IBM: one hundred years of great history. IBM's influence on the development of Soviet IT

IBM (International Business Machines) is an American company headquartered in Armonk (New York), one of the world's largest manufacturers and suppliers of hardware and software, as well as IT services and consulting services.

The company was founded in 1911, and its modern name appeared in 1924. Since the mid-50s, the company has already occupied a leading position in the computer market. In 1981, the first computer was created, and by the mid-80s, IBM controlled about 60% of the world's production of electronic computing equipment. How did the history of the company begin?

19th century, German emigrant Hermann Hollerith, working for the Census Bureau, proposes to automate the statistical recording of immigrants using punched cards. To implement his idea, Herman invents an electrical machine for processing data. The sample turned out to be so successful that in 1896 Hollerith founded his own company, Tabulating Machine Co. Soon, Hollerith tabulators began to be supplied abroad, and Russia was among the customers.

In 1911, thanks to Charles Flint, a merger took place between Hollerith's company and two other companies that specialized in automating the processing of static data. In the same year, on June 15, a conglomerate was created, which was called Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR). The newborn company managed to conquer its sector of the market and after some time branches appeared in Detroit, Washington, Toronto and Dayton.

In 1914, Thomas Watson Sr. became the general manager of CTR, whose name is associated with the main achievements of the company in the 1920-1940s. Of Scottish descent, Watson became its president eleven months after starting work at CTR. By 1919, the company's turnover increased and reached $2 million. Since CTR equipment has found markets in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia, then in 1924 the company was forced to change its name to a new one - International Business Machines (IBM).

The year 1931 was marked by a whole bunch of achievements: IBM 400 accounting machines work with alphabetical data, 600 series calculating machines perform multiplication and division, the first multiplier punch and the first copying punch appear.

In 1935, IBM pioneered training courses for women to enter technical jobs that had traditionally been reserved for men.

Thomas Watson Sr. insisted on continuing production of adding machines during the Great Depression despite a sharp drop in demand. His efforts paid off in 1936 when IBM was hired as the supplier of tabulating machines for the "largest accounting operation of all time" carried out by the US government following the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935.

During the Great Depression, only multimillion-dollar revenues helped IBM “stay afloat.” Despite the crisis, company president Thomas Watson Sr. continues to fund research and pay workers salaries. Large orders from the US government in 1935-1936 helped IBM get out of the crisis.

In 1937, Thomas Watson Sr. was elected president of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and at the Berlin meeting advocated “world peace through trade.” This slogan was adopted by the ICC and IBM itself. Germany awards Watson the Order of the German Eagle. In 1940, he returned the order and thereby infuriated the Nazi government.

However, IBM subsequently came under repeated criticism for doing business in Germany in the 1930s. IBM's German subsidiary, Dehomag, supplied equipment for processing racial census results in Germany in the 1930s. As a result, Jews, gypsies and half-breeds were registered and subject to extermination.

During the Second World War, the company produced, among other things, weapon: M1 Carbine and Browning Automatic Rifle.

In 1944, the first IBM computer was created - the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, or Mark I, weighing about 4.5 tons. This is the first machine capable of automatically performing a series of operations. The computer was based on electromechanical relays.

Already in 1946, the IBM Electronic Multiplier 603 was released - the first commercially available machine based on electronic circuits capable of performing arithmetic operations. Its length is more than 15 meters, its height is about 2.5 meters, and its weight is almost 5 tons.

In 1948, IBM released the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator, a large-scale digital computer with electromechanical relays that pioneered the ability to modify a stored program.

In 1952, Thomas Watson Jr. became president of IBM. It was thanks to him that the IBM 701, the first mass-produced electronic computer, was created using vacuum tubes. It is equipped with a tape drive; Later, tape storage technology will become dominant. The new president of IBM made a bet on electronic computers even before they became more economically viable than electromechanical machines. Thanks to this, IBM dominated the computer market for several decades, that is, during the mainframe era.

In 1956, a settlement ended the US government's 1952 antitrust suit against IBM, and IBM itself began to pursue more liberal hardware licensing policies. In May, Tom Watson Jr. takes over as CEO of the corporation, and in June his father dies. The son is reorganizing IBM, laying down the concept of linear and functional divisions. This concept would later be adopted by all American businesses.

In 1957, IBM created FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation), which became the main programming language for solving technical problems. Features of the language have become one of the main sources of the “Y2K problem”. This language is still used today.

IBM type 704 electronic data processing machine (1957)

In 1959, the first transistorized IBM computers appeared, reaching such a level of reliability and speed that the US Air Force considered it possible to use them in an air defense early warning system.

In 1961, the Selectric printing press was released. Its later models would have memory and become the ancestors of modern word processors.

In 1962, IBM and American Airlines deployed SABRE, the world's first computerized airline ticket reservation system, which launched a major effort in online banking technology.

In 1964, the IBM System/360 computer appeared, which used solid-state logic microelectronic circuits. For the first time, the concept of a family of computers based on standard technologies is used.

IBM System/360 used at the University of Michigan (1969)

In 1966, Robert Dennard of IBM invents the dynamic cell random access memory, which remains the industry standard to this day.

In 1969, an on-board computer and other IBM technologies are used during the first manned flight to the Moon. The IBM laboratory developed a magnetic stripe for credit cards. Without it, even today it is impossible to imagine identification cards, driver’s licenses and plastic cards for ATMs.

In 1971, IBM developed the floppy disk (flexible disk or floppy disk), which would later become the standard storage medium for computers. personal computers. In the same year, Thomas Watson Jr. leaves his post as head of IBM. He is replaced by Frank Carey.

In 1972, an updated logo (blue striped letters) of the company was introduced, which is still used today. Designer Paul Rand worked on the logo.

In 1973, supermarkets began using barcoding systems based on the UPC standard proposed by IBM. Today, literally everything is tracked with their help.

In 1975, the IBM 5100 portable computer was released onto the market, which weighs almost 23 kg and costs from 9 to 20 thousand dollars. Don’t forget, the first computer from IBM weighed 4500 kg.

In 1981, the IBM PC appeared, the most compact and inexpensive ($1,565) personal computer at that time. 64 kilobytes of RAM and one or two floppy drives were enough to run the DOS operating system offered by a small by Microsoft, and a number of applications.

It is noteworthy that at first the company’s management did not attach any importance to this machine: the development was carried out by a group of only 4 people (under the leadership of Philip Donald Estridge). And - what had the most noticeable consequences - contrary to its strict principles of intellectual property protection, IBM did not patent either DOS (with a BASIC language interpreter) or another revolutionary invention of its developers: BIOS. As a result, more astute third-party developers made clones of the IBM PC using published specifications, and IBM lost a significant share of this rapidly growing market.

