[SunRescue] Re: Rant on industry employment practices, was RE: 16 MB memory module for Voyager

rescue at sunhelp.org rescue at sunhelp.org
Tue Jan 9 14:21:01 CST 2001


can you provide a citation? Every reference I can find on the web says it  
was TJ Watson senior at IBM, 1943. That in and of itself proves nothing, 
since it's widely reproduced on sites with 'funny' or 'misguided' quotes and 
predictions, and no hard references. but i'm really curious whether this 
statement is anything more than apocrypha.

scohen - Stephen Cohen writes: 

>> > "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers"
>> > Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM (1943)
> 
> The quote is accurate but the person is not.  It was uttered by the then CEO
> of what later became Sperry-UNIVAC.  He was a former chairman of the Joint
> Chief's of Staff, hired upon his retirement from the military.  His vision
> of the computer industry was focused entirely on the federal government as
> the primary customer.  This was later modified to include oil companies,
> airlines, and Boeing. 
> 
> Upon having made this public, IBM promptly developed/released the far
> inferior MARK series and sold the wazoo out if it, mostly to banking and
> financial institutions.  And thus the race was over even before it started.
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 ---------------------------------
Paul Theodoropoulos
paul at anastrophe.net
Senior Unix Systems Administrator
Syntactically Subversive Services, Inc.
http://www.anastrophe.net
Downtime Is Not An Option 




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