IBM

On June 16, 1911, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R) was incorporated as a holding company controlling the International Time Recording Company, the Computing Scale Company and the Tabulating Machine Company. Financier Charles Flint, the “Father of Trusts,” arranged the combination, and headquarters moved to Endicott, New York.⁠[1]

In 1914, Flint hired Thomas J. Watson Sr. as general manager of C-T-R, and Watson was later promoted to president.⁠[1]

Watson brought the slogan “Think!” from his time at the National Cash Register Company. In 1924 the company was renamed International Business Machines to reflect its global ambitions.⁠[2]

After the 1924 renaming, an Art Deco globe replaced the C-T-R emblem, and a plain IBM wordmark followed in 1947. Designer Paul Rand, hired by Watson Jr., redrew the logo and in 1972 introduced the striped version with letters drawn in eight horizontal lines, a basic design unchanged since.⁠[3]

In 1952, Watson Sr. appointed his eldest son, Thomas Watson Jr., president. In May 1956 Watson Jr. was elected CEO as his father handed over full leadership; Watson Sr. died about a month later.⁠[2]

In 1956, the U.S. Justice Department had IBM sign a consent decree requiring it to sell as well as lease its machines. In January 1996 a federal judge lifted most of the restrictions, leaving sunset provisions on the S/390 and AS/400 lines; the AS/400 restrictions expired in the summer of 2000 and the S/390 restrictions were set to expire in July 2001.⁠[4]

In 1969 the Justice Department filed an antitrust suit against IBM. The case was pending for 13 years at a government cost of $1 million to $2 million a year, and in January 1982 the department dropped it; William Baxter of the Justice Department judged that the government would probably lose and that continuing would waste time and money.⁠[5]

On April 7, 1964, IBM launched the System/360. The project, regarded as a gamble expected to “cost USD 5 billion over four years,” replaced IBM’s five existing computer lines with “one strictly compatible family” and pioneered the 8-bit byte still used in computers today.⁠[6]

On August 12, 1981, Don Estridge unveiled the IBM PC, priced at USD 1,565, in New York City; the project originated at an IBM lab in Boca Raton, Florida. IBM published technical references for outside software and peripheral makers, and the design became a de facto industry standard.⁠[7]

The machine, model IBM 5150, used a 4.77MHz Intel 8088 processor. MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft is a technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, with businesses spanning Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, gaming and devices.Open the full entry supplied the operating system, having bought the rights to QDOS, and later did very well licensing MS-DOS.⁠[8]

On April 1, 1993, Louis V. Gerstner Jr., a former CEO of RJR Nabisco who had spent 11 years at American ExpressAmerican ExpressAmerican Express Company is a payments company headquartered in New York that issues credit and charge cards and operates its own payments network; founded in 1850, it is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.Open the full entry, became chairman and CEO of IBM. He made e-business a growth strategy for IBM, served as CEO until March 2002 and remained chairman until his retirement in December 2002.⁠[9]

In February 1996, world chess champion Garry KasparovGarry KasparovGarry Kasparov is a chess player, author and political activist born in Baku in the Soviet Union; in 1985 he became the youngest world chess champion in history, and he played IBM’s Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997. After retiring in 2005 he turned to political activism against Vladimir Putin’s government and has lived in New York since 2013.Open the full entry beat IBM’s Deep Blue 4–2 in Philadelphia. In a May 1997 rematch at the Equitable Center in New York, Deep Blue won the deciding Game 6 and took the match 3.5–2.5.⁠[10]

Sam Palmisano became IBM’s CEO effective March 1, 2002, and served as chairman, president and CEO from January 1, 2003, through December 31, 2011, introducing the company’s Smarter Planet agenda. He chaired the board from January to September 2012 and retired as a senior adviser on December 1, 2012.⁠[11]

