for CNN Money Stephen Gandel writes. According to Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein, "this is something that other banks will be able to use against them when competing for deals."


title: History of IBM

text: International Business Machines (IBM), nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational computer technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM originated from the unification of several companies that worked to automate routine business transactions, including the first companies to build punched card based data tabulating machines and to build time clocks. In 1911, these companies were amalgamated into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR).


title: History of IBM

text: Thomas J. Watson (1874–1956) joined the company in 1914 as General Manager, and became its President in 1915. In 1924, the company changed its name to "International Business Machines." IBM expanded into electric typewriters and other office machines. Watson was a salesman whose goal was to build a highly motivated, very well paid sales force that could craft solutions for clients unfamiliar with the latest technology. His motto was "THINK". Customers were advised to not "fold, spindle, or mutilate" the cardboard cards. IBM's first experiments with computers in the 1940s and 1950s were modest advances on the card-based system. Its breakthrough came in the 1960s with its System/360 family of mainframe computers. IBM offered a full range of hardware, software, and service agreements, so that users, as their needs grew, would stay with "Big Blue." Since most software was custom-written by in-house programmers and would run on only one brand of computers, it was expensive to switch brands. Brushing off clone makers, and facing down a federal anti-trust suit, the company sold reputation and security as well as hardware and was one of the most admired American corporations of the 1970s and 1980s.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM struggled in the late 1980s to 1990slosses in 1993 exceeded $8 billionas the mainframe corporation failed to adjust quickly enough to the personal computer revolution. Desktop machines had the power needed and were easier for both users and managers than multi-million-dollar mainframes. IBM introduced a popular line of personal computers. Clone makers undersold IBM, while the profits went to chip manufacturers like Intel or software corporations like Microsoft.


title: History of IBM

text: After a series of reorganizations, IBM remains one of the world's largest computer companies and systems integrators. With over 400,000 employees worldwide as of 2014, IBM holds more patents than any other U.S. based technology company and has twelve research laboratories worldwide. The company has scientists, engineers, consultants, and sales professionals in over 175 countries. IBM employees have earned five Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, five National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.


title: History of IBM

text: On June 16, 1911, these four companies were amalgamated into a new holding company named the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), based in Endicott. The amalgamation was engineered by noted financier Charles Flint. Flint remained a member of the board of CTR until his retirement in 1930.


title: History of IBM

text: At the time of the amalgamation, CTR had 1,300 employees and offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York; Dayton, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Washington, D.C.; and Toronto, Ontario.


title: History of IBM

text: After amalgamation, the individual companies continued to operate using their established names, as subsidiaries of CTR, until the holding company was eliminated in 1933. The divisions manufactured a wide range of products, including employee time-keeping systems, weighing scales, automatic meat slicers, coffee grinders, and punched card equipment. The product lines were very different; Flint stated that the "allied" consolidation:


title: History of IBM

text: Of the companies amalgamated to form CTR, the most technologically significant was The Tabulating Machine Company, founded by Herman Hollerith, and specialized in the development of punched card data processing equipment. Hollerith's series of patents on tabulating machine technology, first applied for in 1884, drew on his work at the U.S. Census Bureau from 1879–82. Hollerith was initially trying to reduce the time and complexity needed to tabulate the 1890 Census. His development of punched cards in 1886 set the industry standard for the next 80 years of tabulating and computing data input.


title: History of IBM

text: In 1896, The Tabulating Machine Company leased some machines to a railway company but quickly focused on the challenges of the largest statistical endeavor of its day – the 1900 US Census. After winning the government contract, and completing the project, Hollerith was faced with the challenge of sustaining the company in non-Census years. He returned to targeting private businesses in the United States and abroad, attempting to identify industry applications for his automatic punching, tabulating and sorting machines. In 1911, Hollerith, now 51 and in failing health sold the business to Flint for $2.3 million (of which Hollerith got $1.2 million), who then founded CTR.


title: History of IBM

text: When the diversified businesses of CTR proved difficult to manage, Flint turned for help to the former No. 2 executive at the National Cash Register Company (NCR), Thomas J. Watson Sr. Watson became General Manager of CTR in 1914 and President in 1915. By drawing upon his managerial experience at NCR, Watson quickly implemented a series of effective business tactics: generous sales incentives, a focus on customer service, an insistence on well-groomed, dark-suited salesmen, and an evangelical fervor for instilling company pride and loyalty in every worker. As the sales force grew into a highly professional and knowledgeable arm of the company, Watson focused their attention on providing large-scale tabulating solutions for businesses, leaving the market for small office products to others. He also stressed the importance of the customer, a lasting IBM tenet. The strategy proved successful, as, during Watson's first four years, revenues doubled to $2 million, and company operations expanded to Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia.


title: History of IBM

text: At the helm during this period, Watson played a central role in establishing what would become the IBM organization and culture. He launched a number of initiatives that demonstrated an unwavering faith in his workers. He hired the company's first disabled worker in 1914, he formed the company's first employee education department in 1916 and in 1915 he introduced his favorite slogan, "THINK", which quickly became the corporate mantra. Watson boosted company spirit by encouraging any employee with a complaint to approach him or any other company executive – his famed Open Door policy. He also sponsored employee sports teams, family outings, and a company band, believing that employees were most productive when they were supported by healthy and supportive families and communities. These initiatives – each deeply rooted in Watson's personal values system – became core aspects of IBM culture for the remainder of the century.