IBM makes a deal with Microsoft to develop a PC operating system and allows competitors to purchase the system to install on "IBM-compatible" clones. As a result, a fast-growing industry is born and its new giants emerge - Dell, Compaq, etc.

In 1982, the antitrust lawsuit brought by the US government against IBM back in 1969 was withdrawn. This may be what's driving IBM to further separate hardware from software, giving customers even more opportunities to mix and match products from different companies.

In 1986, IBM scientists received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the creation of a scanning tunneling microscope; Demonstrating its capabilities, the researchers were able to manipulate individual atoms to form the letters I-B-M.

In the same year, IBM lost first place in sales to the personal computer market it itself created.

In 1987, IBM Personal System/2 (PS/2) and the OS/2 operating system, developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM, were released. OS/2 supports multitasking. In just six months, a million PS/2 units were sold. IBM PC head James Cannavino wants to maintain OS/2 compatibility with AT, but Microsoft CEO Bill Gates wants to switch to new computers based on Intel processor 80386. Windows 3.0, released in 1990, had primitive multitasking capabilities, but because it took advantage of the memory management system built into 386 processors, it became a bestseller. OS/2 is left far behind.

In 1990, IBM released the System/390 family of midrange and supercomputers. The Corporation itself considers System/390 the largest product development in the last 25 years. New technologies include high-speed optical channels, ultra-dense circuits, etc.

In 1991, Microsoft and PC clone makers make huge profits, client-server architecture begins to evolve, and IBM shocks longtime industry players by announcing annual losses of $2.82 billion, the first of a three-year streak. At this time, the corporation was run by John Akers, and management was considering breaking IBM into several smaller companies.

In 1993, Louis Gerstner, former CEO of RJR Nabisco, joined IBM as CEO and Chairman of the Board. At the inaugural press conference, Gerstner says he intends to keep IBM as a single corporation and talks about his determination to transform it into a broad-based IT organization that can serve as both a supplier and a systems integrator for customers.

In 1995, IBM acquired Lotus Development Corporation and its collaboration system. Thus, IBM becomes the world's largest software developer.

In the same year, IBM introduced the ThinkPad 701cm laptop, running on an Intel Pentium processor with a clock frequency of 133 MHz. Its sleek black design, not typical of IBM products, is receiving a lot of praise.

In 1996, IBM released the DB2 Universal Database database management system (DBMS), which allows storing not only alphanumeric data, but also images, audio and video. In the same year, IBM actively adopted the Internet.

In 1997, IBM "invented" eBusiness, declaring that the Internet was becoming a business tool and ushering in the era of e-commerce.

On May 11, 1997, the IBM RS/6000 SP (Deep Blue) supercomputer won a 6-game match against world chess champion Garry Kasparov. This computer is capable of calculating 200 million chess moves per second.

In 2001, the book “IBM and the Holocaust” was published. The corporation is being sued under the US Alien Tort Act of 1789 for supplying tabulators to record prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. This lawsuit was later withdrawn. IBM justified itself by saying that its German subsidiary, along with hundreds of other foreign companies, came under the control of the Nazi authorities before World War II.

In March 2002, Sam Palmisano became CEO of the corporation, and in July, IBM announced further expansion of its services business by purchasing the global technology and business consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers for $3.5 billion. Later, this business merged with the IBM Global Business Services division and became the most profitable in the IBM structure, generating more than half of the company's income.

At the end of 2003, South Korean prosecutors conducted searches in three offices of the South Korean division of IBM. Then the corporation's employees were suspected of giving bribes to local officials for providing exclusive rights to supply computers to the government.

In 2004, IBM had 329 thousand employees in 170 countries.

In 2005, despite the fact that IBM had already sold more than 20 million ThinkPad laptops, the corporation announced the sale of its PC business to the Chinese company Lenovo in order to become more active in software and services.

In July 2009, it was announced that IBM was buying the American company SPSS, a developer of business intelligence (BI) systems. The transaction amount is $1.2 billion

In July 2010, the European Commission announced the launch of two new investigations into IBM and its dominant position in the mainframe market. The first investigation was initiated by T3 Technologies and Turbo Hercules, which develop emulation software. They claim that IBM is forcing its own hardware onto its proprietary ZOS mainframe operating system. This makes it impossible to use emulation technologies to run mainframe applications on cheaper hardware produced by third-party vendors.

The initiator of the second investigation was the European Commission itself. Regulators suspect that IBM, which, in addition to producing servers and software, provides mainframe repair and maintenance services, is interfering with the activities of other companies working in this area. According to some reports, the corporation is deliberately delaying or even blocking the supply of spare parts that no one else produces.

In August 2010, it became known that IBM had agreed to purchase business intelligence solutions provider Unica for $480 million. As part of the agreements, the entire staff of Unica, which includes one and a half thousand employees, will be integrated into the IBM Software Solutions Group division. With this transaction, IBM was able to strengthen its portfolio of solutions that allow it to more effectively conduct marketing campaigns. At the time of purchase, about one and a half thousand clients are working with Unica, including financial industry players, insurance, telecommunications companies, etc.

On September 27, 2010, IBM announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to acquire BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE), a closely held company based in Santa Clara, California.

In 2011, the company celebrated the centenary of its creation. In the same year, the IBM Watson supercomputer, consisting of 90 IBM Power 750 servers, demonstrates the corporation's achievements in the field of artificial intelligence and system architecture, winning a convincing victory in the American prototype of the game show Jeopardy over its two multiple champions.

In November 2011, it became known that American investor and billionaire Warren Buffett had bought a 5.4% stake in IBM, valued at £7.5 billion.

In 2014, IBM announced an investment of $1 billion in the development of the Watson project and the creation of a new cognitive computing division, the Watson Business Group, whose tasks include the development and commercialization of cloud-based cognitive (with elements of artificial intelligence) services in areas such as healthcare, finance, travel, telecommunications and retail.

In January 2016, IBM acquired The Weather Company's digital business for approximately $2 billion, which was integrated into the company's Watson platform and other cloud services. And to develop just one cloud medical service, Watson Health Cloud, IBM spent over $4 billion on the purchase of IT companies from the healthcare sector, for example, in February 2016, IBM acquired Truven Health Analytics, which offers management and control services, for $2.6 billion. analysis of medical information for healthcare institutions, government agencies and insurance companies.

At the beginning of 2017, an alliance was concluded between IBM companies and Salesforce, in which the two companies will jointly promote predictive analytics tools, and the Salesforce Einstein artificial intelligence platform will be connected to IBM Watson to help better understand and use the generated analytical information in the field of sales.

