10 Feb
2010
10 Feb
'10
5:11 p.m.
On 10 Feb 2010 at 13:54, Rich Alderson wrote:
The truth, as is so often the case, is more complex
than that.
According to the source cited above, what Watson reported to the 1953
stockholder's meeting was that their expectation with regard to sales
of the 701, when they visited 20 potential customers, was for 5
orders. Instead, they got 18.
And taken in its context (even allowing for the differing quote in
his autobiography), is a very different kettle of fish. Expectations
for 5 orders for a new "paper tiger" machine on a single sales junket
was quite optimistic for the time.
"The IBM Archives Frequently Asked Questions asks if he said in the
1950s that he foresaw a market potential for only five electronic
computers. The document says no, but quotes his son and then IBM
President Thomas J. Watson, Jr., at the annual IBM stockholders
meeting, April 28, 1953, as speaking about the IBM 701 Electronic
Data Processing Machine, which it identifies as "the company's first
production computer designed for scientific calculations". He said
that "IBM had developed a paper plan for such a machine and took this
paper plan across the country to some 20 concerns that we thought
could use such a machine. I would like to tell you that the machine
rents for between $12,000 and $18,000 a month, so it was not the type
of thing that could be sold from place to place. But, as a result of
our trip, on which we expected to get orders for five machines, we
came home with orders for 18." Watson, Jr., later gave a slightly
different version of the story in his autobiography, where he said
the initial market sampling indicated 11 firm takers and 10 more
prospective orders."
--Chuck