title: History of IBM

text: "Watson had never liked the clumsy hyphenated title of the CTR" and chose to replace it with the more expansive title "International Business Machines". First as a name for a 1917 Canadian subsidiary, then as a line in advertisements. Finally, on February 14, 1924, the name was used for CTR itself.


title: History of IBM

text: Watson mandated strict rules for employees, including a dress code of dark suits, white shirts and striped ties, and no alcohol, whether working or not. He led the singing at meetings of songs such as "Ever Onward" from the official IBM songbook. The company launched an employee newspaper, Business Machines, which unified coverage of all of IBM's businesses under one publication. IBM introduced the Quarter Century Club, to honor employees with 25 years of service to the company, and launched the Hundred Percent Club, to reward sales personnel who met their annual quotas. In 1928, the Suggestion Plan program – which granted cash rewards to employees who contributed viable ideas on how to improve IBM products and procedures – made its debut.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM and its predecessor companies made clocks and other time recording products for 70 years, culminating in the 1958 sale of the IBM Time Equipment Division to Simplex Time Recorder Company. IBM manufactured and sold such equipment as dial recorders, job recorders, recording door locks, time stamps and traffic recorders.


title: History of IBM

text: The company also expanded its product line through innovative engineering. Behind a core group of inventors – James W. Bryce, Clair Lake, Fred Carroll, and Royden Pierce – IBM produced a series of significant product innovations. In the optimistic years following World War I, CTR's engineering and research staff developed new and improved mechanisms to meet the broadening needs of its customers. In 1920, the company introduced the first complete school time control system, and launched its first printing tabulator. Three years later the company introduced the first electric keypunch, and 1924's Carroll Rotary Press produced punched cards at previously unheard of speeds. In 1928, the company held its first customer engineering education class, demonstrating an early recognition of the importance of tailoring solutions to fit customer needs. It also introduced the 80-column punched card in 1928, which doubled its information capacity. This new format, soon dubbed the "IBM Card", became and remained an industry standard until the 1970s.


title: History of IBM

text: The Great Depression of the 1930s presented an unprecedented economic challenge, and Watson met the challenge head-on, continuing to invest in people, manufacturing, and technological innovation despite the difficult economic times. Rather than reduce staff, he hired additional employees in support of President Franklin Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration plan – not just salesmen, which he joked that he had a lifelong weakness for, but engineers too. Watson not only kept his workforce employed, but he also increased their benefits. IBM was among the first corporations to provide group life insurance (1934), survivor benefits (1935), and paid vacations (1936). He upped his ante on his workforce by opening the IBM Schoolhouse in Endicott to provide education and training for IBM employees. And he greatly increased IBM's research capabilities by building a modern research laboratory on the Endicott manufacturing site.


title: History of IBM

text: With all this internal investment, Watson was, in essence, gambling on the future. It was IBM's first ‘Bet the Company’ gamble, but the risk paid off handsomely. Watson's factories, running full tilt for six years with no market to sell to, created a huge inventory of unused tabulating equipment, straining IBM's resources. To reduce the cash drain, the struggling Dayton Scale Division (the food services equipment business) was sold in 1933 to Hobart Manufacturing for stock. When the Social Security Act of 1935 – labeled as "the biggest accounting operation of all time" – came up for bid, IBM was the only bidder that could quickly provide the necessary equipment. Watson's gamble brought the company a landmark government contract to maintain employment records for 26 million people. IBM's successful performance on the contract soon led to other government orders, and by the end of the decade, IBM had not only safely negotiated the Depression but risen to the forefront of the industry. Watson's Depression-era decision to invest heavily in technical development and sales capabilities, education to expand the breadth of those capabilities, and his commitment to the data processing product line laid the foundation for 50 years of IBM growth and successes.


title: History of IBM

text: His avowed focus on international expansion proved an equally key component of the company's 20th-century growth and success. Watson, having witnessed the havoc the First World War wrought on society and business, envisioned commerce as an obstacle to war. He saw business interests and peace as being mutually compatible. In fact, he felt so strongly about the connection between the two that he had his slogan "World Peace Through World Trade" carved into the exterior of IBM's new World Headquarters (1938) in New York City. The slogan became an IBM business mantra, and Watson campaigned tirelessly for the concept with global business and government leaders. He served as an informal, unofficial government host for world leaders when they visited New York, and received numerous awards from foreign governments for his efforts to improve international relations through the formation of business ties.


title: History of IBM

text: In the decades leading up to the onset of WW2 IBM had operations in many countries that would be involved in the war, on both the side of the Allies and the Axis. IBM had a lucrative subsidiary in Germany, which it was the majority owner of, as well as operations in Poland, Switzerland, and other countries in Europe. As with most other enemy-owned businesses in Axis countries, these subsidiaries were taken over by the Nazis and other Axis governments early on in the war. The headquarters in New York meanwhile worked to help the American war effort.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM's product line shifted from tabulating equipment and time recording devices to Sperry and Norden bombsights, Browning Automatic Rifle and the M1 Carbine, and engine parts – in all, more than three dozen major ordnance items and 70 products overall. Watson set a nominal one percent profit on those products and used the profits to establish a fund for widows and orphans of IBM war casualties.


title: History of IBM

text: Allied military forces widely utilized IBM's tabulating equipment for mobile records units, ballistics, accounting and logistics, and other war-related purposes. There was extensive use of IBM punched-card machines for calculations made at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project for developing the first atomic bombs. During the War, IBM also built the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, also known as the Harvard Mark I for the U.S. Navy – the first large-scale electromechanical calculator in the U.S..


