What happens to the Microsofts, Oracles and IBMs of the world is that when they get big enough, they don't think they need to bring that same level of focus and energy to the end-user experience.
Aaron Levie
I have always thought of myself as an inventor first and foremost. An engineer. An entrepreneur. In that order. I never thought of myself as an employee. But my first jobs as an adult were as an employee: at IBM, and then at my first start-up.
Aaron Patzer
The reliable way great conglomerates grew over time was by adding new products and buying new companies. IBM moved from mainframe to PCs.
Adam Lashinsky
We can learn from IBM's successful history that you don't have to have the best product to become number one. You don't even have to have a good product.
Adam Osborne
I've been a Fellow in a number of companies: Xerox, Apple, Disney, HP. There are certain similarities because all the Fellows programs were derived from IBM's, which itself was derived from the MIT 'Institute Professor' program.
Alan Kay
And then lo and behold IBM, Apple and Motorola took an ad in all the newspapers, double page ad, and said, announcing the chip that they were now able to manufacture it and that they were going to kill Intel.
Arthur Rock
IBM decided they were going to enter the copying business in 1968.
The typical project design time for a large company like IBM - and they keep track of this - is a little over four years.
Bill Gates
I think the idealism has always been marketing. Even back in the early days of Apple and the 'pirate' mentality, they were building a computer that they wanted to differentiate from IBM and Microsoft.
Brad Stone
Facebook is a powerful company, yes, but so was IBM.
Caterina Fake
I think what IBM is excellent at is using their sales and marketing infrastructure to convince people who have asymmetrically less knowledge to pay for something.
Chamath Palihapitiya
You can't tell what's aboard a container ship. We carried every kind of cargo, all of it on view: a police car, penicillin, Johnnie Walker Red, toilets, handguns, lumber, Ping-Pong balls, and IBM data cards.
Christopher Buckley
Even IBM can't stand in the way of progress... for more than a decade.
Craig Bruce
In the 2010 holiday quarter, Apple reported $26.7 billion in revenue, up 70 percent from a year before. That means it's nearly as big as IBM, which did $29 billion in the same quarter.
Daniel Lyons
I was working at 'Forbes,' and I covered big enterprise companies - IBM, Sun, and EMC - and it was kind of boring. 'Forbes' only came out every other week, so it was not the most fast-paced job in the world. It was very nice, comfortable.
The manuals we got from IBM would show examples of programs and I knew I could do a heck of a lot better than that. So I thought I might have some talent.
Donald Knuth
IBM was the original contractor for much of the computer interface design on the film.
Douglas Trumbull
There were IBM logos designed for the film, and there were IBM design consultants working with Kubrick on the layout of the controls and computer screens.
Israel stands proudly at the forefront of international achievement. The world's leading corporations - Google, Intel and Motorola, to name but a few - maintain research and development facilities here, and our technology start-ups continue to be acquired by the likes of AOL, eBay and IBM.
Ehud Olmert
I remember visiting my grandmother Adele in Ponce Inlet, Florida, when I was three years old, and she had an IBM electric typewriter. I thought that this electric typewriter was about the most fascinating toy in the world - I liked the little bell and the sounds and the feel of the keys and especially the erase key.
Gabrielle Zevin
Before I liked to write, I liked to type. I remember visiting my grandmother Adele in Ponce Inlet, Florida, when I was three years old, and she had an IBM electric typewriter.
IBM's long-standing mantra is 'Think.' What has always made IBM a fascinating and compelling place for me, is the passion of the company, and its people, to apply technology and scientific thinking to major societal issues.
I've been head of strategy at IBM and together with my colleagues built our five-year plan. My priorities are going to be to continue to execute on that.
I've got a distribution system that goes to 170 countries. If I acquire properly, you know, you may be successful in one or two countries, or one place; I can scale, and that's part of the value that IBM brings.
What has always made IBM a fascinating and compelling place for me is the passion of the company, and its people, to apply technology and scientific thinking to major societal issues.
