IBM, formally International Business Machines Corporation, is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York. Its business encompasses enterprise software, computing infrastructure, consulting, and financing, with a strategic emphasis on hybrid cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Originating in mechanical record-processing equipment, IBM became a major producer of electronic computers and subsequently expanded into software and technology services. Its history includes influential developments in computer architecture, programming, data storage, and scientific research. (sec.gov)
Origins and early development
IBM’s predecessor, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, or C-T-R, was incorporated on June 16, 1911. Financier Charles Ranlett Flint organized it as a holding company bringing together businesses producing tabulating machines, time-recording equipment, and computing scales. One constituent business commercialized Herman Hollerith’s punched-card tabulating technology, originally developed for census processing. Cards encoded information through patterns of holes, allowing machines to count and classify records. (ibm.com)
Thomas J. Watson joined C-T-R as general manager in 1914. Under his leadership, the company increasingly concentrated on information-processing equipment and expanded internationally. It adopted the name International Business Machines in 1924. Watson’s emphasis on sales organization, customer service, and the slogan “THINK” helped establish a recognizable corporate culture. The early business connected office machinery with the growing administrative requirements of companies and public institutions. (ibm.com)
Electronic computers and compatible systems
IBM’s transition to electronic computing accelerated during the 1950s. Thomas J. Watson Jr. supported this transition and established an independent research division in 1956, consolidating the administration of several laboratories. IBM’s business increasingly combined the manufacture of computing equipment with research into the technologies needed for subsequent generations of machines. (ibm.com)
Introduced in 1964, System/360 was a family of mainframe computers sharing a common architecture. Rather than treating every model as an unrelated machine, IBM offered systems at different performance levels within a compatible product family. This approach allowed customers to expand computing capacity while preserving much of their software investment and established compatibility as a central consideration in enterprise computing. (ibm.com)
IBM also entered the expanding personal computer market. The IBM PC, model 5150, was announced on August 12, 1981. Its development relied substantially on commercially available components rather than an entirely proprietary design. Its architecture became a reference point for compatible computers and associated software and peripherals. IBM later developed the ThinkPad notebook line, introduced in 1992; its personal-computer business was sold to Lenovo in 2005. (ibm.com)
Software and data processing
IBM contributed to the development of high-level programming languages. A team led by John Backus developed Fortran, commercially released in 1957. Designed particularly for scientific and engineering calculations, it enabled programmers to express formulas without writing every operation directly in machine code. Its compiler translated these expressions into executable instructions, making high-level programming practical for demanding numerical work. (ibm.com)
Another contribution concerned the organization of a database. In 1970, IBM researcher Edgar F. Codd published the relational model, which represented data through relations rather than requiring applications to depend directly on physical storage arrangements. IBM’s subsequent research and product development contributed to relational databases, including its Db2 database-management system. These developments helped separate the logical organization of information from its implementation in storage hardware. (ibm.com)
Corporate transformation and enterprise business
During the 1990s, IBM placed greater emphasis on integrated technology services and software. Louis V. Gerstner Jr., chief executive from 1993 to 2002, made internet-related “e-business” a growth strategy. This approach addressed how established organizations could connect their operations to networked systems, rather than focusing exclusively on selling individual computers. (ibm.com)
IBM completed its acquisition of Red Hat on July 9, 2019, strengthening its involvement in open-source software and hybrid-cloud platforms. On November 3, 2021, it completed the separation of its managed infrastructure services business into Kyndryl. These transactions changed the boundaries of IBM’s operations while supporting its increased concentration on software, consulting, and enterprise technology platforms. (ibm.com)
In its 2025 reporting, IBM organized its operations into Software, Consulting, Infrastructure, and Financing. These activities cover software platforms, business and technology implementation, computing systems and storage, and financing associated with technology purchases. The company’s enterprise model combines products with expertise in integrating and maintaining complex organizational systems. (sec.gov)
Artificial intelligence
IBM’s AI work includes systems developed for highly defined competitive tasks. In May 1997, Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a six-game chess match under standard tournament controls. Its design combined specialized search hardware, parallel computing, an evaluation function, and chess databases; its achievement was specific to chess rather than evidence of general-purpose intelligence. (research.ibm.com)
In February 2011, Watson defeated leading human contestants on Jeopardy!. The system addressed natural-language processing and question answering, evaluating possible answers to clues expressed in ordinary language. IBM announced watsonx in May 2023 as an enterprise AI and data platform, incorporating tools for foundation models, generative AI, and data governance. Its initial products began rolling out in July 2023. (ibm.com)
Scientific research and quantum computing
IBM’s research and development has extended beyond commercial computer systems. Researchers at its Zurich laboratory received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the scanning tunneling microscope in 1986 and discoveries concerning high-temperature superconductivity in 1987. (nobelprize.org)
IBM also develops quantum computers using superconducting processors. In May 2016, it made a quantum processor accessible through the cloud, enabling remote experiments on physical hardware. It released the open-source Qiskit programming framework in 2017, providing software tools for constructing and running quantum-computing experiments. (quantum.cloud.ibm.com)