title: History of IBM

text: In 1933 IBM had acquired the rights to Radiotype, an IBM Electric typewriter attached to a radio transmitter. "In 1935 Admiral Richard E. Byrd successfully sent a test Radiotype message 11,000 miles from Antarctica to an IBM receiving station in Ridgewood, New Jersey" Selected by the Signal Corps for use during the war, Radiotype installations handled up to 50,000,000 words a day.


title: History of IBM

text: To meet wartime product demands, IBM greatly expanded its manufacturing capacity. IBM added new buildings at its Endicott, New York plant (1941), and opened new facilities in Poughkeepsie, New York (1941), Washington, D.C. (1942), and San Jose, California (1943). IBM's decision to establish a presence on the West Coast took advantage of the growing base of electronics research and other high technology innovation in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, an area that came to be known many decades later as Silicon Valley.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM was, at the request of the government, the subcontractor for the Japanese internment camps' punched card project.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM punched card equipment was used for cryptanalysis (code breaking) by US Army and Navy organizations, Arlington Hall and OP-20-G and similar Allied organizations, including the (Central Bureau and the Far East Combined Bureau).


title: History of IBM

text: The Nazis made extensive use of Hollerith equipment and IBM's majority-owned German subsidiary, Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen GmbH (Dehomag), supplied this equipment from the early 1930s. This equipment was critical to Nazi efforts to categorize citizens of both Germany and other nations that fell under Nazi control through ongoing censuses. This census data was used to facilitate the round-up of Jews and other targeted groups, and to catalog their movements through the machinery of the Holocaust, including internment in the concentration camps.


title: History of IBM

text: As with hundreds of foreign-owned companies that did business in Germany at that time, Dehomag came under the control of Nazi authorities prior to and during World War II. A Nazi, Hermann Fellinger, was appointed by the Germans as an enemy-property custodian and placed at the head of the Dehomag subsidiary.


title: History of IBM

text: Historian and author Edwin Black, in his best selling book on the topic, "IBM and the Holocaust", maintains that the seizure of the German subsidiary was a ruse. He writes: "The company was not looted, its leased machines were not seized, and [IBM] continued to receive money funneled through its subsidiary in Geneva." In his book he argues that IBM was an active and enthusiastic supplier to the Nazi regime long after they should have stopped dealing with them. Even after the invasion of Poland, IBM continued to service and expand services to the Third Reich in Poland and Germany. The seizure of IBM came after Pearl Harbor and the US Declaration of War, in 1941.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM responded that the book was based upon "well-known" facts and documents that it had previously made publicly available and that there were no new facts or findings. IBM also denied withholding any relevant documents. Writing in the New York Times, Richard Bernstein argued that Black overstates IBM's culpability.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM had expanded so much by the end of the War that the company faced a potentially difficult situation – what would happen if military spending dropped sharply? One way IBM addressed that concern was to accelerate its international growth in the years after the war, culminating with the formation of the World Trade Corporation in 1949 to manage and grow its foreign operations. Under the leadership of Watson's youngest son, Arthur K. ‘Dick’ Watson, the WTC would eventually produce half of IBM's bottom line by the 1970s.


title: History of IBM

text: Despite introducing its first computer a year after Remington Rand's UNIVAC in 1951, within five years IBM had 85% of the market. A UNIVAC executive complained that "It doesn't do much good to build a better mousetrap if the other guy selling mousetraps has five times as many salesmen". With the death of Founding Father Thomas J. Watson Sr. on June 19, 1956 at age 82, IBM experienced its first leadership change in more than four decades. The mantle of chief executive fell to his eldest son, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., IBM's president since 1952.


title: History of IBM

text: The new chief executive faced a daunting task. The company was in the midst of a period of rapid technological change, with nascent computer technologies – electronic computers, magnetic tape storage, disk drives, programming – creating new competitors and market uncertainties. Internally, the company was growing by leaps and bounds, creating organizational pressures and significant management challenges. Lacking the force of personality that Watson Sr. had long used to bind IBM together, Watson Jr. and his senior executives privately wondered if the new generation of leadership was up to challenge of managing a company through this tumultuous period. "We are," wrote one longtime IBM executive in 1956, "in grave danger of losing our "eternal" values that are as valid in electronic days as in mechanical counter days."


title: History of IBM

text: Watson Jr. responded by drastically restructuring the organization mere months after his father died, creating a modern management structure that enabled him to more effectively oversee the fast-moving company. He codified well known but unwritten IBM practices and philosophy into formal corporate policies and programs – such as IBM's Three Basic Beliefs, and Open Door and Speak Up! Perhaps the most significant of which was his shepherding of the company's first equal opportunity policy letter into existence in 1953, one year before the U.S. Supreme Court decision in "Brown vs. Board of Education" and 11 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.


title: History of IBM

text: He continued to expand the company's physical capabilities – in 1952 IBM San Jose launched a storage development laboratory that pioneered disk drives. Major facilities would later follow in Rochester, Minnesota; Greencastle, Indiana; Kingston, New York; and Lexington, Kentucky. Concerned that IBM was too slow in adapting transistor technology Watson requested a corporate policy regarding their use, resulting in this unambiguous 1957 product development policy statement: "It shall be the policy of IBM to use solid-state circuitry in all machine developments. Furthermore, no new commercial machines or devices shall be announced which make primary use of tube circuitry."