In March 2017, IBM announced the IBM Q project to create the world's first universal quantum computer, access to the resources of which will be provided through the IBM Cloud cloud platform. It is planned that within several years a universal quantum computing system will be created to carry out tasks for the development of new medicines, advanced materials, research in the field of artificial intelligence, digital security, logistics and financial services.

In November of the same 2017, IBM scientists successfully built and measured a prototype processor with 50-quantum bits.

At the IBM Think 2018 conference, company representatives presented the smallest computer in the world today. This computer has a size of 1 by 1 millimeter, which is comparable to the size of a grain of table salt. The cost of producing one such computer is estimated at less than 10 cents.

In January 2019, at CES, IBM Research announced the world's first quantum system, the IBM Q System One, consisting of 20 qubits and suitable for commercial use.

Exceeds 700 billion dollars, and its Apple devices are popular all over the world - from North America to South-East Asia. And it is generally accepted that the first personal computer was developed by Apple in 1976. In fact, the first computer in the United States was developed by a completely different IT giant - International Business Machine (IBM). By the way, shares of this company are traded on St. Petersburg stock exchange under the ticker symbol IBM, so that any resident of Russia can invest in these securities or trade without the need to open an account with a US broker. Its history dates back to 1911 - then it was called Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) and was engaged in the production of punching machines, cheese slicers, etc. The founder was engineer Herman Hollerith, who invented the world's first computing and analytical devices. This giant acquired its modern name in 1924, when it was significantly expanded and new markets were being developed. And in 1943, IBM produced the first computer in the United States.

Today, IBM is the world's largest company directly in the IT sector. Thanks to its deeply diversified business, the management of this giant has managed to maintain a consistently leading position in the global high-tech sector for more than 70 years. At the same time, over the past 3 years, the company’s business has frankly not been going very well, which has a negative impact on its shares - since 2012, the shares have fallen in price by 22%. However, despite this, long-term and more conservative investors are inclined to hold shares of companies such as IBM in their portfolio. One of these investors is Warren Buffett, who in 2011 purchased shares of the IT giant for $10.7 billion. Therefore, the current stock dynamics can be viewed more as a medium-term correction rather than a sustainable long-term trend.

However, as far as the IT sector is concerned, the overall situation is still developing rather ambiguously. On the one hand, the Nasdaq index is at its highest since 2001, when the Internet industry in the United States took off rapidly, and industry giants, one after another, are reporting increases in profits and key financial indicators. However, on the other hand, there are more and more investors who are disillusioned with this market and do not see serious prospects for making a profit from their investments. Indeed, in the last two years there have been very few interesting ideas in the American IT market - the last most interesting investment idea was Facebook shares after its IPO in 2012. Since then, there have been no interesting ideas among American securities - the last most notable placement was with the Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group. But it is precisely at such moments, as history shows, that IBM shares take off, since they are something of a defensive stock in the IT sector.

What does IBM do?

The main activity of IBM is the development of software and hardware, as well as the provision of consulting services in the field of information technology. As such, the company does not have a specialized segment of the IT market, the business is deeply diversified, and the largest area of ​​activity (creating infrastructure solutions in the IT field) accounts for no more than 35% of total revenue. The company focuses its activities on the innovative component of business, which is an absolute advantage that ensures a competitive position in the global IT industry. However, in last years management is unable to successfully compete with other industry giants, such as the German SAP or Microsoft. Now IBM is actively considering new areas of activity, but so far it all comes down to not the most successful acquisitions of other IT companies.

Main development trends of IBM

IBM's largest activities are the development of software and infrastructure solutions in the IT field. These two account for almost 70% of total revenue - that's more than $60 billion. In recent years, the company has been actively developing new business areas - technical support various IT systems and services, as well as comprehensive solutions for business clients (mainly related to the automation of business processes through IT services). Their share in general structure revenue is 28%. However, in recent years, due to weak demand in Europe and Japan, these business segments have been reducing profitability.

Geographically, the largest share in the revenue structure is occupied by US IT - almost 35%. The Japanese market also has a fairly high share - more than 9%. Thus, the company’s business is diversified in two directions at once - geographical and segmental. However, due to the crisis in Europe and Japan, as well as competition from other giants in the IT industry (Google, Microsoft, SAP, etc.), the company is actively looking for new markets and is constantly restructuring its business. In particular, in January it appeared in the media that management was preparing to cut about 111 thousand personnel (about 26% of the total staff). This is the largest reduction in the history of the company, but the press service later denied this data, saying that the reductions would affect only a few thousand employees and amount to no more than 3 thousand people.

Financial indicators

IBM's financial results remain quite weak. For the 2014 financial year, total revenue was $92.8 billion, which is 6% less than last year. Net also decreased to $15.8 billion compared to $16.9 billion a year earlier. Moreover, in the first quarter of 2015 financial year Revenue accelerated the decline and amounted to just over 24.1 billion dollars, which is 15% less than the same period a year earlier, and amounted to less than 5.5 billion dollars, which is 12% less than the 1st quarter of 2014 fiscal year. Such weak results frankly disappointed investors - after the release of the earnings, the company's shares sank by 3.5% and fell below the important support level of $155 per share. It was possible to recover this fall only a week later in early February, when the high-tech Nasdaq index tried to overcome the psychological mark of 5,000 points.

However, the company's fundamentals are quite strong, which is a direct consequence of management's conservative strategy. At first glance, the debt burden is quite high - the Debt/Equity ratio, which determines the ratio of debt to equity, is 3.4. However, even such seemingly large debts are not fatal for such a reliable issuer, especially since most of these obligations are long-term - about 2.96. Profitability indicators are significantly better than those of peer companies. Thus, equity ROE is 95.9%, average ROI reaches 29.9%, and return on assets ROA is 11.9%. For example, the German business software developer SAP has similar figures of 19.9%, 16.5% and 11.3%, respectively.

True, operating profitability indicators are somewhat lower than in the sector as a whole. Thus, the gross profitability of the company and the sector is 50% and 63.9%, respectively, and operating profitability is 21.5% versus 24%. In terms of the company's and sector's margins, the gap is even greater - the pre-tax profit margin is 21.54% and 32.35%, respectively, and 17% and 22.9%.

However, low comparative indicators are associated with high business diversification and conservative management policies, which limits the profitability of the business as a whole, but in return this significantly reduces financial risks and increases the company's stability.

With all this, IBM shares fell by 13.14% over the year, and since the beginning of this year the drawdown has been slightly less than 1% - to $157.80. For comparison, in general, in the Information Technology Services sector from the S&P500 index, in which the company’s securities are traded, capitalization over the year decreased by only 4.3%, and since the beginning of the year it has been growing by 0.25%. However, is this dynamic justified?

