Claim: IBM is the originator of the hard disk drive.

International Business Machines Corporation -LRB- commonly referred to as IBM -RRB- is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk , New York , United States , with operations in over 170 countries . The company originated in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company -LRB- CTR -RRB- and was renamed `` International Business Machines '' in 1924 .   IBM manufactures and markets computer hardware , middleware and software , and offers hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology . IBM is also a major research organization , holding the record for most patents generated by a business -LRB- as of 2017 -RRB- for 24 consecutive years . Inventions by IBM include the automated teller machine -LRB- ATM -RRB- , the PC , the floppy disk , the hard disk drive , the magnetic stripe card , the relational database , the SQL programming language , the UPC barcode , and dynamic random-access memory -LRB- DRAM -RRB- . The IBM mainframe , exemplified by the System/360 , was the dominant computing platform during the 1960s and 1970s .   IBM has continually shifted its business mix by commoditizing markets focusing on higher-value , more profitable markets . This includes spinning off printer manufacturer Lexmark in 1991 and selling off its personal computer -LRB- ThinkPad/ThinkCentre -RRB- and x86-based server businesses to Lenovo -LRB- 2005 and 2014 , respectively -RRB- , and acquiring companies such as PwC Consulting -LRB- 2002 -RRB- , SPSS -LRB- 2009 -RRB- , and The Weather Company -LRB- 2016 -RRB- . Also in 2014 , IBM announced that it would go `` fabless '' , continuing to design semiconductors , but offloading manufacturing to GlobalFoundries .   Nicknamed Big Blue , IBM is one of 30 companies included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and one of the world 's largest employers , with -LRB- as of 2016 -RRB- nearly 380,000 employees . Known as `` IBMers '' , IBM employees have been awarded five Nobel Prizes , six Turing Awards , ten National Medals of Technology and five National Medals of Science .