title: History of IBM

text: Watson Jr. also continued to partner with the United States government to drive computational innovation. The emergence of the Cold War accelerated the government's growing awareness of the significance of digital computing and drove major Department of Defense supported computer development projects in the 1950s. Of these, none was more important than the SAGE interceptor early detection air defense system.


title: History of IBM

text: In 1952, IBM began working with MIT's Lincoln Laboratory to finalize the design of an air defense computer. The merger of academic and business engineering cultures proved troublesome, but the two organizations finally hammered out a design by the summer of 1953, and IBM was awarded the contract to build two prototypes in September. In 1954, IBM was named as the primary computer hardware contractor for developing SAGE for the United States Air Force. Working on this massive computing and communications system, IBM gained access to pioneering research being done at Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the first real-time, digital computer. This included working on many other computer technology advancements such as magnetic core memory, a large real-time operating system, an integrated video display, light guns, the first effective algebraic computer language, analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion techniques, digital data transmission over telephone lines, duplexing, multiprocessing, and geographically distributed networks. IBM built fifty-six SAGE computers at the price of US$30 million each, and at the peak of the project devoted more than 7,000 employees (20% of its then workforce) to the project. SAGE had the largest computer footprint ever and continued in service until 1984.


title: History of IBM

text: More valuable to IBM in the long run than the profits from governmental projects, however, was the access to cutting-edge research into digital computers being done under military auspices. IBM neglected, however, to gain an even more dominant role in the nascent industry by allowing the RAND Corporation to take over the job of programming the new computers, because, according to one project participant, Robert P. Crago, "we couldn't imagine where we could absorb two thousand programmers at IBM when this job would be over someday, which shows how well we were understanding the future at that time." IBM would use its experience designing massive, integrated real-time networks with SAGE to design its SABRE airline reservation system, which met with much success.


title: History of IBM

text: These government partnerships, combined with pioneering computer technology research and a series of commercially successful products (IBM's 700 series of computer systems, the IBM 650, the IBM 305 RAMAC (with disk drive memory), and the IBM 1401) enabled IBM to emerge from the 1950s as the world's leading technology firm. Watson Jr. had answered his self-doubt. In the five years since the passing of Watson Sr., IBM was two and a half times bigger, its stock had quintupled, and of the 6000 computers in operation in the United States, more than 4000 were IBM machines.


title: History of IBM

text: On April 7, 1964, IBM introduced the revolutionary System/360, the first large "family" of computers to use interchangeable software and peripheral equipment, a departure from IBM's existing product line of incompatible machines, each of which was designed to solve specific customer requirements. The idea of a general-purpose machine was considered a gamble at the time. Within two years, the System/360 became the dominant mainframe computer in the marketplace and its architecture became a de facto industry standard. During this time, IBM transformed from a medium-sized maker of tabulating equipment and typewriters into the world's largest computer company.


title: History of IBM

text: In 1969 IBM "unbundled" software and services from hardware sales. Until this time customers did not pay for software or services separately from the very high price for the hardware. Software was provided at no additional charge, generally in source code form. Services (systems engineering, education and training, system installation) were provided free of charge at the discretion of the IBM Branch office. This practice existed throughout the industry. IBM's unbundling is widely credited with leading to the growth of the software industry. After the unbundling, IBM software was divided into two main categories: System Control Programming (SCP), which remained free to customers, and Program Products (PP), which were charged for. This transformed the customer's value proposition for computer solutions, giving a significant monetary value to something that had hitherto essentially been free. This helped enable the creation of the software industry. Similarly, IBM services were divided into two categories: general information, which remained free and provided at the discretion of IBM, and on-the-job assistance and training of customer personnel, which were subject to a separate charge and were open to non-IBM customers. This decision vastly expanded the market for independent computing services companies.


title: History of IBM

text: The company began four decades of Olympic sponsorship with the 1960 Winter Games in Squaw Valley, California. It became a recognized leader in corporate social responsibility, joining federal equal opportunity programs in 1962, opening an inner-city manufacturing plant in 1968, and creating a minority supplier program. It led efforts to improve data security and protect privacy. It set environmental air/water emissions standards that exceeded those dictated by law and brought all its facilities into compliance with those standards. It opened one of the world's most advanced research centers in Yorktown, New York. Its international operations grew rapidly, producing more than half of IBM's revenues by the early 1970s and through technology transfer shaping the way governments and businesses operated around the world. Its personnel and technology played an integral role in the space program and landing the first men on the moon in 1969. In that same year, it changed the way it marketed its technology to customers, unbundling hardware from software and services, effectively launching today's multibillion-dollar software and services industry. See , below. It was massively profitable, with a nearly fivefold increase in revenues and earnings during the 1960s.


title: History of IBM

text: In 1967 Thomas John Watson Jr., who had succeeded his father as chairman, announced that IBM would open a large-scale manufacturing plant at Boca Raton to produce its System/360 Model 20 midsized computer. On March 16, 1967, a headline in the "Boca Raton News" announced “IBM to hire 400 by year’s end.” The plan was for IBM to lease facilities to start making computers until the new site could be developed. A few months later, hiring began for assembly and production control trainees. IBM's Juan Rianda moved from Poughkeepsie, New York, to become the first plant manager at IBM's new Boca operations. To design its new campus, IBM commissioned internationally renowned architect Marcel Breuer (1902–1981), who worked closely with American architect Robert Gatje (1927–2018). In September 1967, the Boca team celebrated a milestone, shipping its first IBM System/360 Model 20 to the City of Clearwater – the first computer in its production run. A year later, IBM 1130 Computing Systems were being produced and shipped from the 203 building. By 1969, IBM's Boca workforce had reached 1,000. That employment number grew to around 1,300 in the next year as a Systems Development Engineering Laboratory was added to the division's operations.


