Before electronic computers, IBM was counting people on punched cards: a 115-year technology story

IBM’s story begins before the electronic computer.

Its oldest lineage runs through Herman Hollerith’s punched-card tabulating technology, developed to automate the processing of census information in the late nineteenth century.

In 1911, financier Charles Ranlett Flint combined Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company with the International Time Recording Company and the Computing Scale Company to create the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, or CTR.

Thomas Watson turned a merger into one company

Thomas J. Watson joined CTR in 1914 and became president.

He pushed the organisation towards data-processing equipment, international expansion and a strong internal culture built around sales and service.

In 1924, CTR changed its name to International Business Machines.

Punched cards became a language of business

IBM tabulators and punched-card systems were used for accounting, inventory, statistics and government administration.

The company’s 80-column punched card became a widely used data format.

Long before software standards, the physical card itself acted as a standard representation of information.

Electronic computing changed the machine but not the customer problem

IBM moved from electromechanical tabulators into electronic computers after the Second World War.

Mainframe systems became central to banks, airlines, governments and large corporations.

The System/360 family, announced in 1964, was especially important because it created a compatible range of machines rather than forcing customers to rewrite everything for every model.

The mainframe made IBM synonymous with corporate computing

By the 1960s and 1970s, IBM had become the dominant name in large-scale business computing.

Its influence extended across hardware, operating systems, databases, storage and professional services.

That scale also brought antitrust scrutiny and intense competition.

The IBM PC accidentally created an ecosystem bigger than IBM

IBM launched its Personal Computer in 1981 using an Intel processor and an operating system supplied by Microsoft.

The decision to use relatively open third-party components allowed compatible PC manufacturers to emerge.

The architecture became enormously influential, but much of the long-term value shifted towards the processor and operating-system suppliers rather than IBM itself.

A near-crisis in the 1990s forced a strategic reset

By the early 1990s, IBM was under severe pressure as client-server computing weakened the economics of proprietary mainframes and minicomputers.

Louis Gerstner became chief executive in 1993 and resisted calls to split IBM into separate companies.

The business increasingly emphasised services and integrated enterprise solutions.

IBM sold the PC business it had helped create

IBM sold its personal-computer division to Lenovo in 2005.

The move symbolised a shift away from low-margin commodity hardware towards enterprise technology, software and services.

Red Hat anchored the hybrid-cloud strategy

IBM acquired Red Hat in 2019 in one of the largest software transactions of its time.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux and OpenShift gave IBM a platform for running applications across customer data centres and multiple public clouds.

This hybrid-cloud approach became central to IBM’s modern strategy.

AI brought IBM back to an old theme: machines augmenting information work

IBM has worked on artificial intelligence for decades, from chess systems to Watson and more recent enterprise AI platforms.

The company now focuses heavily on applying AI to business data and regulated enterprise environments rather than competing only in consumer chatbots.

The oldest company in this batch keeps changing its definition of computing

IBM has survived transitions from punched cards to electronic computers, mainframes to PCs, hardware to services and software, and now hybrid cloud and AI.

The common thread is information processing for organisations.

This history provides TechnologyBlog.co.za with a cornerstone page for future IBM mainframe, Red Hat, quantum, cloud and AI coverage.

Sources reviewed include IBM’s official origin story, company history archive and investor FAQs. Facts are current to 18 September 2026.