The company rolls out a new series of notebook computers - the ThinkPad. Featuring
a distinctive black case and an innovative TrackPoint pointing device nestled in
the middle of the keyboard, the ThinkPad is an immediate hit and collects more
than 300 awards for design and quality.
The IBM Personal Computer Company is formed as a separate operating unit to focus
exclusively on delivering leadership PC products. Within weeks of its formation,
the new unit introduces more than 80 new products, many conceived, manufactured
and shipped in fewer than six months.
IBM's storage products business is named ADSTAR.
The IBM Consulting Group is launched by the Application Solutions line of business
with 1,500 consultants worldwide to provide management and information
technology-related consulting services to companies and organizations in 30
countries.
Siemens AG of Germany acquires IBM's 50 percent interest in ROLM Company, making
Siemens the sole owner of the telecommunications marketing and services venture.
IBM ships five new Enterprise System/9000 water-cooled processors - Models 520,
640, 660, 740 and 860. In the biggest RISC System/6000 announcement since the
original product launch, IBM expands the performance and flexibility of its family
of advanced workstations and servers with the introduction of five new
POWERstation/POWERserver models - the 220, 340, 350, 520H and 560 - and a host of
new software offerings, including AIX Version 3.2. IBM completely refreshes the
Application System/400 product line with an enhanced operating system and 13
powerful new E model processors that boost system performance by up to 70 percent
and offer the industry's first use of 16-million-bit memory chips.
IBM announces Screen Reader/2 to allow blind and visually-impaired people to use
popular graphics-based personal computer software not previously accessible. Five
years later IBM's Tokyo Research Laboratory unveils software that reads aloud
information displayed on the computer screen. This technology is introduced in
1998 as IBM's Home Page Reader for Windows, a talking Web browser that opens the
World Wide Web with spoken Internet access to blind and visually impaired users.
AMBRA Computer Corporation, a wholly-owned IBM subsidiary, announces its first
product line of 16 high-performance, industry-standard personal computers, servers
and workstations. IBM announces a new family of PS/2s, topped by the PS/2 77 486
DX2, which utilizes the industry's fastest processor, Intel's clock-doubling 66/33
Megahertz 486-DX2.
In storage products, IBM introduces one of the first 3.5-inch disk drives on the
market to offer up to 1.2 billion bytes of storage - enough capacity to store more
than a half million pages of typewritten information; the first 2-gigabyte
3.5-inch disk drive and the first 4-gigabyte 5.25-inch disk drive for the original
equipment manufacturers market; and a new 9337 Disk Array Subsystem using a
variation of RAID-5 storage and InfoWindow II displays. ADSTAR ships more than
250,000 1-gigabyte 3.5-inch hard drives in 1992.
IBM technology and people are on the scene at the Olympic Games in Barcelona
during the summer. A communications network and more than 4,000 IBM Personal
System/2 computers are installed to provide instant information in four languages
to athletes, judges, spectators and journalists attending the games. IBM becomes
the official computer of the National Basketball Association.
The State of California awards IBM an $80 million contract to develop, implement
and maintain California's child welfare system. Two California health-care
providers award IBM its first outsourcing agreement in the health-care industry.
Canada's Consumer and Corporate Affairs Department awards IBM Canada a $49 million
systems integration contract to automate its patent office. IBM installs the first
network of automated teller machines to operate online in Hungary. IBM's first
systems integration in the Czech Republic is awarded by the Ministry of Finance
for the implementation of a system for tax administration and collection. Japan's
Sanwa Bank selects IBM Japan to develop a global banking network to link banking
operations in 27 countries.
U.S. President George Bush awards the National Medal of Technology to N. Joseph
Woodland, a former IBM employee, who pioneered the bar code and then helped to
commercialize bar coding technology. Woodland is the seventh person affiliated
with IBM to receive the award.
IBM ships its 200,000th AS/400 computer, a 9406 Model E35 to be installed at the
main brewery and headquarters of Heineken Netherlands. Nearly 300,000 of its
predecessor systems - the System/36 and System/38 - remain in service.
IBM researchers say they believe they have made the first observation of the
escape of a virus from a living cell.
IBM creates the world's most-used multimedia kiosk system for Seville's World
Exposition, a prototype for the "technopolis" or electronic city of the future.
IBM and Sears, Roebuck and Co. reach an agreement to form Advantis, a joint
venture that will be the premier voice and data networking services company in the
United States.
IBM, Siemens AG and Toshiba Corporation announce an alliance that will develop a
256-million-bit dynamic random access memory chip and its manufacturing process.
The submicron technology will be the basis of future generations of highly-dense
chips.
Hewlett-Packard Company and IBM form a strategic alliance to develop and
manufacture a family of fiber-optic components for high-speed communication
between computer systems.
IBM announces an expanded technology agreement with Lotus Development Corp. to
include Lotus software products in IBM office system offerings for LANs. IBM
begins a cooperative effort with nine major cellular carriers, including McCaw
Cellular Communications Inc. and GTE Mobilnet, to advance the technology for
transmitting data over cellular communication systems.
U.S. President George Bush honors IBM and 20 other recipients of the 1992
President's Annual Points of Light Awards as part of the celebration of National
Volunteer Week.
