Cooper Hewitt says...
The Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company, which would later become known as International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), was the product of a 1911 merger between the International Time Recording Company, the Tabulating Machine Company and the Computing Scale Company. Founded by Thomas J. Watson, Sr., CTR officially became International Business Machines in 1924. The company manufactured a variety of information processing products, playing a major part in US history when the government began using its punched card machines to manage Social Security record-keeping in 1935 and tabulating machines to keep track of WWII freight traffic in 1942. After developing the first computer in conjunction with Harvard University in 1944, IBM increasingly focused on business computing, and later personal computing, contributing major advancements to the industry, such as commercial hard disk drives. As the market for computers has grown, IBM has changed its emphasis from selling computers directly to customers to providing computing-related services for a huge variety of companies and consumers. In 2011, IBM celebrated its 100th year in business, and continues today as a leader in computer technologies and IT endeavors.
