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Gijith
Daisy Chain Eater
Registered: 12/04/03
Posts: 2,400
Loc: New York
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What does IBM do?
#3444333 - 12/04/04 12:19 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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I just read they're selling their PC division (I hope they keep making Apple's chips). I'm sure I've never used an IBM computer. I know they make servers and software, but is that enough to make them the world's largest tech company? Do they have all sorts of other ventures? I'm just always confused when someone mentions how big the company still is.
You'll have to excuse my ignorance. I'm about as far away from a nerd as you can get. I only use this magic box thing on my desk to connect to the Shroomery.
-------------------- what's with neocons and the word 'ilk'?
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blissedout
Registered: 11/11/04
Posts: 22,320
Loc: Yonder
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Re: What does IBM do? [Re: Gijith]
#3444343 - 12/04/04 12:24 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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me too, man. i don't know hardly anything about comps, but the shroomery is my sole reason for frying my eyes latenights.sorry for the lack of knowledge.
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Edame
gone
Registered: 01/14/03
Posts: 1,270
Loc: outta here
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Re: What does IBM do? [Re: blissedout]
#3446033 - 12/04/04 02:19 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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As far as I understand it, they're only getting out of the desktop market, they'll still be making hardware (just the more expensive kinds like servers and supercomputers). This article over at wikipedia seems to have a lot of info you might find interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM
some snippets:
With over 300,000 employees worldwide and revenues of $89 billion (figures from 2003), IBM is the largest information technology company in the world, and one of the few with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. It has engineers and consultants in over 160 countries and development laboratories located all over the world, in all segments of computer science and information technology; some of them are pioneers in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology.
In recent years, services and consulting revenues have been larger than those from manufacturing. Samuel J. Palmisano was elected CEO on January 29, 2002 after having led IBM's Global Services, and helping it to become a business with a $100 billion in backlog in 2004 [1] (http://www.ibm.com/ibm/sjp/bio.shtml).
The shift in focus has led the company to become increasingly technical; as of 2004 it employs about 191,000 technical professionals. That total includes 300-400 Distinguished Engineers and 50-60 IBM Fellows, its most senior engineers. IBM Research has eight research labs located in the Northern Hemisphere, with half of those locations outside of the United States. IBM employees have won five Nobel Prizes. In the USA, they have earned four Turing Awards, five National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science, and outside the USA, many equivalents.
...
In 2002, IBM announced the beginning of a $10 billion program to research and implement the infrastructure technology necessary to be able to provide supercomputer-level resources "on demand" to all businesses as a metered utility.
In recent years IBM has steadily increased its patent portfolio, which is valuable for cross-licensing with other companies. In every year from 1993 until 2003, IBM has been granted significantly more U.S. patents than any other company. That eleven-year period has resulted in over 25,000 patents for which IBM is the primary assignee. [2] (http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/news/20000111_patents99.shtml)
Protection of the company's intellectual property has grown into a business in its own right, generating over $10 billion dollars [3] (http://www.industryweek.com/CurrentArticles/asp/articles.asp?ArticleID=1400) to the bottom line for the company during this period.
-------------------- The above is an extract from my fictional novel, "The random postings of Edame". In the beginning was the word. And man could not handle the word, and the hearing of the word, and he asked God to take away his ears so that he might live in peace without having to hear words which might upset his equinamity or corrupt the unblemished purity of his conscience. And God, hearing this desperate plea from His creation, wrinkled His mighty brow for a moment and then leaned down toward man, beckoning that he should come close so as to hear all that was about to be revealed to him. "Fuck you," He whispered, and frowned upon the pathetic supplicant before retreating to His heavens.
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Ramlaen
Pysconaut
Registered: 11/06/04
Posts: 638
Last seen: 13 years, 3 months
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Re: What does IBM do? [Re: Edame]
#3450256 - 12/05/04 01:54 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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they also produce amd's chips
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AhronZombi
AhronZombi
Registered: 04/06/04
Posts: 1,265
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Re: What does IBM do? [Re: Ramlaen]
#3450387 - 12/05/04 02:25 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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macs are maid by ibm
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fresh313
journeyman
Registered: 09/01/03
Posts: 2,537
Last seen: 12 years, 11 months
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Re: What does IBM do? [Re: AhronZombi]
#3450556 - 12/05/04 03:12 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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they do alot of server solutions
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angryjslice
now with 20%more anger
Registered: 10/29/03
Posts: 916
Last seen: 4 years, 2 months
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Re: What does IBM do? [Re: Gijith]
#3453637 - 12/06/04 07:27 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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I'm going to school for computer engineering at a very well thought of engineering school, and i know many kids that i goto school with work at IBM over the summers. This last summer, my friend brad worked there designing a chip for the XBOX 2. Something to do with communicating between the CPU and the graphics chip. He couldnt talk about it much, but i know IBM does alot of work with chip design, mainly using verilog, vhdl and the like.
~JSlice~
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Rambone
The 48thAmerican
Registered: 06/05/04
Posts: 368
Last seen: 9 years, 4 months
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What univ do you go to?
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