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IBM International Business Machines Corporation An Overview Founded: Endicott, New York, U.S. (1889, incorporated 1911)

Logos

Headquarters: Armonk, New York, USA

Chairman, President and CEO: Samuel J. Palmisano. Mark Loughridge (SVP and CFO) President -Canada Dan Fortin. Frank Kern (Senior Vice President, IBM Global Business Services)

Key people: Nick Donofrio (Executive Vice President - Innovation & Technology) Mike Rhodin (President IOT Northeast Europe) Dominique Cerutti (President IOT Southwest Europe)

Industry: Computer hardware Computer software IT Services

Revenue: 103.6 billion US$(2008).

Net income: 12.3 billion US$ (2008)

Employees:

398,455 (2009)

Subsidiaries: ADSTAR File Net ILOG Informix Iris Associates Lotus Software Rational Software Sequent Computer Systems Telelogic Tivoli Systems, Inc.

History

The company which became IBM was founded in 1896 as the Tabulating Machine Company by Herman Hollerith, in Broome County, New York (Endicott, New York or Binghamton, New York), where it still maintains very limited operations. It was incorporated as Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR) on June 16, 1911, and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1916. CTR's Canadian and later South American subsidiary was named International Business Machines in 1917, and the whole company took this name in 1924 when Thomas J. Watson took control.

Selected current projects Developer Works Developer Works is a website run by IBM for software developers and IT professionals. It contains a small number of how-to articles and tutorials, as well as software downloads and code samples, discussion forums, podcasts, blogs, wikis, and other resources for developers and technical professionals. Subjects range from open, industry-standard technologies like Java, Linux, SOA and web services, web development, Ajax, PHP, and XML to IBM's products (WebSphere, Rational, Lotus, Tivoli and DB2). In 2007

developerWorks was inducted into the Jolt Hall of Fame. IBM, hospital develop 3D patient record software (Thursday, 12 Mar, 2009).

Alpha Works Alpha Works is IBM's source for emerging software technologies. These technologies include: • • • • • •

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Flexible Internet Evaluation Report Architecture: A highly flexible architecture for the design, display, and reporting of Internet surveys. IBM History Flow Visualization Application - A tool for visualizing dynamic, evolving documents and the interactions of multiple collaborating authors. IBM Linux on POWER Performance Simulator - A tool that provides users of Linux on Power a set of performance models for IBM's POWER processors. Database File Archive And Restoration Management - An application for archiving and restoring hard disk files using file references stored in a database. Policy Management for Autonomic Computing - A policy-based autonomic management infrastructure that simplifies the automation of IT and business processes. FairUCE - A spam filter that verifies sender identity instead of filtering content. Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) SDK - A Java SDK that supports the implementation, composition, and deployment of applications working with unstructured information. Accessibility Browser - A web-browser specifically designed to assist people with visual impairments, to be released as open-source software. Also known as the "A-Browser," the technology will aim to eliminate the need for a mouse, relying instead completely on voice-controls, buttons and predefined shortcut keys.

Environmental record: IBM has a long history of dealing with environmental problems. It established a corporate policy on environmental protection in 1971, with the support of a comprehensive global environmental management system. According to IBM, its total hazardous waste decreased by 44% over the past five years, and has decreased by 94.6% since 1987. IBM's total hazardous waste calculation consists of waste from both nonmanufacturing and manufacturing operations. Waste from manufacturing operations includes waste recycled in closed-loop systems where process chemicals are recovered for subsequent reuse, rather than just disposing of them and using new chemical materials. Over the years, IBM has redesigned processes to eliminate almost all closed loop recycling and now uses more environmental-friendly materials in their place. IBM has also now built a modelling solution to help protect the environment and reduce its own Carbon Footprint using Lean and Six Sigma principles Green Sigma