Is there potential for growth?

The company's P/E ratio is 10.05, which is very low for high-tech companies, especially in IBM's core sector. For comparison, for the sector as a whole this is 15.61. At the same time, the P/Sales ratio for the company and the sector is 1.68 and 1.64, respectively, and the ratio indicator market capitalization to book value of assets P/Book is 13.17 and 6.24. According to the listed multiples, IBM shares are one of the most attractive among large companies high-tech sector.

The return on shares is also quite high. Thus, comparative earnings per share for the company and the sector are $91.85 and $56.13, respectively, and base earnings are $15.68 and $11.56. Besides, cash flow per share is $20.04 and $15.33, respectively. Such indicators indicate higher profitability investment activities IBM compared to the core sector.

As a result, we can conclude that the drawdown in the IT giant’s securities that is currently observed is a temporary phenomenon. In the medium to long term, IBM's capitalization will grow, otherwise people like Warren Buffett would not hold their shares in their portfolio. The potential for growth in quotes is quite large, and the end of the drawdown in the price of IBM securities will make them the most attractive for medium- and long-term investments.

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IBM(InternationalBusinessMachines,NYSE:IBM) is a multinational, American technology and consulting company headquartered in Armonk, NY, USA. IBM official website.

Is second largest, a technology corporation open for trading at the end of September 2011 of the year. Also according to version Forbes, V 2011 year, the company took 31st place as the largest in the world.

Other awards 2011 : Fortune, advanced company – No. 1; Newsweek– No. 1, as the “greenest” company; Fortune— No. 12 in the ranking of the most respected companies; Fast Company— No. 18 in the ranking of the most innovative companies.

Currently he is mainly engaged in consulting, research And design activities, has a huge patent portfolio(the largest in the USA), which has been replenished since grounds companies in 1911 year. Formed from the merger of four companies : the Tabulating Machine Company , the International Time Recording Company , the Computing Scale Corporation And the Bundy Manufacturing Company . The current name of the company was given in 1924 year, and due to the special trade policy and blue logo, many call the company as Big Blue (« Blue giant »).

Works for the company more than 425 thousand. Human(engineers, consultants, financiers, scientists, sales professionals), sometimes called IBM-ers. The company's areas of activity are widespread more than on 200 countries.

The company has nine research centers around the world: in China, Almadena, Austin, Brazil, Haifa, Tokyo, Watson (NY ), Zurich-with-Watson(opened in 1961), India. The company's employees received together 5 Nobel Prizes , four Turing Awards, five Medals of Science and nine National Medals of Technology.

Inventions:

The company's most famous inventions : bank cards with magnetic stripes, floppy disks, SQL and relational databases, ATM(ATM), Universal Product Code(UPC), Saber Airline reservation system, standard IBM PC, which is still found and used today, IBM /360 and creating a class - mainframes, compiler Fortran, first commercial calculator and the first American computer.

Recent restructurings:

During its existence, the company has undergone a lot restructurings. The most significant in Lately were refusal to produce computers and others systems and transition to consulting activities. The production lines were subsequently sold to the company Lenovo V 2005 year. To promote the consulting market, the company bought company PwC Consulting And SPSS to obtain technology for collecting statistical data. Subdivision IBM Global Services, now formed from PwC Consulting, brings in more than half of the company's total revenue.

The company has three divisions:

• IBM Global Services(IGS, consulting department).
• Systems and Technology Group(STG, equipment and systems production department).
• Software Group(software development department).

SamPalmisano, will leave post general director 1 January 2012 of the year, but at the same time it will preserve your position as chairman of the board of directors. He will be replaced by IBM veteran Ginni Rometty.

Projects.

The company is one of the main initiators OPEN Source(open resources). WITH 1998 funds millions of dollars into the kernel development team Linux, through IBM Linux Technology Center.

Modern consoles include developments PowerPC- architecture from IBM. For example, a processor in or Xbox 360 processor that was developed IBM Only for 24 month. The processors have one of the best energy efficiency indicators.

August 18, 2011 years as part of his efforts in computer cognitive research activities, IBM released chips that mimic neurons and synapses. These microprocessors do not use the architecture von Neumann, and consume less memory and power.

Company Tokio Ohka Kogyo Co.,Ltd (CURRENT) And IBM collaborate in creating new ones, solar panels new generation CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenide) and attracting them to the market. Using thin film technology such as CIGS, has great prospects in reducing the total cost of solar cells and further creation of conditions for their widespread distribution. IBM examines four main areas of research in solar photovoltaic cells: the use of modern technologies for the development cheaper And more efficient silicon solar cells, developing new solutions processing photovoltaic films, drives solar energy, and the future generation of photovoltaics architecture based nano-structures, such as semiconductors quantum dots And nano wires.

Income, cash turnover of IBM:

2010 :

• Operating profit – $19.273 billion.

• Total income - $ 99.870 billion

• Net profit - $14.833 billion

• Company assets - $113.452 billion

• Total capital gain -$ 23.172 billion

Affiliated companies SoftLayer[d], IBM India Private Limited[d], IBM Internet Security Systems, Lotus Software[d], Rational Software, IBM Denmark[d], Compagnie IBM France[d], Companhia IBM Portuguesa[d], IBM Netherlands[d], IBM Germany[d], IBM Egypt Business Support Services [d], IBM Canada[d], Bluemix And IBM Research[d]

IBM(pronounced IBM; MFA: ; abbr. from English International Business Machines) is an American company headquartered in Armonk (New York), one of the world's largest manufacturers and suppliers of hardware and software, as well as IT services and consulting services.

A common nickname for the company is Big Blue, which can be translated from English as “big blue” or “blue giant”. There are several versions regarding this nickname. According to one of them, the name comes from the mainframes supplied by the company in the 1950s - 1960s. They were the size of a room and were blue in color. Another theory is that the nickname simply refers to the company logo. According to another version, this name comes from the company’s former dress code, which required many employees to wear blue shirts and suits.

Story

1888-1924: IBM founded

In 1890, a census was taken across the United States. To process its results, the “electric tabulator” invented by Herman Hollerith was first used. Thanks to him, the census data was processed in just a year, whereas the previous census of 1880 took 8 years to process. Encouraged by his success, the inventor opened the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896.

In 1924, with entry into the Canadian market and expansion of the product range, CTR changed its name to International Business Machines or, for short, IBM.

1930s - 1940s

In 2001, IBM donated $3,000,000 to the Holocaust Victims Compensation Fund for supplies to Germany of machines for recording concentration camp prisoners.