title: History of IBM

text: The Golden Decade of the 1960s was a hard act to follow, and the 1970s got off to a troubling start when CEO Thomas J. Watson Jr. suffered a heart attack and retired in 1971. For the first time since 1914 – nearly six decades – IBM would not have a Watson at the helm. Moreover, after just one leadership change over those nearly 60 years, IBM would endure two in two years. T. Vincent Learson succeeded Watson as CEO, then quickly retired upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60 in 1973. Following Learson in the CEO office was Frank T. Cary, a 25-year IBMer who had run the very successful data processing division in the 1960s.


title: History of IBM

text: "Datamation" in 1971 stated that "the perpetual, ominous force called IBM rolls on". The company's dominance let it keep prices high and rarely update products, all built with only IBM components. During Cary's tenure as CEO, the IBM System/370 was introduced in 1970 as IBM's new mainframe. The S/370 did not prove as technologically revolutionary as its predecessor, the System/360. From a revenue perspective, it more than sustained the cash cow status of the 360. A less successful effort to replicate the 360 mainframe revolution was the Future Systems project. Between 1971 and 1975, IBM investigated the feasibility of a new revolutionary line of products designed to make obsolete all existing products in order to re-establish its technical supremacy. This effort was terminated by IBM's top management in 1975. But by then it had consumed most of the high-level technical planning and design resources, thus jeopardizing progress of the existing product lines (although some elements of FS were later incorporated into actual products). Other IBM innovations during the early 1970s included the IBM 3340 disk unit – introduced in 1973 and known as "Winchester" after IBM's internal project name – was an advanced storage technology which more than doubled the information density on disk surfaces. Winchester technology was adopted by the industry and used for the next two decades.


title: History of IBM

text: Some 1970s-era IBM technologies emerged to become familiar facets of everyday life. IBM developed magnetic stripe technology in the 1960s, and it became a credit card industry standard in 1971. The IBM-invented floppy disk, also introduced in 1971, became the standard for storing personal computer data during the first decades of the PC era. IBM Research scientist Edgar 'Ted' Codd wrote a seminal paper describing the relational database, an invention that "Forbes" magazine described as one of the most important innovations of the 20th century. The IBM 5100, 50 lbs. and $9000 of personal mobility, was introduced in 1975 and presaged – at least in function if not size or price or units sold – the Personal Computer of the 1980s. IBM's 3660 supermarket checkout station, introduced in 1973, used holographic technology to scan product prices from the now-ubiquitous UPC bar code, which itself was based a 1952 IBM patent that became a grocery industry standard. Also in 1973, bank customers began making withdrawals, transfers and other account inquiries via the IBM 3614 Consumer Transaction Facility, an early form of today's Automatic Teller Machines.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM had an innovator's role in pervasive technologies that were less visible as well. In 1974, IBM announced Systems Network Architecture (SNA), a networking protocol for computing systems. SNA is a uniform set of rules and procedures for computer communications to free computer users from the technical complexities of communicating through local, national, and international computer networks. SNA became the most widely used system for data processing until more open architecture standards were approved in the 1990s. In 1975, IBM researcher Benoit Mandelbrot conceived fractal geometry – a new geometrical concept that made it possible to describe mathematically the kinds of irregularities existing in nature. Fractals had a great impact on engineering, economics, metallurgy, art and health sciences, and are integral to the field of computer graphics and animation.


title: History of IBM

text: A less successful business endeavor for IBM was its entry into the office copier market in the 1970s, after turning down the opportunity to purchase the xerography technology. The company was immediately sued by Xerox Corporation for patent infringement. Although Xerox held the patents for the use of selenium as a photoconductor, IBM researchers perfected the use of organic photoconductors which avoided the Xerox patents. The litigation lasted until the late 1970s and was ultimately settled. Despite this victory, IBM never gained traction in the copier market and withdrew from the marketplace in the 1980s. Organic photoconductors are now widely used in copiers.


title: History of IBM

text: Throughout this period, IBM was litigating the antitrust suit filed by the Justice Department in 1969. But in a related bit of case law, the landmark Honeywell v. Sperry Rand U.S. federal court case was concluded in April 1973. The 1964 patent for the ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer, was found both invalid and unenforceable for a variety of reasons thus putting the invention of the electronic digital computer into the public domain. Further, IBM was ruled to have created a monopoly via its 1956 patent-sharing agreement with Sperry-Rand.


title: History of IBM

text: American antitrust laws did not affect IBM in Europe, where as of 1971 it had fewer competitors and more than 50% market share in almost every country. Customers preferred IBM because it was, "Datamation" said, "the "only" truly international computer company", able to serve clients almost anywhere. Rivals such as ICL, CII, and Siemens began to cooperate to preserve a European computer industry.


title: History of IBM

text: President of IBM John R. Opel became CEO in 1981. His company was one of the world's largest and had a 62% share of the mainframe computer market that year. While frequently relocated employees and families still joked that IBM stood for "I've Been Moved", and employees of acquisitions feared that hordes of formal IBM employees would invade their more casual offices, IBM no longer required white shirts for male employees, who still wore conservative suits when meeting customers. Former employees such as Gene Amdahl used their training to found and lead many competitors and suppliers.


