James Essinger

“Most organisations, when they would dream of the exaltations of the present, roll their eyes backward. The International Business Machines Corporation has…

— James Essinger

“Hollerith regarded engineers as backroom boys who worked best when they were left alone. Watson, on the other hand, was quick to…

— James Essinger

“The aristocracy and the ordinary people were like different species. A commoner might rarely be elevated to nobility by acquiring great wealth…

— James Essinger

“Crucial decisions in business are taken as much for emotional reasons as for logical ones, perhaps even more so. The tabulators inspired…

— James Essinger

“Watson demanded total loyalty to the corporation from everybody it employed. ‘Joining a company,’ he would tell his staff, ‘is an act…

— James Essinger

“Lady Byron noted with obvious approval that her daughter was more impressed with meeting scientists on Wednesday, June 5, 1833, rather than…

— James Essinger

“Hollerith was at heart an academic inventor whose commercial success, though not his technological achievement, had in a sense been something of…

— James Essinger

“The clash of Watson’s and Hollerith’s personalities was a classical example of a brash, energetic, visionary newcomer confronting a staid traditionalist.”

— James Essinger

“Hollerith learned a lesson that all vendors of data processing devices and computers have learned at some point: that the biggest market…

— James Essinger

“IBM had its origins in Jacquard’s endeavours in Revolutionary France. And indeed IBM is, indeed, a direct descendant of the work that…

— James Essinger

“One of Watson’s many passionately held beliefs was that too many people failed to fulfil their potential because they didn’t make enough…

— James Essinger

“His other deals had tended to bring together companies from the same industry horizontally, or merge customers with their suppliers vertically, or…

— James Essinger

“Computer engineers of today are likely to find that if they have a two-week holiday they may miss a crucial new development…

— James Essinger