1950s - Air Force and airline projects

In the 1950s, the company created a large computerized missile defense system, SAGE, which analyzed data from radars in real time and guided interceptors to their targets. Used from the 50s to the 80s of the XX century. In later versions, the system made it possible to automatically direct aircraft to intercept, transmitting data directly to their autopilots.

Computer era

In 1956, Thomas Watson's son Thomas Watson Jr. succeeded his father as head of IBM, ushering in the era of computing for life. Under his leadership, the company's revenues grew to $8 billion, and the number of employees to 270 thousand people.

In 1964, the IBM System/360 family was introduced, which were: the first universal computers, the first designed family of computers, the first computers with byte-addressable memory, etc. System/360-compatible IBM System z computers are still being produced: this is an absolute record compatibility.

In 1971, the company introduced the floppy disk, which became the standard for data storage.

In 1972, an updated logo (blue striped letters) of the company was introduced, which is still used today. Designer Paul Rand worked on the logo (English)Russian.

1981 has firmly entered the history of mankind as the year of the appearance of the Personal Computer “IBM PC”. 640 kilobytes of RAM and one or two floppy drives were enough to run the DOS operating system, offered by the then small company Microsoft, and a number of applications. Along with DOS, models were offered on the CP/M-86 OS and the UCSD Pascal P-system, but these systems did not survive, since Microsoft provided a unique offer for that time: to purchase a license to supply software for an unlimited number of computers for a one-time payment, which significantly reduced the price of a configuration with MS-DOS, which attracted a large number of buyers and, accordingly, brought wide popularity to Microsoft.

It is noteworthy that at first the company’s management did not attach any importance to this machine: the development was carried out by a group of only 4 people (under the leadership of Philip Donald Estridge). The most noticeable consequences were that, contrary to its strict principles of intellectual property protection, IBM did not patent either DOS (with a BASIC language interpreter) or another revolutionary invention of its developers - BIOS. As a result, more astute third-party developers, using published specifications, made clones of the IBM PC, which led to explosive market growth, but a large share (and a significant amount) was lost to IBM.

Around 1984, the AS/400 series was launched, a mini-computer designed for business tasks. It was backward compatible with previously released S/36 and S/38 minicomputers. It used Micro-Channel (MCA) bus technologies and the SCSI interface, which is still used in servers. Computers in this series are still in production and can use any software developed earlier.

In 1986, IBM lost 1st place in sales in the personal computer market it itself created.

In 1990, an attempt was made to seize the initiative in the personal computer market with the release of PS/2 series computers with the OS/2 operating system, which were not compatible either in hardware or software with PC and DOS. The machines used advanced technologies, for example, the Micro-Channel bus (much superior to the ISA bus then used in PCs, and the PCI bus appeared only in 1991). The PS/2 series did not receive widespread market recognition, and its production was soon discontinued. However, connectors for keyboards and mice based on a Mini-DIN plug, called PS/2 ports, are still widely used in PCs.

As part of this series, the OS/2 Warp V3.0 operating system was planned to be released, initially created directly with Microsoft, but IBM continued to rely on the mainframe market, which led to a development lag of this project. As a result, Microsoft switched to developing Windows, and a series of computers running OS/2 entered the market later than planned and, despite a massive advertising campaign and very good characteristics, the project was unable to stay on the market.

Era of Consulting

IBM office in Kazan

Focusing its business on the delivery of services, in 2005 IBM sold its division for the production and sale of personal computers (the ThinkPad and ThinkCentre lines) to the Chinese company Lenovo for $1.8 billion. And in 2014, Lenovo also bought from IBM for $2.3 billion a division responsible for the development and production of x86 servers (mainly the System X and BladeCenter lines). Also in 2014, by selling its semiconductor factories to GlobalFoundries, IBM announced that it was becoming a fabless company in the semiconductor segment, continuing to develop processors but abandoning their production.

Beginning around 2007, IBM began to operate in the segment of cloud computing and business services delivered over the Internet. Strengthening its position in this sector, in 2013 IBM bought a large international hosting provider, Softlayer Technologies, for approximately $2 billion. (English)Russian, which owned a network of 13 data centers in the USA, Singapore and Amsterdam, and in 2014 announced an investment of over $1.2 billion in the construction of 15 new data centers as part of a strategy to expand cloud services on the IBM Cloud platform (English)Russian .

In March 2017, IBM announced the IBM Q project to create the world's first universal quantum computer, access to the resources of which will be provided through the IBM Cloud cloud platform (English)Russian. It is planned that within a few years a universal quantum computing system will be created to carry out tasks for the development of new drugs, advanced materials, research in the field of artificial intelligence, digital security, logistics and financial services. And in November 2017, IBM scientists successfully built and measured a prototype processor with 50-quantum bits.

At the IBM Think 2018 conference, company representatives presented the smallest computer in the world today. This computer has a size of 1 by 1 millimeter, which is comparable to the size of a grain of table salt. The cost of producing one such computer is estimated at less than 10 cents.

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Key divisions of IBM:

• IBM Global Services (English)Russian (IGS, consulting division), brought the company $47.357 billion in revenue out of $91.134 billion in total in 2015;
• IBM Software Group(software development division), brought the company $15.753 billion in revenue in 2015;
• IBM Systems & Technology Group(STG, equipment manufacturing division), brought the company $23.857 billion in 2015;
• IBM Watson Group(a division of cognitive computing - which grew out of the development of the IBM Watson supercomputer project);
• IBM Research (English)Russian ;
• IBM Global Financing.

Software

IBM's influence on the development of computing and software

Significant developments in the information technology industry

• 1943 - Mark I, the first American computer;
• 1946 (September 27) - the first commercial calculator;
• 1956 - the first commercial hard drive;
• 1957 - Fortran compiler released;
• 1959 - the first airline ticket reservation system - Saber (English)

; abbr. from English International Business Machines ) is an American company headquartered in Armonk (New York), one of the world's largest manufacturers and suppliers of hardware and software, as well as IT services and consulting services.

A common nickname for the company is Big Blue, which can be translated from English as “big blue” or “blue giant”. There are several versions regarding this nickname. According to one of them, the name came from the mainframes supplied by the company in the 1950s and 1960s. They were the size of a room and were blue in color. Another theory is that the nickname simply refers to the company logo. Another version claims that this name comes from the company's former dress code, which required many employees to wear blue shirts and suits.

Story

1888-1924: IBM founded

During World War II, the company produced small arms (M1 Carbine and Browning Automatic Rifle).

1950s - Air Force and airline projects

In the 1950s, the company created a large computerized missile defense system, SAGE. Semi Automatic Ground Environment ), which analyzed data from radars in real time and provided interceptor guidance to the target. Used from the 50s to the 80s of the XX century. In later versions, the system made it possible to automatically direct aircraft to intercept, transmitting data directly to their autopilots.

