Just as his father saw the company's future in tabulators rather than scales and
clocks, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., foresaw the role computers would play in business,
and he led IBM's transformation from a medium-sized maker of tabulating equipment
and typewriters into a computer industry leader.
Under Thomas J. Watson, Jr., there were also innovations in marketing. In 1969,
IBM changed the way it sold technology. Rather than offer hardware, services and
software exclusively in packages, marketers "unbundled" the components and offered
them for sale individually. Unbundling gave birth to the multibillion-dollar
software and services industries, of which IBM is today a world leader.
On April 7, 1964, IBM introduced the System/360, the first large "family" of
computers to use interchangeable software and peripheral equipment. It was a bold
departure from the monolithic, one-size-fits-all mainframe. Fortune magazine
dubbed it "IBM's $5 billion gamble."
System/360 offered a choice of five processors and 19 combinations of power, speed
and memory. A user could operate the same magnetic tape and disk products as
another user with a processor 100 times more powerful. System/360 also offered
dramatic performance gains, thanks to Solid Logic Technology - half-inch ceramic
modules containing circuitry far denser, faster and more reliable than earlier
transistors.
---
IBM introduces the Stretch computing system, the most powerful computer of its
day, which pioneered such advanced systems concepts as lookahead, pipelining, the
transistor and the byte. The company also introduces the solid-state 7000 series
computers, replacing the 700 series of vacuum-tube machines.
The 305 RAMAC scores the Winter Olympic Games in California, marking the beginning
of four decades of IBM technical support for the Olympic Games. The RAMAC also
tallies votes at both U.S. political conventions, and processes presidential
election returns.
IBM computers provide data for launching and tracking Project Echo, the U. S.
pioneering experiment in space communications. The IBM-developed Mark II language
translator translates Russian into English. The Systems Research Institute opens
as first graduate-level school in computer industry to educate people for advanced
work in data processing systems engineering.
IBM begins donations to the National Scholarship Fund for black students.
