Thomas J. Watson

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Thomas J. Watson : biography

February 17, 1874 – June 19, 1956

Thomas Watson Sr. was interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York in 1956. He was posthumously inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1990.

Famous quote

"THINK". Watson began using "THINK" to motivate, or inspire, staff while at NCR and continued to use it at CTR. IBM’s first U.S. trademark was for the name "THINK" filed as a U.S. trademark on June 6, 1935, with the description "periodical publications". This trademark was filed fourteen years before the company filed for a U.S. trademark on the name IBM. A biographical article in 1940 noted that "This word is on the most conspicuous wall of every room in every IBM building. Each employee carries a THINK notebook in which to record inspirations. The company stationery, matches, scratch pads all bear the inscription, THINK. A monthly magazine called ‘Think’ is distributed to the employees."Current Biography 1940, p. 846 THINK remains a part of IBM’s corporate culture; it was the inspiration behind naming IBM’s successful line of notebook computers, IBM ThinkPad.Dell, Deborah; Purdy, J. Gerry. "ThinkPad: A Different Shade of Blue". Sams ISBN 0-672-31756-7 ISBN 978-0672317569 In 2008, IBM Mid America Employees Federal Credit Union changed its name to Think Mutual Bank.

Famous misquote

Although Watson is well known for his alleged 1943 statement, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers", there is scant evidence he made it. Author Kevin Maney tried to find the origin of the quote, but has been unable to locate any speeches or documents of Watson’s that contain this, nor are the words present in any contemporary articles about IBM. The earliest known citation on the Internet is from 1986 on Usenet in the signature of a poster from Convex Computer Corporation as "’I think there is a world market for about five computers’ —Remark attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board of International Business Machines), 1943". Another early article source (May 15, 1985) is a column by Neil Morgan, a San Diego Evening Tribune writer who wrote: "Forrest Shumway, chairman of The Signal Cos., doesn’t make predictions. His role model is Tom Watson, then IBM chairman, who said in 1958: ‘I think there is a world market for about five computers. One of the very first quotes can be found in The Experts Speak, a book written by Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky in 1984. However Cerf and Navasky just quote from a book written by Morgan and Langford, Facts and Fallacies. All these early quotes are questioned by Eric Weiss, an editor of the Annals of the History of Computing in ACS letters in 1985.

There are documented versions of similar quotes by other people in the early history of the computer. In 1946 Sir Charles Darwin (grandson of the famous naturalist), head of Britain’s NPL (National Physical Laboratory), where research into computers was taking place, wrote: it is very possible that … one machine would suffice to solve all the problems that are demanded of it from the whole country.Copeland, Jack (2006). Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers. Oxford University Press. p.109

In 1985 the story was discussed on Usenet (in net.misc), without Watson’s name being attached. The original discussion has not survived, but an explanation has; it attributes a very similar quote to the Cambridge mathematician Professor Douglas Hartree, around 1951: I went to see Professor Douglas Hartree, who had built the first differential analyzers in England and had more experience in using these very specialized computers than anyone else. He told me that, in his opinion, all the calculations that would ever be needed in this country could be done on the three digital computers which were then being built—one in Cambridge, one in Teddington, and one in Manchester. No one else, he said, would ever need machines of their own, or would be able to afford to buy them.Brader, Mark (July 10, 1985). (Forum post). net.misc. Citing Lord Bowden (1970). American Scientist. 58: 43–53)