The Making of International Business Machines

“Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company didn’t have the heft that Watson wanted. He dreamed of building a giant—an institution. Such companies had names like General Motors, American Telephone & Telegraph, and United States Steel. They were names that invoked limitless expansion and power.”

“The name Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company is to the writer much more euphonious, and would impress me as being a more impressive and substantial name than the one you have changed to, to wit: International Business Machines Company.”

“Watson had a standard reply: ‘We have found it a very euphonious and suitable name, regarded as indicating that our machines are aids to business big and little, ranging from the accounting departments of railroads to the ordinary transactions of retail stores … and they go practically over the civilized world.’”

“A trademark is the signature of a company as opposed to the signature of an individual. It should as closely as possible embody in the simplest forms the essential characteristics of the product or institution being advertised. It should be easy to identify, and it should serve to glorify the merchandise in question.”

“IBM was so influential that its call letters symbolized the technological revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. Like Kleenex for tissue, Frigidaire for refrigerator and Xerox for photocopier, IBM was synonymous with computers.”