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My father in law worked for IBM in the 60s-90s in chip fab / manufacturing in NY. They used to make everything down to the screws that held the machines togethe

My father in law worked for IBM in the 60s-90s in chip fab / manufacturing in NY. They used to make everything down to the screws that held the machines together, had their own paint shop, etc. By the time he left all of that was gone.

bruce511 3y ago
This is not uncommon in "new" industries. You see the same effect in cars and planes - in the early years the companies had to "do everything". Once scale is reached then companies appear that do "just on task", which then "take over" that task for the parent. This plays out at the small scale as well. When I started out writing commercial software it was very common to either sell a PC with it, or at least sell the concept of computerisation. For lots of companies this was their first computer. We were their defects IT department. 10 years goes past, and customers now already have computers. 10 more years and they have IT either on staff, or on contract. We got to go back to writing software. In the same way, yes, IBM needed to do everything. There was no off-the-shelf anything. So try make hardware, wrote software, sold services. And this is the point. IBM always existed to sell services. Everything else was to get them there. Other people made hardware. Others made software. They are left to focus on their services. This is likely revisionist history because I'm sure along the way lots of IBMers saw themselves as a hardware or software company. But I'm not sure that was ever the "core" idea. Those were just necessary to sell services, and were off-loaded along the way.
- zer00eyz 3y ago
  > This is not uncommon in "new" industries. You see the same effect in cars and planes - in the early years the companies had to "do everything". Once scale is reached then companies appear that do "just on task", which then "take over" that task for the parent. This is called vertical integration. It's not about "new" though it does crop up there. Amazon is an example of this: Chips for servers, warehouses, ships, vans for last mile... YKK zippers is another, they make their own equipment, refine raw materials all in an effort to have the best final product (and it shows). > And this is the point. IBM always existed to sell services. Everything else was to get them there. So the bit where IBM sold typewriters and time clocks in 1911 was all a big plot to sell software services someday? > 10 years goes past, and customers now already have computers. 10 more years and they have IT either on staff, or on contract. The failure of IBM is long, slow and tragic. It is a failure to evolve with the market, it is the gutting and miss management of core assets.
  - tobinfricke 3y ago
    > The failure of IBM is long, slow and tragic. "Failure of IBM"?
    - gopher_space 3y ago
      As a beacon of engineering
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      For any shareholder, this graph qualifies as failure: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IBM/ibm/market-cap https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IBM/ibm/market-cap
  - wizerdrobe 3y ago
    The firm name is quite literally “International Business Machine.” The idea that they’re just a services firm is… something else.
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
And maybe that's just as well. The value of IBM hardware was not in the screws or the paint.
- prasadjoglekar 3y ago
  The IBM selectric typewriter would disagree. Everything was well designed, including the screws and paint and the aesthetic.
gumby 3y ago
So all that screw making and painting was not there to support computing, but rather was legacy manufacturing that computing took advantage of. They had a long legacy of mechanical engineering from the days of card punches and readers and teleprinters. Even into the 70s and 80s they were a major — perhaps by then the major — typewriter manufacturer. Typewriters were “business machines”. IBM’s original name was The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. They started out making cash registers and related products. Maybe a better way to see this is that during WWII they reconfigured their factories to make machine guns. Factories don’t look like that any more.

bruce511 3y ago

This is not uncommon in "new" industries. You see the same effect in cars and planes - in the early years the companies had to "do everything". Once scale is reached then companies appear that do "just on task", which then "take over" that task for the parent. This plays out at the small scale as well. When I started out writing commercial software it was very common to either sell a PC with it, or at least sell the concept of computerisation. For lots of companies this was their first computer. We were their defects IT department. 10 years goes past, and customers now already have computers. 10 more years and they have IT either on staff, or on contract. We got to go back to writing software. In the same way, yes, IBM needed to do everything. There was no off-the-shelf anything. So try make hardware, wrote software, sold services. And this is the point. IBM always existed to sell services. Everything else was to get them there. Other people made hardware. Others made software. They are left to focus on their services. This is likely revisionist history because I'm sure along the way lots of IBMers saw themselves as a hardware or software company. But I'm not sure that was ever the "core" idea. Those were just necessary to sell services, and were off-loaded along the way.

zer00eyz 3y ago
> This is not uncommon in "new" industries. You see the same effect in cars and planes - in the early years the companies had to "do everything". Once scale is reached then companies appear that do "just on task", which then "take over" that task for the parent. This is called vertical integration. It's not about "new" though it does crop up there. Amazon is an example of this: Chips for servers, warehouses, ships, vans for last mile... YKK zippers is another, they make their own equipment, refine raw materials all in an effort to have the best final product (and it shows). > And this is the point. IBM always existed to sell services. Everything else was to get them there. So the bit where IBM sold typewriters and time clocks in 1911 was all a big plot to sell software services someday? > 10 years goes past, and customers now already have computers. 10 more years and they have IT either on staff, or on contract. The failure of IBM is long, slow and tragic. It is a failure to evolve with the market, it is the gutting and miss management of core assets.
- tobinfricke 3y ago
  > The failure of IBM is long, slow and tragic. "Failure of IBM"?
  - gopher_space 3y ago
    As a beacon of engineering
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    For any shareholder, this graph qualifies as failure: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IBM/ibm/market-cap https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IBM/ibm/market-cap
- wizerdrobe 3y ago
  The firm name is quite literally “International Business Machine.” The idea that they’re just a services firm is… something else.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

And maybe that's just as well. The value of IBM hardware was not in the screws or the paint.

prasadjoglekar 3y ago
The IBM selectric typewriter would disagree. Everything was well designed, including the screws and paint and the aesthetic.

gumby 3y ago

So all that screw making and painting was not there to support computing, but rather was legacy manufacturing that computing took advantage of. They had a long legacy of mechanical engineering from the days of card punches and readers and teleprinters. Even into the 70s and 80s they were a major — perhaps by then the major — typewriter manufacturer. Typewriters were “business machines”. IBM’s original name was The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. They started out making cash registers and related products. Maybe a better way to see this is that during WWII they reconfigured their factories to make machine guns. Factories don’t look like that any more.