Computer era

It is noteworthy that at first the company’s management did not attach any importance to this machine: the development was carried out by a group of only 4 people (under the leadership of Philip Donald Estridge). And, what had the most noticeable consequences, contrary to its strict principles of intellectual property protection, IBM did not patent either DOS (with a BASIC language interpreter) or another revolutionary invention of the developers: BIOS. As a result, more astute third-party developers made clones of the IBM PC using published specifications, which led to explosive market growth, but a large share (and a significant amount) was lost to IBM.

Activity

Key divisions of IBM:

• IBM Global Services ( English ) (IGS, consulting division), brought the company $47.357 billion in revenue out of $91.134 billion in total in 2015;
• IBM Software Group(software development division), brought the company $15.753 billion in revenue in 2015;
• IBM Systems & Technology Group(STG, equipment manufacturing division), brought the company $23.857 billion in 2015;
• IBM Watson Group(a division of cognitive computing - which grew out of the development of the IBM Watson supercomputer project);
• IBM Research ( English ) ;
• IBM Global Financing.

Software

IBM's influence on the development of computing and software

Significant developments in the information technology industry

• 1943 - Mark I, the first American computer;
• 1946 (September 27) - the first commercial calculator;
• 1956 - the first commercial hard drive;
• 1957 - Fortran compiler released;
• 1959 - the first airline ticket reservation system - Saber (English)Russian;
• 1961 - electric typewriter with ball head - IBM Selectric typewriter;
• 1964 - the beginning of mass production of the IBM System/360 computer, which is considered the founder of a whole class of computers - mainframes;
• 1968 - dynamic random access memory;
• 1971 - floppy disk;
• 1974 - SQL language;
• 1981 - IBM PC - a personal computer, the architecture of which has become the de facto standard for the industry since the 80s of the 20th century, the open architecture of the IBM PC largely contributed to the enormous success of the IBM PC, the mass production of PC-compatible clones by many companies and ultimately the advent of the era of personal computers and the computer revolution.

In addition, competition with IBM served as a powerful impetus for many start-up companies for their own development. At various times, the startup companies Apple, DEC, Intel, Microsoft, Compaq and some others competed with IBM.

IBM also influenced the development of Soviet information technology, in particular ES computers were copied from IBM/360 computers, ES personal computers were analogues of IBM personal computers, and the ES family of OS operating systems were at least compatible with the corresponding IBM operating systems.

Literature

• Louis Gerstner. Who said elephants can't dance? Tough reforms for company survival = Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround. - M.: Alpina Publisher, 2014. - 320 p. - ISBN 978-5-9614-4713-2.

Links

International Business Machines Corporation Equipment Software Consulting and services see also

