International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or (colloquially) Big Blue; ) is an American computer technology corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century; it was founded in 1888 and incorporated (as Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R)) on June 15 1911. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. With almost 330,000 employees worldwide and revenues of States dollar|$" target="_blank" >^*91 billion annually (figures from 2005), IBM is the largest information technology company in the world, and holds more patents than any other technology company.

In recent years, services and consulting revenues have been larger than those from manufacturing. Significantly, IBM has also been steadily increasing its workforce in developing countries (notably, in IBM India) and retrenching in the US and Europe . Samuel J. Palmisano was elected CEO on January 29 2002 after having led IBM's Global Services, and helping it to become a business with $100 billion in backlog in 2004. Palmisano replaced Louis V. Gerstner, who had held the job from 1993 to 2002, taking over from John Akers, who left during a period of financial difficulty for the company.

IBM has engineers and consultants in over 170 countries and IBM Research has eight laboratories, all located in the Northern Hemisphere, with five of those locations outside of the United States. IBM employees have earned five Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, five National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.

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NPR Topics: Politics & Society

Letter About Palin Goes Viral
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:05:00 -0400
This week in Wasilla, Alaska, a woman named Anne Kilkenny sent a letter to some college friends about her former mayor, Sarah Palin. By week's end, the letter was pinging around the country and Kilkenny's phone was ringing off the hook.
Teen Sex, Sex Education And Sarah Palin
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:39:00 -0400
Gov. Sarah Palin has been a strong supporter of programs that advocate abstinence until marriage, and she also opposes explicit sex education. Alaska's law is silent on these issues, however, and it provides no specific funding for sex education in the schools.
Examining Palin's Pentecostal Background
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:14:00 -0400
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has electrified religious conservatives who see her as one of their own. The Republican vice presidential candidate brings evangelical credentials to the ticket and has a Pentecostal background.

The Talk of the Town

Dorothy Wickenden: An old-style, Los Angeles feminist on Obama.
Dorothy Wickenden Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Rosalind Wyman--seventy-seven years old; doughty feminist; political fund-raiser and philanthropist; hostess to J.F.K., Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, and Hollywood types too numerous to count; youngest elected member of the Los Angeles City Council (at the age of twenty-two); first woman to run a national political . . .
Lauren Collins: The Brooklyn painter Kehinde Wiley.
Lauren Collins Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
The painter Kehinde Wiley first travelled to Nigeria in 1997. He was trying to find his father, whom he had never met, or, more crucially for a portraitist, seen. (His mother didn’t have any photographs.) After several weeks in Lagos, he found his dad, who welcomed him. But--like any . . .
James Surowiecki: What drives market volatility?
James Surowiecki Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
American investors are frazzled. True, oil prices have fallen from their most vertiginous highs, the dollar is a bit stronger, and the stock market has actually risen over the past month. But none of those things have happened in a smooth and steady fashion. The stock market’s “ascent,” in particular . . .

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