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IBM portfolio isn't targeted to consumers like Apple's or other companies, even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name. The only consumer facin
by avereveard 5y ago
IBM portfolio isn't targeted to consumers like Apple's or other companies, even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name. The only consumer facing product they had for the longest time were cash registers, and those aren't particularly hip as to live in consumer imagination
Edit: in today episode, hacker news forget they're a niche cohort.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago> even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name IBM was synonymous with PC for quite some time.
- avidpsychlist 5y agoyeah, in my early youth "IBM" or "IBM Compatible" (for the value shoppers out there, such as my family) was very much a household name...if your household had a computer at all, that is.
- lancefisher 5y agoThis is true. You had an IBM or an IBM compatible PC running DOS and then Windows. I was well aware of IBM at a young age.
- browningstreet 5y agoHow many times was that phrase used in computer magazines? I kind of forgot about it, this thread has brought me back to the days I would sift through computer magazines at book stores.
- avereveard 5y agoAt a time when pc weren't household items, that came about quite later
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mech422 5y agoPC's were big in the 80s, and 'PC' meant IBM PC (or clone). The rest of us had 'commodore's or 'atari's - we didn't have 'pc's. It was also the heyday of computer magazine's from PC shopper to DDJ and Compute! Computers weren't as unknown back then as people like to think.. So I'd argue IBM was a household name as far back as the mid-80s.
- ghaff 5y agoMuch longer ago than that. I'm quite certain that long before there even was an IBM PC and almost certainly before I touched an IBM Selectric, I would have known IBM as a computer company. If someone in the 1960s had been asked to name a computer company, they would have named IBM and I'm not talking about nerdy niche audiences.
- ComputerGuru 5y agoIt even overlapped with the period AOL was a thing. Unless you’re suggesting that wasn’t a household name, either.
- ulzeraj 5y agoRemember when IBM tech powered every popular video game console? Not long ago. I thought having POWER machines for gaming was very cool. It didn't worked out for some reason.
- kjs3 5y agoI dunno. I thought it worked out pretty well...it just didn't last into subsequent generations. But then, in gaming consoles, up until the current fad of "meh...just make it a PC", every generation of console was, architecturally speaking, new territory.
- op00to 5y agoIBM was synonymous with COMPUTERS for quite some time.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoThose PC ads featuring a Charlie Chaplin lookalike was well known.
- pessimizer 5y ago> even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name. This is not true.
- excitom 5y agoThe IBM Selectric typewriter was ubiquitous in offices everywhere, and IBM copiers and printers were quite prevalent.
- avereveard 5y agoin offices
- QuesnayJr 5y agoIn IBM's heydey, everyone knew who IBM was. Even before the PC, IBM was synonymous with "computer". People knew computers were important, even if they had never seen one outside of a movie.
- trimbo 5y ago> even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name I'm curious to see data on this. My guess is that in the early to mid 80s, IBM had to have been the top consumer technology brand. At least in knowledge of the brand, even if they didn't own one. Their Charlie Chaplin ads were everywhere, then they spent an enormous amount of money marketing PCjr[1]. [1] - "As part of $32.5 million in advertising for the computer during 1984, it began what the company described as the most extensive marketing campaign in IBM history, in which 98% of Americans would see at least 30 PCjr advertisements in the last four months of the year". (From Wikipedia)
- indymike 5y agoIBM was synonymous with high tech in the 1970s and 1980s. From the Styx song Mr. Roboto, "...my blood is boiling, my brain IBM". They were a huge deal.
- mixmastamyk 5y agoInformation Society, the band also had a few IBM references in their geeky repertoire.
- deckard1 5y agomy impression of the mid '90s was that IBM also spent a boatload on OS/2 Warp marketing as well. But by that time everyone was on Windows and wanted Windows95. The ads for Warp were everywhere, in print and on TV. IBM seemed to be reliving the same mistakes they made with the PS/2 and micro channel arch.
- agumonkey 5y agoI can't picture IBM being consumer.. they were too deep and too big. They didn't speak mainstream .. Jobs had some stuff to sell (aesthetics, art, culture) .. IBM had 'enterprise grade'.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
- bluedevil2k 5y agoThe IBM Thinkpad was probably the most well known laptop brand for 10-15 years. Even now I would guess people still equate “Thinkpad” with IBM even though they sold it off to Lenovo 15 years ago.
- twiddling 5y agoAs an IBMer at the time, I remember having conversations about how that decision would ultimately doom IBM to irrelevance since it would remove IBM entirely from the consumer market...