title: History of IBM

text: Expecting Japanese competition, IBM in the late 1970s began investing in manufacturing to lower costs, offering volume discounts and lower prices to large customers, and introducing new products more frequently. The company also sometimes used non-IBM components in products, and sometimes resold others' products as its own. In 1980 it introduced its first computer terminal compatible with non-IBM equipment, and Displaywriter was the first new product less expensive than the competition. IBM's share of the overall computer market, however, declined from 60% in 1970 to 32% in 1980. Perhaps distracted by the long-running antitrust lawsuit, the "Colossus of Armonk" completely missed the fast-growing minicomputer market during the 1970s, and was behind rivals such as Wang, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Control Data in other areas.


title: History of IBM

text: In 1979 "BusinessWeek" asked, "Is IBM just another stodgy, mature company?" By 1981 its stock price had declined by 22%. IBM's earnings for the first half the year grew by 5.3% – one third of the inflation rate – while those of minicomputer maker Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) grew by more than 35%. The company began selling minicomputers, but in January 1982 the Justice Department ended the antitrust suit because, "The New York Times" reported, the government "recognized what computer experts and securities analysts had long since concluded: I.B.M. no longer dominates the computer business".


title: History of IBM

text: IBM wished to avoid the same outcome with the new personal computer industry. The company studied the market for years and, as with UNIVAC, others like Apple Computer entered it first; IBM did not want a product with a rival's logo on corporate customers' desks. The company opened its first retail store in November 1980, and a team in the Boca Raton, Florida office built the IBM PC using commercial off-the-shelf components. The new computer debuted on August 12, 1981 from the Entry Systems Division led by Don Estridge. IBM immediately became more of a presence in the consumer marketplace, thanks to the memorable Little Tramp advertising campaign. Though not a spectacular machine by technological standards of the day, the IBM PC brought together all of the most desirable features of a computer into one small machine. It had 128 kilobytes of memory (expandable to 256 kilobytes), one or two floppy disks and an optional color monitor. And it had the prestige of the IBM brand. It was not cheap, but with a base price of US$1,565 it was affordable for businesses – and many businesses purchased PCs. Reassured by the IBM name, they began buying microcomputers on their own budgets aimed at numerous applications that corporate computer departments did not, and in many cases could not, accommodate. Typically, these purchases were not by corporate computer departments, as the PC was not seen as a "proper" computer. Purchases were often instigated by middle managers and senior staff who saw the potential – once the revolutionary VisiCalc spreadsheet, the killer app, had been surpassed by a far more powerful and stable product, Lotus 1-2-3.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM's dominance of the mainframe market in Europe and the US encouraged existing customers to buy the PC, and vice versa; as sales of what had been an experiment in a new market became a substantial part of IBM's financials, the company found that customers also bought larger IBM computers. Unlike the BUNCH and other rivals IBM quickly adjusted to the retail market, with its own sales force competing with outside retailers for the first time. By 1985 IBM was the world's most profitable industrial company, and its sales of personal computers were larger than that of minicomputers despite having been in the latter market since the early 1970s.


title: History of IBM

text: By 1983 industry analyst Gideon Gartner warned that IBM "is creating a dangerous situation for competitors in the marketplace". The company helped others by defining technical standards and creating large new software markets, but the new aggressiveness that began in the late 1970s helped it dominate areas like computer leasing and computer-aided design. Free from the antitrust case, IBM was present in every computer market other than supercomputers, and entered communications by purchasing Rolm – the first acquisition in 18 years – and 18% of MCI. The company was so important to component suppliers that it urged them to diversify. When IBM (61% of revenue) abruptly reduced orders from Miniscribe shares of not only Miniscribe but that of uninvolved companies that sold to IBM fell, as investors feared their vulnerability. IBM was also vulnerable when suppliers could not fulfill orders; customers and dealers also feared becoming overdependent.


title: History of IBM

text: The IBM PC AT's 1984 debut startled the industry. Rivals admitted that they did not expect the low price of the sophisticated product. IBM's attack on every area of the computer industry and entry into communications caused competitors, analysts, and the press to speculate that it would again be sued for antitrust. "Datamation" and others said that the company's continued growth might hurt the United States, by suppressing startups with new technology. Gartner Group estimated in 1985 that of the 100 largest data-processing companies, IBM had 41% of all revenue and 69% of profit. Its computer revenue was about nine times that of second-place DEC, and larger than that of IBM's six largest Japanese competitors combined. The 22% profit margin was three times the 6.7% average for the other 99 companies. Competitors complained to Congress, ADAPSO discussed the company with the Justice Department, and European governments worried about IBM's influence but feared affecting its more than 100,000 employees there at 19 facilities.


title: History of IBM

text: However, the company soon lost its lead in both PC hardware and software, thanks in part to its unprecedented (for IBM) decision to contract PC components to outside companies like Microsoft and Intel. Up to this point in its history, IBM relied on a vertically integrated strategy, building most key components of its systems itself, including processors, operating systems, peripherals, databases and the like. In an attempt to accelerate the time-to-market for the PC, IBM chose not to build a proprietary operating system and microprocessor. Instead, it sourced these vital components from Microsoft and Intel respectively. Ironically, in a decade which marked the end of IBM's monopoly, it was this fateful decision by IBM that passed the sources of its monopolistic power (operating system and processor architecture) to Microsoft and Intel, paving the way for rise of PC compatibles and the creation of hundreds of billions of dollars of market value outside of IBM.


