News - IBM turns 100

[HEXUS]

Company celebrates its first century with a trip down memory lane.

Read more.

[Nobull]

I wonder if they'll be celebrating those years they helped out Hitler and the Third Reich to efficiently massacre millions of Jews? Probably not. Oh well done IBM on turning 100, what a brilliant company!

[Jay]

Is it me or does the logo actually shorten to BIM?

[Nelviticus]

I wonder if they'll be celebrating those years they helped out Hitler and the Third Reich to efficiently massacre millions of Jews? Probably not. Oh well done IBM on turning 100, what a brilliant company!

That's extremely unfair - their German subsidiary, which had been seized by the Nazis, supplied the equipment that was used. IBM can't be blamed for that - it would be like claiming that someone strangled with their own tie committed suicide.

[MaddAussie]

To be fair it wasn't just IBM, it was a lot of companies and to be honest there are many many more making hay in Afghanistan/Iraq.

[Nobull]

That's extremely unfair - their German subsidiary, which had been seized by the Nazis, supplied the equipment that was used. IBM can't be blamed for that - it would be like claiming that someone strangled with their own tie committed suicide.

It may have been a subsidiary but Thomas Watson (IBM Chairman at the time) knew exactly what he was doing in Germany

Far from intervening in its German subsidiary to halt its collaboration with the Nazi persecution, IBM in New York carefully supervised the whole process and also would make sure that all technical requirements were provided. Dehomag technicians were constantly sent to the US for training

Granted he wasn't a facist but he saw an opportunity to make a heap of money and he exploited it despite what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. IBM were made well aware of what their technology would be used for, as they had to cater to the very specialist tasks that the Nazis wanted them to fulfill.

Nonetheless, Watson not only fully exploited the profit making possibilities offered by Nazi Germany, he also became a political spokesperson for the German Reich. Black explains that Watson believed the world should extend “a sympathetic understanding to the German people and their aims under the leadership of Adolf Hitler”...For his role, Watson was awarded the specially created Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star to “honour foreign nationals who made themselves deserving of the German Reich”—a medal ranking second in prestige only to Hitler’s German Grand Cross

Read more here

[Nobull]

To be fair it wasn't just IBM, it was a lot of companies and to be honest there are many many more making hay in Afghanistan/Iraq.

Yes your probably right. The fact that "lots of other people do it" doesn't make it ok though. Nor does it detract from how morally wrong it is...

[miniyazz]

Impressive how long they've been around for and how much they've been instrumental in creating.

[MadamePJBailey]

IBM's 100 year history also includes its "assistance" to the German Holocaust and South African Apartheid. Some history !

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