- bluedevil2k 5y agoDon’t forget they sold the tiny HDD division to Hitachi (I believe) in like 1999 or 2000, which went on to earn billions from the iPod. Not a lot of good business decisions coming out of IBM.
- to11mtm 5y agoBut... one sometimes has to ask -whether- it would have happened if they didn't sell it off. I feel like any deal involving IBM at that level would involve some absurd amount of bureaucracy, even back then.
- cptnapalm 5y agoDespite not having one, I was mystified by such the obviously terrible idea of selling off the daily "I love my IBM" from who knows how many tech people's lives.
- MattGaiser 5y ago> even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name. Even if this were the case, they would have been part of nearly every office in one way or another and they certainly are not now.
- jodrellblank 5y agoAs far as I'm concerned, the term "PC" comes from the "IBM PC"[1] > "The PC was IBM's first attempt to sell a computer through retail channels [...] they partnered with the retail chains ComputerLand and Sears Roebuck" > "Reception was overwhelmingly positive [...] the IBM PC immediately became the talk of the entire computing industry.[38] Dealers were overwhelmed with orders [...] By the time the machine was shipping, the term "PC" was becoming a household name.[39] [...] Sales exceeded IBM's expectations by as much as 800%, shipping 40,000 PCs a month at one point.[40] The company estimate that 50 to 70% of PCs sold in retail stores went to the home." It is worth noting how small the market was at the time though, "In 1983 they sold more than 750,000 machines" - Apple has just passed 100,000,000 iPhone 12s in six months since launch. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer
- avereveard 5y ago> It is worth noting how small the market was at the time though, "In 1983 they sold more than 750,000 machines" - Apple has just passed 100,000,000 iPhone 12s in six months since launch. which is the goddamn point. it was a name in tech circles, and this community forgets how small tech circles were back then heck, someone even cited the cell processor in playstation. outside the nerdiest of gamers, very few actually cared, and the name that stuck and resonated from that item was playstation, not ibm anyway. want some name that public would recognize in the 80s? try nintendo and sega. >>>> I told my teen children "... a company like IBM". To what they said "what is IBM??" kid back then would have had the same reaction as the gp kids at hearing ibm. this community is completely out of touch and filled with vitriol.
- ghaff 5y agoIn 1970, IBM was #5 on the Fortune 500. Now, a young kid might not have heard of them because they never saw the logo on anything or used any of their products. But I'm pretty sure any reasonably well-educated adult [ADDED: or college student/probably teen] would have heard of them just like they would have heard of most of the largest US companies.
- sedatk 5y ago> even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name In addition to other examples in the thread, OS/2 Warp was a direct competitor to Windows 95. We could be using OS/2 today instead of Windows had it become successful.
- cmxch 5y ago> cash registers Don't you mean NCR, even in light of what IBM did for cash registers?
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThere were IBM cash registers and they outperformed modern equipment in scanner performance by a wide margin 30 years ago. That division was sold off to Toshiba.
- listenallyall 5y agoNot a household name? Not hip? Lacking imagination? "How're you gonna do it? You're gonna PS/2 it!"
- reggieband 5y agoIt's funny because when I read something like this (and your pretty harsh replies) I feel attacked! I mean, there are a lot of reasons you might say this including but not limited to: you weren't alive (or were too young) in the 70s/80s, you were in a country that had a different culture, you grew up in your own bubble. And maybe, just maybe, my memory is bad. But I really feel almost gaslit. Like where someone is telling me my lived experience wasn't my lived experience. I remember IBM as one of the most recognizable brands of the time. I recall in social studies class a teacher talking about how IBM sold calculating devices to Nazi Germany during the war. I remember another class where we discussed IBMs infamous "THINK" posters, which we discussed in relation to propaganda and subliminal messaging. I remember that THINK poster showing up as a gag in the early Simpsons TV show. When Apple made the famous super bowl commercial where the athlete throws a sledge-hammer at the George Orwell-esque Big Brother screen, every news outlet was going on-and-on about how it was a direct attack on IBM and the stodgy perception that PCs were only for business. And of course the whole Deep Blue chess match. Heck, even the Jeopardy Watson thing had IBM branding all over it. In all of those cases IBM had a cultural currency that anchored the discussion. I would honestly be completely and genuinely surprised to find any people in my age group born and raised in North America wouldn't immediately recognize the IBM brand. When I think of niche tech brands from that time I believe Oracle and Cisco fit that "you only know if you know" kind of niche. But IBM? It actually feels so completely unbelievable to me that it can't be true. But hey, maybe you're right and I'm wrong?