Technology and Culture

Iconic company IBM and its predecessors dominated the punch card and the large or mainframe computer industries until the 1980s. First, under Herman Hollerith and Thomas J. Watson Sr., it shaped and reshaped punched card technology dating from the 1880s to the 1960s. Then, Watson’s son and successor, Thomas (Tom) J. Watson Jr., led the company in forming mainframe computers until the 1970s. The company’s history since the 1980s, however, is more complex. IBM developed the personal computer, then produced and sold millions of them, but earned less than anticipated from both its mainframe and PC activities. The company refocused to software and consulting, sold its PC operations in 2005, and the IBM brand became less conspicuous.

The success of this influential American company has been the theme of many books, mostly focusing on IBM’s technology, business administration, or individual leaders. His academic training as a historian and career provide a unique background for writing this terrific work. Cortada was employed at IBM for thirty-eight years in sales, consulting, and managerial positions in the United States. He studied IBM’s history while at the company, giving him insight in especially the troubled period from the 1980s. The author discusses every aspect of the company’s strategy, business issues, technologies, and products. He explains sales and marketing practices in detail and their role in IBM’s corporate culture. The book also explores how various parts of IBM, customers, government officials, and the media impacted the company’s development. [End Page 978]

Cortada’s work provides significant contributions to the scholarly discourse on the history of technology. First, this book is a comprehensive history of IBM, from its origins to the present. This is the first such history since the 1990s and is based on the large body of literature on IBM and the punched card and computer industry.

Second, the discussions on the U.S. antitrust cases against IBM from 1952–56 and from 1969–82 show how these affected the company’s strategy and operations. The public antitrust discourse tends to portray the conduct and organization of large business corporations as an issue between them and consumers or public regulators. The complementary narrative, however, shows how government antitrust activities shaped companies. The author was at IBM during the final antitrust case—it lasted for twelve years and was ultimately abandoned by the government. He discusses the case’s economic cost for IBM and documents how it influenced the company’s strategy and operations during the investigations and afterwards. He argues convincingly that it was one reason for the company’s crisis from the 1980s.

Third, the book’s most important contribution is its well-documented and coherent narrative and analysis of IBM’s problems since the 1980s. The author competently combines public media and company employees’ social media material with his own interviews with key individuals. IBM’s corporate culture nourished career possibilities, attracting talented individuals who stayed at the company for decades. From the 1980s, IBM’s shareholder-focused financial management dismantled the company culture, and employees came and went, reducing commitment to the company. In addition, the author argues that IBM had developed a corporate “sclerosis” of over-bureaucratization that impeded its ability to adapt. A generation of senior executives was out of touch and unprepared to respond to new consumer demand, in a way resembling the previous presidents’ responses. The momentum in emerging computer technologies shifted away from IBM.

Cortada’s work engages with the scholarly management literature on the evolution of large businesses, illustrating how they can rise and fall. Historians of technology should read this well-written narrative to complement the extensive technology focused ICT literature and to appreciate the role of business administration and company culture in shaping technology. [End Page 979]