proposed edits to new 'section ' timeline the origin of ibm year gross income in m employees the roots of ibm date back the the s decades before the development of electronic computers the company was formed through a merger of three different companies the tabulating machine company with origins in washington d c in the s the international time recording company founded in endicott and the computing scale corporation founded in dayton ohio usa the merger was engineered by noted financier charles flint and the new company was called the computing tabulating recording ctr corporationmartin campbell kelly and william aspray computer a history of the information machine second edition westview press pages ctr was incorporated on june in endicott new york u s a flint remained a member of the board of ctr until his retirement in the companies that merged to form ctr manufactured a wide range of products including employee time keeping systems weighing scales automatic meat slicers coffee grinders and most importantly for the development of the computer punched card equipment the product lines were very different but flint believed that since they all focused on equipment that made businesses more efficient there were synergies and cross selling opportunities to be had based in new york city the new company had employees and offices and plants in endicott and binghamton new york dayton ohio detroit michigan washington d c and toronto ontario of the companies merged 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 drew on his work at the u s census bureau from hollerith was initially trying to reduce the time and complexity needed to tabulate the census his development of punch cards in set the industry standard for the next years of tabulating and computing data input officemuseum com early hollerith history with good photographs of period equipment the tabulating machine company originally sold some machines to a railway company but quickly focused on the challenges of the largest statistical endeavor of its day the us census after winning the government contract and completing the project with amazing speed hollerith was faced with the challenge of sustaining the company in non census years he returned to targeting private businesses both in the united states and abroad attempting to identify industry applications for his automatic punching tabulating and sorting machines but creating markets for the new technology was a struggle and by hollerith now and in failing health was looking to rest on his laurels he sold the business to flint for million of which hollerith got million who then created c t r hollerith remained involved with c t r for some years as a consultant but his involvement waned as time went on when the diversified businesses of c t r proved difficult to manage flint turned for help to the former no executive at the national cash register company thomas j watson sr watson became general manager of c t r in and president in i 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