On May 1, 2005, Lenovo closed its acquisition of IBM’s Personal Computing Division. Lenovo paid approximately US$650 million in cash and US$600 million in Lenovo Group shares and assumed approximately US$500 million of net balance sheet liabilities from IBM; upon closing, IBM owned 18.9 percent of Lenovo.⁠[12]

IBM agreed in late 2004 to sell the PC division for a total of USD 1.75 billion.⁠[7]

In February 2011, IBM’s question-answering system Watson won on Jeopardy!⁠[13]

Ginni RomettyGinni RomettyGinni Rometty (Virginia M. Rometty) is an American business executive who joined IBM in 1981 and served as its chairman, president and CEO from 2012 to 2020, the first woman to lead the company. During her tenure she repositioned IBM toward hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence and completed the acquisition of Red Hat; after retiring she co-founded the employment coalition OneTen.Open the full entry became IBM’s CEO in 2012 and retired from the company on December 31, 2020. During her tenure IBM acquired 65 companies, including Red Hat, the largest acquisition in its history; she built a USD 21 billion hybrid cloud business, reinvented more than half of IBM’s portfolio and divested nearly USD 10 billion in annual revenue.⁠[14]

On May 4, 2016, IBM Research for the first time let the public run experiments remotely on one of its quantum processors, through a cloud platform called the IBM Quantum Experience accessible from desktop and mobile devices. The processor had five superconducting qubits and was housed at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York.⁠[15]

On July 9, 2019, IBM completed its acquisition of all issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, a total equity value of approximately $34 billion. Red Hat was to operate as a distinct unit within IBM, led by Jim Whitehurst and its existing management team, with its results included in IBM’s Cloud and Cognitive Software segment.⁠[16]

Over a roughly 30-year career at IBM, Arvind Krishna led the building and expansion of new markets for IBM in artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain.⁠[17]

On January 30, 2020, IBM’s board elected Krishna CEO effective April 6, 2020; Rometty became executive chairman, retiring at year-end.⁠[18]

On November 3, 2021, IBM completed the separation of its managed infrastructure services business into Kyndryl, an independent public company. IBM shareholders received one Kyndryl share for every five IBM shares, and IBM retained 19.9 percent of Kyndryl’s common stock. Kyndryl began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol KD on November 4. Krishna said the separation would “sharpen our focus on hybrid cloud and AI.”⁠[19]

IBM’s $6.4 billion acquisition of HashiCorp closed about 10 months after it was announced, following approval by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. HashiCorp operates as a division of IBM Software rather than within Red Hat, and its automation tools such as Terraform and Vault became available with IBM’s hybrid cloud platform.⁠[20]

The acquisition closed on February 27, 2025.⁠[21]

On June 10, 2025, IBM announced plans to build IBM Quantum Starling, a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer, at a new IBM Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, for delivery by 2029, designed to run 100 million quantum operations using 200 logical qubits.⁠[22]

IBM reports four segments: Software, Consulting, Infrastructure and Financing, and it lists quantum computing among the disruptive technologies in which it competes. Its common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and NYSE Texas under the symbol IBM.⁠[21]

On January 28, 2026, IBM announced full-year 2025 revenue of $67.5 billion, up 8 percent, or 6 percent at constant currency; net income of $10,593 million, compared with $6,023 million in 2024; and free cash flow of $14.7 billion. Krishna said the company entered 2026 “with momentum and in a position of strength.”⁠[23]

In March 2026, IBM completed its acquisition of Confluent, the data streaming platform built on Apache Kafka. The deal, announced in December 2025, was priced at $31 per share, roughly $11 billion in total.⁠[24]

On October 21, 2026, IBM announced third-quarter 2026 revenue of $17.1 billion, up 5 percent, or 6 percent at constant currency, with software revenue up 8 percent; GAAP net income was $2,190 million, compared with $1.7 billion a year earlier. The company kept its expectation of four-to-five percent full-year revenue growth at constant currency and raised its free cash flow outlook.⁠[25]