Thomas Watson Jr.

(1914-1993)

    Thomas Watson Jr. was the eldest son of Thomas Watson Sr., who was the manager of IBM at that time; he was one of the most adventurous but not less successful managers, the world has ever seen, below is a summary of his biography mostly extracted from the web site of the "TIMES" . We assumed the subject of our project as the Junior Thomas Watson since, he is a great model of contemporary managers and creative person, unlike his father who was a classical manager.

    As the eldest son of the president of International Business Machines,Thomas Watson Jr. grew up tortured by self-doubt. He suffered bouts of depression and once burst into tears over the thought that his formidable father wanted him to join IBM and eventually run what was already a significant company. "I can't do it," he wailed to his mother. "I can't go to work for IBM." But 26 years later, Watson not only succeeded his father but also would eventually surpass him. IBM is now synonymous with computers, even though the company did not invent the device that would change our life, nor had it shipped a single computer before Tom Jr. took over.He boldly took IBM--and the world--into the computer age, and in the process developed a company whose awesome sales and service savvy and dark-suited culture stood for everything good and bad about corporate America.
    Under Tom Jr., Big Blue put its logo on 70% of the world's computers and thoroughly dominated the industry, and IBM stands strong again today, the sixth largest U.S. company. Not a bad legacy for someone who spent his youth "convinced that I had something missing" inside. He needed six years and three schools to get through high school, and managed to graduate from Brown University only through the forbearance of a sympathetic dean. The young playboy rated the pleasures of drinking and dancing far above those of learning.
    Watson enrolled in IBM sales school after college and hated that as well. He devoted more time to indulging his passions for flying airplanes by day and partying by night than to calling on clients. which earned hims skill he would use in World War II. WWII was a liberation for him. He worked on flight simulators for USAF for some period. The IBM that Watson went home to was an American icon. It was the outgrowth of a debt-ridden maker of scales, time clocks and accounting machines that his father took charge of in 1914--the year Tom Jr. was born.
    Back from the war, Tom Jr. saw IBM afresh and quickly realized that its future lay in computers, not a 19th century information technology like tabulators.  Many people, however, including Watson's father, couldn't believe the  company's core products were headed for extinction. Nonetheless, Tom Jr., who became IBM president in 1952, never retreated.With IBM clearly on top in the early '60s, Watson took one of the biggest gambles in corporate history. He proposed spending more than $5 billion--about three times IBM's revenues at the time--to develop a new line of  computers that would make the company's existing machines obsolete. The goal was to replace specialized units with a family of compatible computers that could fill every data-processing need. Customers could start with small computers and move up as their demands increased, taking their old software along with them. IBM had very hard times in implementing this strategy but ultimately, System/360 proved to be wildly successful as well. IBM's base of installed computers jumped from 11,000 in early 1964 to 35,000 in 1970, and its revenues more than doubled, to $7.5 billion. At the same time, IBM's market value soared from about $14 billion to more than $36 billion.
    He had to retire at age 57 because of health reasons. As a lifelong Democrat, Watson served for two years as Jimmy Carter's ambassador to Moscow.
    See IBM's history page for more information.

Lifestory:

BORN Jan. 8, 1914, in Dayton, Ohio
1937 Joins IBM
1940-45 Serves in U.S. Army Air Forces
1946 Rejoins IBM
1952 Becomes company president
1953 First IBM computer introduced
1964 Revolutionary System/360 introduced
1971 Retires from IBM
1979-81 Serves as U.S. ambassador to Russia
1993 Dies in Connecticut

(by Group#10)