title: History of IBM

text: John Akers became IBM's CEO in 1985. During the 1980s, IBM's significant investment in building a world class research organization produced four Nobel Prize winners in physics, achieved breakthroughs in mathematics, memory storage and telecommunications, and made great strides in expanding computing capabilities. In 1980, IBM Research legend John Cocke introduced Reduced Instruction Set Technology (RISC). Cocke received both the National Medal of Technology and the National Medal of Science for his innovation, but IBM itself failed to recognize the importance of RISC, and lost the lead in RISC technology to Sun Microsystems. In 1984 the company partnered with Sears to develop a pioneering online home banking and shopping service for home PCs that launched in 1988 as Prodigy. Despite a strong reputation and anticipating many of the features, functions, and technology that characterize the online experience of today, the venture was plagued by extremely conservative management decisions, and was eventually sold in the mid-1990s. The IBM token-ring local area network, introduced in 1985, permitted personal computer users to exchange information and share printers and files within a building or complex. In 1988, IBM partnered with the University of Michigan and MCI Communications to create the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNet), an important step in the creation of the Internet. But within five years the company backed away from this early lead in Internet protocols and router technologies in order to support its existing SNA cash cow, thereby missing a boom market of the 1990s. Still, IBM investments and advances in microprocessors, disk drives, network technologies, software applications, and online commerce in the 1980s set the stage for the emergence of the connected world in the 1990s.


title: History of IBM

text: But by the end of the decade, IBM was clearly in trouble. It was a bloated organization of some 400,000 employees that was heavily invested in low margin, transactional, commodity businesses. Technologies IBM invented and or commercialized – DRAM, hard disk drives, the PC, electric typewriters – were starting to erode. The company had a massive international organization characterized by redundant processes and functions – its cost structure couldn't compete with smaller, less diversified competitors. And then the back-to-back revolutions – the PC and the client-server – did the unthinkable. They combined to dramatically undermine IBM's core mainframe business. The PC revolution placed computers directly in the hands of millions of people. It was followed by the client/server revolution, which sought to link all of those PCs (the "clients") with larger computers that labored in the background (the "servers" that served data and applications to client machines). Both revolutions transformed the way customers viewed, used and bought technology. And both fundamentally rocked IBM. Businesses' purchasing decisions were put in the hands of individuals and departments – not the places where IBM had long-standing customer relationships. Piece-part technologies took precedence over integrated solutions. The focus was on the desktop and personal productivity, not on business applications across the enterprise. As a result, earnings – which had been at or above US$5 billion since the early 1980s, dropped by more than a third to US$3 billion in 1989. A brief spike in earnings in 1990 proved illusory as corporate spending continued to shift from high-profit margin mainframes to lower margin microprocessor-based systems. In addition, corporate downsizing was in full swing.


title: History of IBM

text: Akers tried to stop the bleeding – desperate moves and radical changes were considered and implemented. As IBM assessed the situation, it was clear that competition and innovation in the computer industry were now taking place along segmented, versus vertically integrated lines, where leaders emerged in their respective domains. Examples included Intel in microprocessors, Microsoft in desktop software, Novell in networking, HP in printers, Seagate in disk drives and Oracle Corporation in database software. IBM's dominance in personal computers was challenged by the likes of Compaq and later Dell. Recognizing this trend, management, with the support of the Board of Directors, began to implement a plan to split IBM into increasingly autonomous business units (e.g. processors, storage, software, services, printers, etc.) to compete more effectively with competitors that were more focused and nimble and had lower cost structures.


title: History of IBM

text: IBM also began shedding businesses that it felt were no longer core. It sold its typewriter, keyboard, and printer business – the organization that created the popular "Selectric" typewriter with its floating "golf ball" type element in the 1960s – to the investment firm of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Inc. and became an independent company, Lexmark Inc.


title: History of IBM

text: These efforts failed to halt the slide. A decade of steady acceptance and widening corporate growth of local area networking technology, a trend headed by Novell Inc. and other vendors, and its logical counterpart, the ensuing decline of mainframe sales, brought about a wake-up call for IBM. After two consecutive years of reporting losses in excess of $1 billion, on January 19, 1993, IBM announced a US$8.10 billion loss for the 1992 financial year, which was then the largest single-year corporate loss in U.S. history. All told, between 1991 and 1993, the company posted net losses of nearly $16 billion. IBM's three-decade-long Golden Age, triggered by Watson Jr. in the 1950s, was over. The computer industry now viewed IBM as no longer relevant, an organizational dinosaur. And hundreds of thousands of IBMers lost their jobs, including CEO John Akers.


title: History of IBM

text: In April 1993, IBM hired Louis V. Gerstner Jr. as its new CEO. For the first time since 1914 IBM had recruited a leader from outside its ranks. Gerstner had been chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco for four years, and had previously spent 11 years as a top executive at American Express. Gerstner brought with him a customer-oriented sensibility and the strategic-thinking expertise that he had honed through years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. Recognizing that his first priority was to stabilize the company, he adopted a triage mindset and took quick, dramatic action. His early decisions included recommitting to the mainframe, selling the Federal Systems Division to Loral in order to replenish the company's cash coffers, continuing to shrink the workforce (reaching a low of 220,000 employees in 1994), and driving significant cost reductions within the company. Most importantly, Gerstner decided to reverse the move to spin off IBM business units into separate companies. He recognized that one of IBM's enduring strengths was its ability to provide integrated solutions for customers – someone who could represent more than piece parts or components. Splitting the company would have destroyed that unique IBM advantage.