IBM was recognized as one of the "Top 20 Best Workplaces for Commuters" by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2005. The award was to recognize Fortune 500 companies which provided employees with excellent commuter benefits to help reduce traffic and air pollution.[15] The birthplace of IBM, Endicott, suffered pollution for decades, however. IBM used liquid cleaning agents in circuit board assembly operation for more than two decades, and six spills and leaks were recorded, including one leak in 1979 of 4,100 gallons from an underground tank. These left behind volatile organic compounds in the town's soil and aquifer. Trace elements of volatile organic compounds have been identified in Endicott’s drinking water, but the levels are within regulatory limits. Also, from 1980, IBM has pumped out 78,000 gallons of chemicals, including trichloroethane, Freon, benzene and perchloroethene to the air and allegedly caused several cancer cases among the villagers. IBM Endicott has been identified by the Department of Environmental Conservation as the major source of pollution, though traces of contaminants from a local dry cleaner and other polluters were also found. Despite the amount of pollutant, state health officials could not verify whether air or water pollution in Endicott has actually caused any health problems. According to village officials, tests show that the water is safe to drink.

Solar power: Tokyo Ohkla industrial area Kogyo Co., Ltd. (TOK) and IBM are collaborating to establish new, low-cost methods for bringing the next generation of solar energy products, called CIGS (Copper-Indium-Gallium-Selenide) solar cell modules, to market. Use of thin film technology, such as CIGS, has great promise in reducing the overall cost of solar cells and further enabling their widespread adoption.[17][18] IBM is exploring four main areas of photovoltaic research: using current technologies to develop cheaper and more efficient silicon solar cells, developing new solution processed thin film photovoltaic devices, concentrator photovoltaics, and future generation photovoltaic architectures based upon nanostructures such as semiconductor quantum dots and nanowires.

Corporate culture of IBM:

Big Blue is a nickname for IBM. There are several theories explaining the origin of the name. One theory, substantiated by people who worked for IBM at the time, is that IBM field representatives coined the term in the 1960s, referring to the color of the mainframes IBM installed in the 1960s and early 1970s. "All blue" was a term used to describe a loyal IBM customer, and business writers later picked up the term.Another theory suggests that Big Blue simply refers to the Company's logo. A third theory suggests that Big Blue refers to a former company dress code that required many IBM employees to wear only white shirts and many wore blue suits. In any event, IBM

keyboards, typewriters, and some other manufactured devices, have played on the "Big Blue" concept, using the color for enter keys and carriage returns.

Sales: IBM has often been described as having a sales-centric or a sales-oriented business culture. Traditionally, many IBM executives and general managers are chosen from sales force. The current CEO, Sam Palmisano, for example, joined the company as a salesman and, unusual for CEOs of major corporations, has no MBA or post-graduate qualification. Middle and top management are often enlisted to give direct support to salesmen when pitching sales to important customers.

The uniform: A dark (or gray) suit, white shirt, and a "sincere" tie] was the public uniform for IBM employees for most of the 20th century. During IBM's management transformation in the 1990s, CEO Lou Gerstner relaxed these codes, normalizing the dress and behavior of IBM employees to resemble their counterparts in other large technology companies.

IBM company values and "Jam": In 2003, IBM embarked on an ambitious project to rewrite company values. Using its Jam technology, the company hosted Intranet-based online discussions on key business issues with 50,000 employees over 3 days. The discussions were analyzed by sophisticated text analysis software (eClassifier) to mine online comments for themes. As a result of the 2003 Jam, the company values were updated to reflect three modern business, marketplace and employee views: "Dedication to every client's success", "Innovation that matters - for our company and for the world", "Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships". In 2004, another Jam was conducted during which 52,000 employees exchanged best practices for 72 hours. They focused on finding actionable ideas to support implementation of the values previously identified. A new post-Jam Ratings event was developed to allow IBMers to select key ideas that support the values. The board of directors cited this Jam when awarding Palmisano a pay rise in the spring of 2005. IBM launched another jam session called InnovationJam 2008.[27] This jam began on October 5 at 6:00 p.m. US EDT and continued for 72 hours through October 8. Unlike past jams, Innovation Jam 2008 involved wide participation from hundreds of IBM's clients, business partners and academics from around the world as well as thousands of IBM's own employees.

