On 25 Feb 2001, 17:22, Brian L. Johnson wrote:
> One of the more famous quotes of computerdom is from Thomas Watson, who
> as chairman of the board of IBM in 1944 said "I think that there may be
> a world market for five computers"...
>
> Well, boy was he wrong! Waaaaayy wrong. So it got me thinking, whatever
> became of him, how long did he live, and how much of the computer
> revolution did he get to see, did he ever regret his words, etc...
>
> So I guess what I'm seeking is biographical and other information on a
> Thomas Watson who happened to be chairman of IBM in the 1940s.
Here is what Biography.com writes about him:
quote: http:/www.biography.com/
Business executive, born in Cambell, New York, USA. He worked at
National Cash Register in Dayton, Ohio (1896--1911), becoming general
sales manager. During that period he learned the punch-card industry.
Sales became the driving force in all he did, particularly after he
formed International Business Machines (IBM) by merging several other
companies (1924). By 1929, IBM controlled 20 percent of the punch
device market. In the 1930s, Wallace Eckert, Howard Aiken, and others
convinced IBM to back computer research; however, Watson was slow to
embrace the new technology in the 1940s because of the competition it
represented to his mechanical devices. It was not until the early 1950s
that his son convinced him to enter the computer market and by then he
had turned IBM's operations over to his son.
endquote
Here is what IBM writes about the man and his son:
http://www.watson.ibm.com/t_j_watson_history.html
As you can read from the above paragraph, the best thing Thomas Sr. did
for IBM was to produce Thomas Jr. who had a little better vision for
the future of computers and IBM.
Alan
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