Excerpt describing IBM

- They killed me three times, three times I rose from the dead. They stoned me, crucified me... I will rise... I will rise... I will rise. They tore my body apart. The kingdom of God will be destroyed... I will destroy it three times and build it up three times,” he shouted, raising his voice more and more. Count Rastopchin suddenly turned pale, just as he had turned pale when the crowd rushed at Vereshchagin. He turned away.
- Let's go... let's go quickly! - he shouted at the coachman in a trembling voice.
The carriage rushed at all the horses' feet; but for a long time behind him, Count Rastopchin heard a distant, insane, desperate cry, and before his eyes he saw one surprised, frightened, bloody face of a traitor in a fur sheepskin coat.
No matter how fresh this memory was, Rostopchin now felt that it had cut deep into his heart, to the point of bleeding. He now clearly felt that the bloody trail of this memory would never heal, but that, on the contrary, the further, the more evil, the more painful this terrible memory would live in his heart for the rest of his life. He heard, it seemed to him now, the sounds of his words:
“Cut him, you will answer me with your head!” - “Why did I say these words! Somehow I accidentally said... I could not have said them (he thought): then nothing would have happened.” He saw the frightened and then suddenly hardened face of the dragoon who struck and the look of silent, timid reproach that this boy in a fox sheepskin coat threw at him... “But I didn’t do it for myself. I should have done this. La plebe, le traitre... le bien publique”, [Mob, villain... public good.] - he thought.
The army was still crowded at the Yauzsky Bridge. It was hot. Kutuzov, frowning and despondent, was sitting on a bench near the bridge and playing with a whip in the sand, when a carriage noisily galloped up to him. A man in a general's uniform, wearing a hat with a plume, with darting eyes that were either angry or frightened, approached Kutuzov and began telling him something in French. It was Count Rastopchin. He told Kutuzov that he came here because Moscow and the capital no longer exist and there is only one army.
“It would have been different if your lordship had not told me that you would not surrender Moscow without fighting: all this would not have happened!” - he said.
Kutuzov looked at Rastopchin and, as if not understanding the meaning of the words addressed to him, carefully tried to read something special written at that moment on the face of the person speaking to him. Rastopchin, embarrassed, fell silent. Kutuzov shook his head slightly and, without taking his searching gaze off Rastopchin’s face, said quietly:
– Yes, I will not give up Moscow without giving a battle.
Was Kutuzov thinking about something completely different when he said these words, or did he say them on purpose, knowing their meaninglessness, but Count Rostopchin did not answer anything and hastily walked away from Kutuzov. And a strange thing! The commander-in-chief of Moscow, the proud Count Rostopchin, taking a whip in his hands, approached the bridge and began to disperse the crowded carts with a shout.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, Murat's troops entered Moscow. A detachment of Wirtemberg hussars rode ahead, and the Neapolitan king himself rode behind on horseback with a large retinue.
Near the middle of the Arbat, near St. Nicholas the Revealed, Murat stopped, awaiting news from the advance detachment about the situation of the city fortress “le Kremlin”.
A small group of people from the residents remaining in Moscow gathered around Murat. Everyone looked with timid bewilderment at the strange, long-haired boss adorned with feathers and gold.
- Well, is this their king himself? Nothing! – quiet voices were heard.
The translator approached a group of people.
“Take off your hat... take off your hat,” they said in the crowd, turning to each other. The translator turned to one old janitor and asked how far it was from the Kremlin? The janitor, listening in bewilderment to the alien Polish accent and not recognizing the sounds of the translator's dialect as Russian speech, did not understand what was being said to him and hid behind others.
Murat moved towards the translator and ordered to ask where the Russian troops were. One of the Russian people understood what was being asked of him, and several voices suddenly began to answer the translator. A French officer from the advance detachment rode up to Murat and reported that the gates to the fortress were sealed and that there was probably an ambush there.
“Okay,” said Murat and, turning to one of the gentlemen of his retinue, he ordered four light guns to be brought forward and fired at the gate.
The artillery came out at a trot from behind the column following Murat and rode along the Arbat. Having descended to the end of Vzdvizhenka, the artillery stopped and lined up in the square. Several French officers controlled the cannons, positioning them, and looked into the Kremlin through a telescope.
The bell for Vespers was heard in the Kremlin, and this ringing confused the French. They assumed it was a call to arms. Several infantry soldiers ran to the Kutafyevsky Gate. There were logs and planks at the gate. Two rifle shots rang out from under the gate as soon as the officer and his team began to run up to them. The general standing at the cannons shouted command words to the officer, and the officer and the soldiers ran back.
Three more shots were heard from the gate.
One shot hit a French soldier in the leg, and a strange cry of a few voices was heard from behind the shields. On the faces of the French general, officers and soldiers at the same time, as if on command, the previous expression of gaiety and calm was replaced by a stubborn, concentrated expression of readiness to fight and suffer. For all of them, from the marshal to the last soldier, this place was not Vzdvizhenka, Mokhovaya, Kutafya and Trinity Gate, but this was a new area of ​​a new field, probably a bloody battle. And everyone prepared for this battle. The screams from the gate died down. The guns were deployed. The artillerymen blew off the burnt blazers. The officer commanded “feu!” [fallen!], and two whistling sounds of tins were heard one after another. Grapeshot bullets crackled against the stone of the gate, logs and shields; and two clouds of smoke wavered in the square.
A few moments after the rolling of shots across the stone Kremlin died down, a strange sound was heard above the heads of the French. A huge flock of jackdaws rose above the walls and, cawing and rustling with thousands of wings, circled in the air. Along with this sound, a lonely human cry was heard at the gate, and from behind the smoke the figure of a man without a hat, in a caftan, appeared. Holding a gun, he aimed at the French. Feu! - the artillery officer repeated, and at the same time one rifle and two cannon shots were heard. The smoke closed the gate again.
Nothing else moved behind the shields, and the French infantry soldiers and officers went to the gate. There were three wounded and four dead people lying at the gate. Two people in caftans were running away from below, along the walls, towards Znamenka.
“Enlevez moi ca, [Take it away,” said the officer, pointing to the logs and corpses; and the French, having finished off the wounded, threw the corpses down beyond the fence. Nobody knew who these people were. “Enlevez moi ca,” was the only word said about them, and they were thrown away and cleaned up later so they wouldn’t stink. Thiers alone dedicated several eloquent lines to their memory: “Ces miserables avaient envahi la citadelle sacree, s"etaient empares des fusils de l"arsenal, et tiraient (ces miserables) sur les Francais. On en sabra quelques "uns et on purgea le Kremlin de leur presence. [These unfortunates filled the sacred fortress, took possession of the guns of the arsenal and shot at the French. Some of them were cut down with sabers, and cleared the Kremlin of their presence.]
Murat was informed that the path had been cleared. The French entered the gates and began to camp on Senate Square. The soldiers threw chairs out of the Senate windows into the square and laid out fires.
Other detachments passed through the Kremlin and were stationed along Maroseyka, Lubyanka, and Pokrovka. Still others were located along Vzdvizhenka, Znamenka, Nikolskaya, Tverskaya. Everywhere, not finding owners, the French settled not as in apartments in the city, but as in a camp located in the city.
Although ragged, hungry, exhausted and reduced to 1/3 of their previous strength, the French soldiers entered Moscow in orderly order. It was an exhausted, exhausted, but still fighting and formidable army. But it was an army only until the minute the soldiers of this army went to their apartments. As soon as the people of the regiments began to disperse to empty and rich houses, the army was destroyed forever and neither residents nor soldiers were formed, but something in between, called marauders. When, five weeks later, the same people left Moscow, they no longer constituted an army. It was a crowd of marauders, each of whom carried or carried with him a bunch of things that seemed valuable and necessary to him. The goal of each of these people when leaving Moscow was not, as before, to conquer, but only to retain what they had acquired. Like that monkey who, having put his hand into the narrow neck of a jug and grabbed a handful of nuts, does not unclench his fist so as not to lose what he has grabbed, and thereby destroys himself, the French, when leaving Moscow, obviously had to die due to the fact that they were dragging with the loot, but it was as impossible for him to throw away this loot as it is impossible for a monkey to unclench a handful of nuts. Ten minutes after each French regiment entered some quarter of Moscow, not a single soldier or officer remained. In the windows of the houses people in greatcoats and boots could be seen walking around the rooms laughing; in the cellars and basements the same people managed the provisions; in the courtyards the same people unlocked or beat down the gates of barns and stables; they lit fires in the kitchens, baked, kneaded and cooked with their hands rolled up, scared, made them laugh and caressed women and children. And there were many of these people everywhere, in shops and in homes; but the army was no longer there.
On the same day, order after order was given by the French commanders to prohibit troops from dispersing throughout the city, to strictly prohibit violence against residents and looting, and to make a general roll call that same evening; but, despite any measures. the people who had previously made up the army dispersed throughout the rich, empty city, abundant in amenities and supplies. Just as a hungry herd walks in a heap across a bare field, but immediately scatters uncontrollably as soon as it attacks rich pastures, so the army scattered uncontrollably throughout the rich city.
There were no inhabitants in Moscow, and the soldiers, like water into sand, were sucked into it and, like an unstoppable star, spread out in all directions from the Kremlin, which they entered first of all. The cavalry soldiers, entering a merchant's house abandoned with all its goods and finding stalls not only for their horses, but also extra ones, still went nearby to occupy another house, which seemed better to them. Many occupied several houses, writing in chalk who occupied it, and arguing and even fighting with other teams. Before they could fit in, the soldiers ran outside to inspect the city and, hearing that everything had been abandoned, rushed to where they could take away valuables for nothing. The commanders went to stop the soldiers and themselves unwittingly became involved in the same actions. In Carriage Row there were shops with carriages, and the generals crowded there, choosing carriages and carriages for themselves. The remaining residents invited their leaders to their place, hoping to thereby protect themselves from robbery. There was an abyss of wealth, and there was no end in sight; everywhere, around the place that the French occupied, there were still unexplored, unoccupied places, in which, as it seemed to the French, there was even more wealth. And Moscow sucked them in further and further. Just as when water pours onto dry land, water and dry land disappear; in the same way, due to the fact that a hungry army entered an abundant, empty city, the army was destroyed, and the abundant city was destroyed; and there was dirt, fires and looting.