Open source: IBM has been a leading proponent of the Open Source Initiative, and began supporting Linux in 1998.[28] The company invests billions of dollars in services and software based on Linux through the IBM Linux Technology Center, which includes over 300 Linux kernel developers.[29] IBM has also released code under different open-source licenses, such as the platform-independent software framework Eclipse (worth approximately US$40 million at the time of the donation),[30] the three-sentence International Components for Unicode (ICU) license, and the Java-based relational database management system (RDBMS) Apache Derby. IBM's open source involvement has not been trouble-free, however

Corporate affairs: Diversity and workforce issues: During the holocaust, IBM's New York headquarters and CEO Thomas J. Watson acted through its overseas subsidiaries to provide the Third Reich with punch card machines that could help the Nazis track down the European Jewry (especially in newly conquered territory). The book, IBM and the Holocaust, by Edwin Black, quotes extensively from numerous IBM and government memos and letters that describe how New York-based IBM, its Geneva office and its German subsidiary, Dehomag, were intimately involved in supporting Nazi oppression. The book also includes IBM's internal reports that admit that these machines made the Nazi's efforts much more efficient. IBM has consistently refused calls by Jewish, Gypsy, survivor, and veterans groups to apologize for its involvement with the Nazi regime. IBM has never contradicted any of the evidence or facts in the books or the many documentaries nor has it disputed Black's allegations, but claimed it has no real information on the period and has questioned the research done and the conclusions made. IBM's efforts to promote workforce diversity and equal opportunity date back at least to World War I, when the company hired disabled veterans. IBM was the only technology company ranked in Working Mother magazine's Top 10 for 2004, and one of two technology companies in 2005 (the other company being Hewlett-Packard).[31][32] On September 21, 1953, Thomas J. Watson, the CEO at the time, sent out a controversial letter to all IBM employees stating that IBM needed to hire the best people, regardless of their race, ethnic origin, or gender. In 1984, IBM added sexual preference. He stated that this would give IBM a competitive advantage because IBM would then be able to hire talented people its competitors would turn down.[33] The company has traditionally resisted labor union organizing, although unions represent some IBM workers outside the United States.

In the 1990s, two major pension program changes, including a conversion to a cash balance plan, resulted in an employee class action lawsuit alleging age discrimination. IBM employees won the lawsuit and arrived at a partial settlement, although appeals are still underway. IBM also settled a major overtime class-action lawsuit in 2006.[34] Historically, IBM has had a good reputation of long-term staff retention with few large scale layoffs. Recently, there have been a number of broad cuts to the workforce as IBM attempts to adapt to changing market conditions and declining profits. After posting weaker than expected revenues in the first quarter of 2005, IBM eliminated 14,500 positions, predominantly in Europe. In May 2005, IBM Ireland announced that the MD (Micro-electronics Division) facility was closing down by the end of the year and offered a settlement to staff. However, all staff that wished to stay with the Company were redeployed within IBM Ireland. The production moved to a company called Amkor in Singapore who purchased IBM's Microelectronics business in Singapore and is widely agreed that IBM promised this Company a full load capacity in return for the purchase of the facility. On June 8, 2005, IBM Canada Ltd. eliminated approximately 700 positions. IBM projects the moves as part of a strategy to "rebalance" its portfolio of professional skills and businesses. IBM India and other IBM offices in China, the Philippines and Costa Rica have been witnessing a recruitment boom and steady growth in number of employees due to lower wages. On October 10, 2005, IBM became the first major company in the world to formally commit to not using genetic information in employment decisions. The announcement came just a few months after IBM stated its support of the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project.

Gay rights: IBM provides same-sex partners of its employees with health benefits and provides an anti-discrimination clause. The Human Rights Campaign has consistently rated IBM 100% on its index of gay-friendliness since 2003 (in 2002, the year it began compiling its report on major companies, IBM scored 86%).[35] In 2007, IBM UK was ranked the first in the Stonewall UK annual workplace equality index.[36] IBM has won over forty gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender awards globally.[37] As part of IBM's diversity program, there is a GLBT Diversity Network Group, as well as a GLBT employee group (called EAGLE - Employee Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Empowerment) with over 1000 registered members worldwide.