I think, given who the IBM target company is, I feel our purpose is to be essential to our clients.
I'm the ninth CEO of IBM. Every one of my predecessors has steered through a technological shift, and every one left the company in a better position than the person before them and prepared this company with a very strong balance sheet to allow it to continue to invest for the next shift.
We have started something called the Corporate Services Corps. Now, it was modeled after the Peace Corps from long ago, the 1960s. And the idea was in this modern day and age, how do you get IBM'ers around the world to be global citizens? You know, globally aware, contribute, understand how to work in that environment, but do it on scale.
India... what a big part you play in this story for IBM and for the world.
And the reason I came to IBM was I think - I always say at a really early age, I learned you've got to be passionate about what you do. No matter what it is, you put too much, your heart and soul in it, you have to be passionate about it. You make too many sacrifices.
And so when I moved to IBM, I moved because I thought I could apply technology. I didn't actually have to do my engineer - I was an electrical engineer, but I could apply it. And that was when I changed. And when I got there, though, I have to say, at the time, I really never felt there was a constraint about being a woman. I really did not.
IBM existed a good 50 years before mainframes - we started with scales.
The amazing thing about IBM is that it's a company where I have had 10 different careers - local jobs, global jobs, technology jobs, industry jobs, financial services, insurance, start-ups, big scale. The network of talent around you is phenomenal.
Planes don't fly, trains don't run, banks don't operate without much of what IBM does.
People knew about IBM before they knew about Apple. Sometimes it takes a little longer for better to win.
In all the years with IBM Research, I have especially appreciated the freedom to pursue the activities I found interesting and greatly enjoyed the stimulus, collegial cooperation, frankness, and intellectual generosity of two scientific communities, namely in superconductivity and critical phenomena.
IBM has a very solid business image.
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
Our philosophy is that we want to be an ecosystem. Our philosophy is to empower others to sell, empower others to service, making sure the other people are more powerful than us. With our technology, our innovation, our partners - 10 million small business sellers - they can compete with Microsoft and IBM.
IBM, Microsoft, the profit they made was larger than the top four banks in China put together... But where did the money go?
If being the biggest company was a guarantee of success, we'd all be using IBM computers and driving GM cars.
When I was finishing grad school, the hot new PC was the IBM 286. Bulky. Immobile. Expensive. I touched-typed easily and quickly, but nevertheless, I realized that the machine was a chain.
I remember my father banging away on an IBM Selectric in the garage. He wrote his first novels on that machine. I remember its pebbly surface, its cold heft. It made its mark, literally and violently.
In December 1989, my mother died very suddenly, and that sparked a re-evaluation of what I was doing, and I realized I was mediocre at everything. I was a mediocre IBM employee, I was a mediocre entrepreneur, I was a mediocre artist. I decided that, although my mom wouldn't be around to see it, I wanted to be great at something.
My dad used to work at IBM, so we used to get discounts on computers and stuff, and I did have a ThinkPad.
I was into the Mets because my Dad worked at IBM where he got free Mets tickets, so I was into the Mets... then I got to 'Saturday Night Live' where my boss has unbelievable N.Y. Yankees tickets, so he invites us to the games. I'm going to all the games, so I might as well root for the team I'm gonna go sit with.
My first album, 'Englaborn,' was based on music originally written for the theatre. My solo albums, like 'IBM 1401, a User's Manual' and 'Fordlandia,' have also had narratives attached to them.
I've been a Mac guy for almost my entire adult life. I wrote my first college papers on a typewriter, but by the end of my freshman year - almost 20 years ago - I was on an IBM PC. Then, in 1984, I found the Mac, and I never looked back.
Many companies don't exist after 25 years. It's a rarity. Or if they do exist, they're like IBM, with a totally changing personality.
IBM has taken a leadership role in this area and is prepared to be a technology partner with companies around the world to take advantage of these new developments.
