International Business Machines


International Business Machines

(company)(IBM) The best known American computer manufacturer,founded by Thomas J. Watson (born 1874-02-17), known as "BigBlue" after the colour of its logo. IBM makes everything frommainframes to personal computers (PCs) and has beenimmensely successful in selling them, chiefly to business. Ithas often been said that "Nobody has ever been sacked forbuying IBM".

The IBM PC in its various versions has been so successfulthat unqualified reference to a "PC" almost certainly means aPC from IBM, or one of the many brands of clone produced byother manufacturers to cash in on IBM's original success.

Alternative expansions of "IBM" such as Inferior ButMarketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It'sBeen Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement, illustratethe considerable antipathy most hackers have long felt towardthe "industry leader" (see fear and loathing).

Quarterly sales $15351M, profits $689M (Aug 1994).

http://ibm.com/.