The Decline and Fall of IBM

The Decline and Fall of IBM

Author: Robert Cringely

Publisher: Nerdtv, LLC

Published: 2014-06-10

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 9780990444428

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

IBM is in trouble in 2014. The iconic computer company has mismanaged itself into a rut it may be unable to get out of. Technology journalist Robert X. Cringely explains how Big Blue got to where it is today and what can still be done to save the company before it is too late.


IBM

IBM

Author: James W. Cortada

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2023-08-01

Total Pages: 747

ISBN-13: 0262547821

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A history of one of the most influential American companies of the last century. For decades, IBM shaped the way the world did business. IBM products were in every large organization, and IBM corporate culture established a management style that was imitated by companies around the globe. It was “Big Blue, ” an icon. And yet over the years, IBM has gone through both failure and success, surviving flatlining revenue and forced reinvention. The company almost went out of business in the early 1990s, then came back strong with new business strategies and an emphasis on artificial intelligence. In this authoritative, monumental history, James Cortada tells the story of one of the most influential American companies of the last century. Cortada, a historian who worked at IBM for many years, describes IBM's technology breakthroughs, including the development of the punch card (used for automatic tabulation in the 1890 census), the calculation and printing of the first Social Security checks in the 1930s, the introduction of the PC to a mass audience in the 1980s, and the company's shift in focus from hardware to software. He discusses IBM's business culture and its orientation toward employees and customers; its global expansion; regulatory and legal issues, including antitrust litigation; and the track records of its CEOs. The secret to IBM's unequalled longevity in the information technology market, Cortada shows, is its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and technologies.


Big Blues

Big Blues

Author: Paul Carroll

Publisher: Three Rivers Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780517882214

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A reporter who spent seven years covering IBM for the Wall Street Journal tells the inside story of the giant corporation's fall from grace. This edition includes an afterword updating IBM's fortunes after Louis Gerstner's first year as the company's CEO.


Accidental Empires

Accidental Empires

Author: Robert X. Cringely

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 1996-09-13

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0887308554

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Computer manufacturing is--after cars, energy production and illegal drugs--the largest industry in the world, and it's one of the last great success stories in American business. Accidental Empires is the trenchant, vastly readable history of that industry, focusing as much on the astoundingly odd personalities at its core--Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mitch Kapor, etc. and the hacker culture they spawned as it does on the remarkable technology they created. Cringely reveals the manias and foibles of these men (they are always men) with deadpan hilarity and cogently demonstrates how their neuroses have shaped the computer business. But Cringely gives us much more than high-tech voyeurism and insider gossip. From the birth of the transistor to the mid-life crisis of the computer industry, he spins a sweeping, uniquely American saga of creativity and ego that is at once uproarious, shocking and inspiring.


Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?

Author: Louis V. Gerstner

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2003-12-16

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0060523808

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? sums up Lou Gerstner's historic business achievement, bringing IBM back from the brink of insolvency to lead the computer business once again.Offering a unique case study drawn from decades of experience at some of America's top companies -- McKinsey, American Express, RJR Nabisco -- Gerstner's insights into management and leadership are applicable to any business, at any level. Ranging from strategy to public relations, from finance to organization, Gerstner reveals the lessons of a lifetime running highly successful companies.


How the Mighty Fall

How the Mighty Fall

Author: Jim Collins

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2011-09-06

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0061956465

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Decline can be avoided. Decline can be detected. Decline can be reversed. Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course? In How the Mighty Fall, Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course. Collins' research project—more than four years in duration—uncovered five step-wise stages of decline: Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death By understanding these stages of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom. Great companies can stumble, badly, and recover. Every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. Anyone can fall and most eventually do. But, as Collins' research emphasizes, some companies do indeed recover—in some cases, coming back even stronger—even after having crashed into the depths of Stage 4. Decline, it turns out, is largely self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within our own hands. We are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our history, or even our staggering defeats along the way. As long as we never get entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.


Open

Open

Author: Rod Canion

Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1936661926

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The story of Compaq is well-known: Three ex-Texas Instruments managers founded Compaq with modest venture funding. Just four years later, Compaq was on the Fortune 500 list, and, two years after that, they had exceeded $1 billion in annual revenue. No company had ever achieved these milestones so rapidly. But few know the story behind the story. In 1982, when Compaq was founded, there was no software standardization, so every brand of personal computer required its own unique application software. Just eight years later, compatibility with the open PC standard had become ubiquitous, and it has continued to be for over two decades. This didn't happen by accident. Cofounder and then CEO Rod Canion and his team made a series of risky and daring decisions—often facing criticism and incredulity—that allowed the open PC standard marketplace to thrive and the incredible benefits of open computing to be realized. A never-before-published insider account of Compaq's extraordinary strategies and decisions, Open provides valuable lessons in leadership in times of crisis, management decision-making under the pressure of extraordinary growth, and the power of a unique, pervasive culture. Open tells the incredible story of Compaq's meteoric rise from humble beginnings to become the PC industry leader in just over a decade. Along the way, Compaq helped change the face of computing while establishing the foundation for today's world of tablets and smart phones.


A History of Modern Computing, second edition

A History of Modern Computing, second edition

Author: Paul E. Ceruzzi

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2003-04-08

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9780262532037

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the first digital computer to the dot-com crash—a story of individuals, institutions, and the forces that led to a series of dramatic transformations. This engaging history covers modern computing from the development of the first electronic digital computer through the dot-com crash. The author concentrates on five key moments of transition: the transformation of the computer in the late 1940s from a specialized scientific instrument to a commercial product; the emergence of small systems in the late 1960s; the beginning of personal computing in the 1970s; the spread of networking after 1985; and, in a chapter written for this edition, the period 1995-2001. The new material focuses on the Microsoft antitrust suit, the rise and fall of the dot-coms, and the advent of open source software, particularly Linux. Within the chronological narrative, the book traces several overlapping threads: the evolution of the computer's internal design; the effect of economic trends and the Cold War; the long-term role of IBM as a player and as a target for upstart entrepreneurs; the growth of software from a hidden element to a major character in the story of computing; and the recurring issue of the place of information and computing in a democratic society. The focus is on the United States (though Europe and Japan enter the story at crucial points), on computing per se rather than on applications such as artificial intelligence, and on systems that were sold commercially and installed in quantities.


Computer Wars

Computer Wars

Author: Charles H. Ferguson

Publisher: Beard Books

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9781587981395

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Describes the fall of IBM as a leading computer firm


Process Discovery Best Practices Using IBM Blueworks Live

Process Discovery Best Practices Using IBM Blueworks Live

Author: Joshua King

Publisher: IBM Redbooks

Published: 2014-10-29

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 0738453854

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Business processes and decisions are the backbone of every company, from the small to the Fortune 50; it is how the business runs. It is these processes and decisions that can create competitive advantage, help a company react more quickly to changing trends, or drag them down because the processes do not serve the business and allow agility. The first step in building business agility is to understand how the business works today; What are my processes? What are the decisions we are making and how do we make them? Understanding these processes and decisions can allow a company to improve, streamline, and increase efficiency. Capturing business processes can be a daunting task. Adding to that burden is learning the tool of choice for capturing those processes. This book helps the audience ramp up more quickly to a fully functional process analyst by explaining all of the features of IBM Blueworks LiveTM and how best to use them. This IBM® RedpaperTM was written with a non-technical audience in mind. It is intended to help business users, subject matter experts, business analysts, and business managers get started with discovering, documenting, and analyzing the processes and decisions that are key to their company's business operations.