IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon (History of Computing) Paperback – August 1, 2023

Book depth well be a long interesting read. I lived in the middle of all the great incite to the behind the seen descriptions. See how technology change challenged management and marketing as a factor in Industrial revolution. IBM's initiation and survival based on Respect For The Individual and Customer Service. My career changed multiple times by mutual agreement. I don't know where else you could get such challenge, job satisfaction and accomplishment over 30 years employment. Thank you for your book's documentary work.

As a 30 years retired IBM'er I agree with the authors review and telling of the IBM story . I was there for 1966-1996 with 20 in Management in many different location and functions. I very enjoyable read would recommend for any IBM'er.

As an IBM Marketing Rep in the 1960s, I'm finding the story brings me up to date about what I always thought was a great company to represent to my customers.

This is fine as a narrative of IBM’s history.There are two major shortcomings.First, there is no industry or strategic analysis. You can piece this together yourself but you don’t get any interesting or useful synthesis here.And second, the author seems to be completely financially illiterate, using nonsensical measures and making bizarre statements about IBM’s margins and revenues.

It covers my life at IBM.

Great read

Jim's book is a great documentary from a former employee and one of IBM's most knowledgeable historians. I tag the pages or ideas in a book that I consider worth rereading and thinking about later. Hopefully the uploaded picture is worth more than the 1,000 words I am going to write here. All IBMers should understand when I say it is a "1" performer or a "5" under Amazon's rating system.I found the read compelling because:(1) It covers the history of IBM from its earliest of dates through 2018 which more historians should attempt to accomplish to put today's IBM in perspective for a new generation that has little context of its history of falls and recoveries.(2) It provides a new look at all of IBM's Chief Executives. It raises the esteem that historians should carry for Frank T Cary's leadership in the '70s and lowers the leadership value of John R. Opel's in the '80s. Views I agree with and think more historians should consider in their reviews.(3) Looks at Louis V. Gerstner with not as much new eyes as at least a look outside the self-evaluation the chief executive wrote of himself in "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?" In this area, I look forward to further works from Jim as he consolidates more facts that were not in Lou's or this book: (1) that Lou Gerstner never had to lead though a major economic downturn (coming on board as one ended and announcing his retirement as one began), (2) the contradiction between telling employees there was an on-going financial crisis as he stripped them of their benefits but started stock buybacks in 1995, yearly dividend increases in 1996 and two stock splits in 1997 and 1999, and (3) hopefully, a new round of books that are, as Jim points out, sorely lacking from Lou's top lieutenants as they evaluate his leadership. Historians sorely need these views when these executives can write them with the distance of time. Jim does a great job looking at this time frame ... I just think there is more to the story, just like there is to Frank Cary's and John Opel's that the distance of time will bring into clarity. This is a good start, there is just more to come.Comments to enjoy this book:(1) I read the book like a historian from front to back following its chronological order. Jim in the book recommends starting where you have the most interest. I too would recommend this to the non-historian reader. Jump around and start with what is most relevant to you today.(2) It is a book targeted to historians also. Because of this a casual reader may find the references to all the other historian's views on IBM and corporate history a little distracting. Just read faster through these parts ... a 700 page book should be written to satisfy the needs of multiple audiences. If you are a historian attempting to pull together a multitude of eclectic views of the company, ideas on leadership and reviews of strategies, these are the places to slow down and think a little harder; if not, skim and don't get hung up on it.(3) If you are an employee that has been resourced by the 21st Century IBM you may find the view of the current day IBM a little on the positive side. Although empathetic with the current employee situation, the distance of the historian - to me - is a little too distant; but this should be interpreted as a challenge to "my" views - a great book does such things, doesn't it? It should make us feel a little uncomfortable with our own thoughts?A great read and amazing effort Jim - thank you.Cheers,- Pete

As a 20 year IBM veteran who lived through the 80s and 90s I really enjoyed reading this book. Kudos to the author for the writing style and for including many of the classic IBM cultural cues. It made reading the book of familiar feeling and comfortable read.Having said that they were two things that one should understand the book misses.First is lack of any emphasis or information about technology itself. The book is long on business strategy and especially sales and marketing strategy. It spends almost nothing emphasizing some of IBM‘s fantastic technology advancements which really formed the foundation for its products success. Without the products, the sales and marketing and business strategy would not have succeeded. From the 1401 to the 360 to the AS/400 and many many others along the way, great products formed the foundation for why many companies bought IBM. Yet none of this is discussed in the book really in any detail.Second is a bit of over emphasis on blaming “bureaucracy“ and the 90's Technology advancement for IBM‘s decline. I would argue it was 100% due to leadership. Poor leadership helped to give away the PC business. Poor leadership made the decision that in to get into application software. Poor leadership made them late to the Internet market, missed the networking market, cloud computing, and over focus on the mainframe for years after it was a dinosaur.A summary of IBM would be that great leadership created a great culture and great strategy in the first 50 years of IBM‘s existence and led to a success. Unfortunately leadership post 1980 and the subsequent strategies that were implemented is what led to IBM‘s decline.With better leadership and resulting strategy IBM could have been the Cisco and Oracle, Microsoft and Apple, and even Amazon cloud of today. The book would’ve been better if it would’ve drawn this aspect stronger.