title: History of IBM

text: These initial steps worked. IBM was in the black by 1994, turning a profit of $3 billion. Stabilization was not Gerstner's endgame – the restoration of IBM's once great reputation was. To do that, he needed to devise a winning business strategy. Over the next decade, Gerstner crafted a business model that shed commodity businesses and focused on high-margin opportunities. IBM divested itself of low margin industries (DRAM, IBM Network, personal printers, and hard drives). The company regained the business initiative by building upon the decision to keep the company whole – it unleashed a global services business that rapidly rose to become a leading technology integrator. Crucial to this success was the decision to become brand agnostic – IBM integrated whatever technologies the client required, even if they were from an IBM competitor. IBM augmented this services business with the 2002 acquisition of the consultancy division of PricewaterhouseCoopers for $3.5 billion US.


title: History of IBM

text: Another high margin opportunity IBM invested heavily in was software, a strategic move that proved equally visionary. Starting in 1995 with its acquisition of Lotus Development Corp., IBM built up its software portfolio from one brand, IBM DB2, to five: DB2, Lotus, WebSphere, Tivoli, and Rational. Content to leave the consumer applications business to other firms, IBM's software strategy focused on middleware – the vital software that connects operating systems to applications. The middleware business played to IBM's strengths, and its higher margins improved the company's bottom line significantly as the century came to an end.


title: History of IBM

text: Not all software that IBM developed was successful. While OS/2 was arguably technically superior to Microsoft Windows 95, OS/2 sales were largely concentrated in networked computing used by corporate professionals. OS/2 failed to develop much penetration in the consumer and stand-alone desktop PC segments. There were reports that it could not be installed properly on IBM's own Aptiva series of home PCs. Microsoft made an offer in 1994 where if IBM ended development of OS/2 completely, then it would receive the same terms as Compaq for a license of Windows 95. IBM refused and instead went with an "IBM First" strategy of promoting OS/2 Warp and disparaging Windows, as IBM aimed to drive sales of its own software and hardware. By 1995, Windows 95 negotiations between IBM and Microsoft, which were difficult, stalled when IBM purchased Lotus Development whose Lotus SmartSuite would have directly competed with Microsoft Office. As a result, IBM received their license later than their competitors which hurt sales of IBM PCs. IBM officials later conceded that OS/2 would not have been a viable operating system to keep them in the PC business.


title: History of IBM

text: While IBM hardware and technologies were relatively de-emphasized in Gerstner's three-legged business model, they were not relegated to secondary status. The company brought its world-class research organization to bear more closely on its existing product lines and development processes. While Internet applications and deep computing overtook client servers as key business technology priorities, mainframes returned to relevance. IBM reinvigorated their mainframe line with CMOS technologies, which made them among the most powerful and cost-efficient in the marketplace. Investments in microelectronics research and manufacturing made IBM a world leader in specialized, high margin chip production – it developed 200 mm wafer processes in 1992, and 300 mm wafers within the decade. IBM-designed chips were used in PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii game consoles. IBM also regained the lead in supercomputing with high-end machines based upon scalable parallel processor technology.


title: History of IBM

text: Equally significant in IBM's revival was its successful reentry into the popular mindset. Part of this revival was based on IBM technology. On October 5, 1992, at the COMDEX computer expo, IBM announced the first ThinkPad laptop computer, the 700C. The ThinkPad, a premium machine which then cost US$4350, included a 25 MHz Intel 80486SL processor, a 10.4-inch active matrix display, removable 120 MB hard drive, 4 MB RAM (expandable to 16 MB) and a TrackPoint II pointing device. The striking black design by noted designer Richard Sapper made the ThinkPad an immediate hit with the digerati, and the cool factor of the ThinkPad brought back some of the cachet to the IBM brand that was lost in the PC wars of the 1980s. Instrumental to this popular resurgence was the 1997 chess match between IBM's chess-playing computer system Deep Blue and reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue's victory was a historic first for a computer over a reigning world champion. Also helping the company reclaim its position as a technology leader was its annual domination of supercomputer rankings and patent leadership statistics. Ironically, a serendipitous contributor in reviving the company's reputation was the Dot-com bubble collapse in 2000, where many of the edgy technology high flyers of the 1990s failed to survive the downturn. These collapses discredited some of the more fashionable Internet-driven business models that stodgy IBM was previously compared against.


title: History of IBM

text: Another part of the successful reentry into the popular mindset was the company's revival of the IBM brand. The company's marketing during the economic downturn was chaotic, presenting many different, sometimes discordant voices in the marketplace. This brand chaos was attributable in part to the company having 70 different advertising agencies in its employ. In 1994, IBM eliminated this chaos by consolidating its advertising in one agency. The result was a coherent, consistent message to the marketplace.


title: History of IBM

text: As IBM recovered its financial footing and its industry leadership position, the company remained aggressive in preaching to the industry that it was not the Old IBM, that it had learned from its near-death experiences, and that it had been fundamentally changed by them. It sought to redefine the Internet age in ways that played to traditional IBM strengths, couching the discussion in business-centric manners with initiatives like e-commerce and On Demand. And it supported open source initiatives, forming collaborative ventures with partners and competitors alike.