The French attributed the fire of Moscow to au patriotisme feroce de Rastopchine [to Rastopchin's wild patriotism]; Russians – to the fanaticism of the French. In essence, there were no reasons for the fire of Moscow in the sense of attributing this fire to the responsibility of one or several persons. Moscow burned down due to the fact that it was placed in such conditions under which every wooden city should burn down, regardless of whether the city had one hundred and thirty bad fire pipes or not. Moscow had to burn due to the fact that the inhabitants left it, and just as inevitably as a heap of shavings should catch fire, on which sparks of fire would rain down for several days. A wooden city, in which there are fires almost every day in the summer under the residents, house owners and under the police, cannot help but burn down when there are no inhabitants in it, but live troops smoking pipes, making fires on Senate Square from Senate chairs and cooking themselves two once a day. In peacetime, as soon as troops settle into quarters in villages in a certain area, the number of fires in this area immediately increases. To what extent should the probability of fires increase in an empty wooden city in which an alien army is stationed? Le patriotisme feroce de Rastopchine and the fanaticism of the French are not to blame for anything here. Moscow caught fire from pipes, from kitchens, from fires, from the sloppiness of enemy soldiers and residents - not the owners of the houses. If there were arson (which is very doubtful, because there was no reason for anyone to set fire, and, in any case, it was troublesome and dangerous), then the arson cannot be taken as the cause, since without the arson it would have been the same.
No matter how flattering it was for the French to blame the atrocity of Rostopchin and for the Russians to blame the villain Bonaparte or then to place the heroic torch in the hands of their people, one cannot help but see that there could not have been such a direct cause of the fire, because Moscow had to burn, just as every village and factory had to burn , every house from which the owners will come out and into which strangers will be allowed to run the house and cook their own porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it’s true; but not by those residents who remained in it, but by those who left it. Moscow, occupied by the enemy, did not remain intact, like Berlin, Vienna and other cities, only due to the fact that its inhabitants did not offer bread, salt and keys to the French, but left it.

The influx of Frenchmen, spreading like a star across Moscow on the day of September 2, reached the block in which Pierre now lived only in the evening.
After the last two days, spent alone and unusually, Pierre was in a state close to madness. His whole being was taken over by one persistent thought. He himself did not know how and when, but this thought now took possession of him so that he did not remember anything from the past, did not understand anything from the present; and everything that he saw and heard happened before him as in a dream.
Pierre left his home only to get rid of the complex tangle of life's demands that gripped him, and which, in his then state, he was able to unravel. He went to Joseph Alekseevich’s apartment under the pretext of sorting through the books and papers of the deceased only because he was looking for peace from life’s anxiety - and with the memory of Joseph Alekseevich, a world of eternal, calm and solemn thoughts was associated in his soul, completely opposite to the anxious confusion in which he felt himself being drawn in. He was looking for a quiet refuge and really found it in the office of Joseph Alekseevich. When, in the dead silence of the office, he sat down, leaning on his hands, over the dusty desk of the deceased, memories began to appear in his imagination, calmly and significantly, one after another. last days, especially the Battle of Borodino and that indefinable feeling for him of his insignificance and deceit in comparison with the truth, simplicity and strength of that category of people who were imprinted in his soul under the name they. When Gerasim woke him from his reverie, the thought occurred to Pierre that he would take part in the supposed - as he knew - people's defense Moscow. And for this purpose, he immediately asked Gerasim to get him a caftan and a pistol and announced to him his intention, hiding his name, to stay in the house of Joseph Alekseevich. Then, during the first solitary and idle day (Pierre tried several times and could not stop his attention on the Masonic manuscripts), he vaguely imagined several times the previously thought about the cabalistic meaning of his name in connection with the name of Bonaparte; but this thought that he, l "Russe Besuhof, was destined to put a limit to the power of the beast, came to him only as one of the dreams that run through his imagination for no reason and without a trace.
When, having bought a caftan (with the sole purpose of participating in the people's defense of Moscow), Pierre met the Rostovs and Natasha said to him: “Are you staying? Oh, how good it is!” – the thought flashed through his head that it would really be good, even if they took Moscow, for him to stay in it and fulfill what was predetermined for him.
The next day, with one thought not to feel sorry for himself and not to lag behind them in anything, he walked with the people beyond the Trekhgornaya Gate. But when he returned home, making sure that Moscow would not be defended, he suddenly felt that what had previously seemed to him only a possibility had now become a necessity and an inevitability. He had to, hiding his name, stay in Moscow, meet Napoleon and kill him in order to either die or stop the misfortune of all of Europe, which, in Pierre's opinion, originated from Napoleon alone.
Pierre knew all the details of the attempt by a German student on the life of Bonaparte in Vienna in 1809 and knew that this student had been shot. And the danger to which he exposed his life in fulfilling his intention excited him even more.
Two equally strong feelings irresistibly attracted Pierre to his intention. The first was a feeling of the need for sacrifice and suffering with the awareness of general misfortune, that feeling, as a result of which he went to Mozhaisk on the 25th and arrived in the very heat of battle, now ran away from his home and, instead of the usual luxury and comforts of life, slept without undressing, on on a hard sofa and ate the same food with Gerasim; the other was that vague, exclusively Russian feeling of contempt for everything conventional, artificial, human, for everything that is considered by most people to be the highest good of the world. For the first time, Pierre experienced this strange and charming feeling in the Slobodsky Palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life, everything that people so diligently arrange and protect - if all this is worth something, then only by the pleasure with which you can give it all up.
It was that feeling as a result of which a hunter recruit drinks his last penny, a drunken man breaks mirrors and glass for no apparent reason and knows that it will cost him his last money; that feeling as a result of which a person, doing (in the vulgar sense) crazy things, seems to be testing his personal power and strength, declaring the presence of a higher, standing outside human conditions, judgment over life.
From the very day when Pierre first experienced this feeling in the Slobodsky Palace, he was constantly under its influence, but now he only found complete satisfaction with it. In addition, at the moment Pierre was supported in his intention and deprived of the opportunity to renounce him by what he had already done along this path. And his flight from home, and his caftan, and the pistol, and his statement to Rostov that he remained in Moscow - everything would have lost not only its meaning, but all this would have been despicable and ridiculous (to which Pierre was sensitive), if After all this, like others, he left Moscow.
Pierre's physical condition, as always happens, coincided with his moral one. Unusual coarse food, the vodka he drank these days, the lack of wine and cigars, dirty, unchanged linen, two half-sleepless nights spent on a short sofa without a bed - all this kept Pierre in a state of irritation close to insanity.

It was already two o'clock in the afternoon. The French have already entered Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting, he thought only about his enterprise, going over all its slightest future details. In his dreams, Pierre did not vividly imagine either the process of delivering the blow or the death of Napoleon, but with extraordinary brightness and sad pleasure he imagined his death and his heroic courage.