Think; A Biography of the Watsons and IBM

New York: Stein and Day, 1972. Sixth printing. Hardcover. Good. 320 pages. Bibliography. Index. Cover has some wear and soiling. IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) is an American multinational technology company with operations in over 170 countries. The company originated in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) and was renamed "International Business Machines" in 1924. In the 1880s, technologies emerged that would ultimately form the core of International Business Machines (IBM). the computing scale in 1885; the dial recorder (1888); the Electric Tabulating Machine; and a time clock to record a worker's arrival and departure time on a paper tape in 1889. On June 16, 1911, their four companies were amalgamated by Charles Ranlett Flint forming a fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating- Recording Company (CTR). Watson joined CTR as General Manager then, 11 months later, was made President. His favorite slogan, "THINK", became a mantra for each company's employees. During Watson's first four years, revenues reached $9 million and the company's operations expanded to Europe, South America, Asia and Australia. Derived from a Kirkus review: This is a full account of the greatest growth company of the 20th century and the small town boy from Painted Post, N.Y., Thomas J. Watson who made it possible. Watson was a man of great ambition and fortitude who knew how to make the corn green, and THINK, the ""corporation crucifix,"" was emblematic of its formulated little moralities. But there was nothing small about the operation ever since, initiated by National Cash Register's Patterson, Watson converted a holding company C-T-R into IBM. Indeed, ""He has shown us how to play the game/ And how to make the dough"" which is one of the many lyrics sung in enforced unison at company clambakes. Ultimately, Tom Junior, a very different proposition, took over and accelerated IBMs postwar international spread, while considerable attention is paid here to the evolution of the computer and the scientific minds who made it possible. Mr. Rodgers makes the corporate history energetically interesting and you won't have to stop and THINK about its calculable interest for many men.