Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR)
Encyclopedia
The Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR) was incorporated on June 16, 1911 in Endicott, New York
a few miles west of Binghamton
. CTR was formed through a merger of four separate corporations: Tabulating Machine Company (founded 1896 in Washington, D.C.
), the Computing Scale Corporation (founded in 1891 in Dayton, Ohio
), the International Time Recording Company
(founded 1900 in Endicott, New York) and the Bundy Manufacturing Company
(founded in 1889). The companies that merged to form CTR manufactured a wide range of products, including employee time-keeping systems
, weighing scale
s, automatic meat slicers and, most importantly for the development of computers, punched card equipment
.
Of the companies merged to form CTR, the most technologically significant was the Tabulating Machine Company, founded by Herman Hollerith
, and specialized in the development of punched card
data processing equipment
. Hollerith's series of patents on tabulating machine technology, first applied for in 1884, drew on his work at the U.S. Census Bureau from 1879–82. Hollerith was initially trying to reduce the time and complexity needed to tabulate the 1890 Census. His development of punched cards in 1886 set the industry standard for the next 80 years of tabulating and computing data input.
In 1896 the Tabulating Machine Company leased some machines to a railway company but quickly focused on the challenges of the largest statistical endeavor of its day – the 1900 US Census. After winning the government contract, and completing the project with amazing speed, Hollerith was faced with the challenge of sustaining the company in non-Census years. He returned to targeting private businesses both in the United States and abroad, attempting to identify industry applications for his automatic punching, tabulating and sorting machines. In 1911, Hollerith, now 51 and in failing health sold the business to Flint
for $2.3 million (of which Hollerith got $1.2 million).
The first time clock was invented on November 20, 1888, by Willard Bundy, a jeweler in Auburn, New York
. A year later his brother, Harlow Bundy, organized the Bundy Manufacturing Company
, and began mass producing time clocks. In 1894, J. L. Willard and F. A. Frick of Rochester, New York
, formed the Willard and Frick Manufacturing Company as the first card time recorder company in the world. In 1900 George W. Fairchild
formed the International Time Recording Company as the selling agency of the Bundy Manufacturing Company, Willard and Frick Manufacturing Company, and Standard Time Stamp Company, which also manufactured a card recorder. In 1901 The International Time Recording Company acquired the Chicago Time-Register Co., the first autograph time recorder company in the world, and a manufacturer of key, card and autograph employee time recorders.
In 1906 Harlow Bundy moved his business into a new three-storey brick building in Endicott, New York. The first dial recorder was invented by Dr. Alexander Dey in 1888, and in 1907 ITR acquired the Del Ray Register Company. In 1908 the Syracuse Time Recording Company, a manufacturer of dial recorders, was acquired by the International Time Recording Company.
, who brought together the founders of the three companies to propose a merger, and who remained a member of the board of CTR, later IBM, until his retirement in 1930. It had a bonded indebtedness of $6.5 million, 25 times its current assets, of which $4 million was borrowed from the Guaranty Trust Company. Flint assigned it a value of $17.5 million, though in reality its tangible assets only added up to $1 million. The product lines were very different; Flint stated that the consolidation
Based in New York City, the new company had 1,300 employees and offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York; Dayton, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Washington, D.C.; and Toronto, Ontario. The chairman was George Fairchild, who, having been a member of Congress since 1906, was not expected to take an active part in management. When the first president left after just one month, however, Fairchild took over and ran CTR until 1912, when Frank N. Kandolf, formerly CEO of the International Time Recording subsidiary, took over.
In 1914, having been fired from NCR Corporation
and with a prison sentence threatening his future, Thomas J. Watson
approached Flint, as a leading financier, for assistance in finding a similar job. Despite his apparently perilous situation he was still very clear as to the type of job he wanted. He had already turned down a number of offers. He wanted control of the business for himself, and be able to earn a share of the profits. Flint offered him CTR. Flint was, as described earlier, a great promoter of trusts and was presumably less worried about Watson's impending jail sentence. The other members of the CTR board were less sanguine, asking who was to run the company while he was in prison. As a result, they only gave him the title of general manager.
Thomas J. Watson Sr.
, became general manager of CTR in 1914, at a time when he was a convicted criminal: he had been convicted in 1913 of corporate and monopolistic conspiracy for his role in a widespread National Cash Register scheme to blackmail used cash register retailers and run them out of business. (See John Henry Patterson (NCR owner)
.) Watson's own extortionate writings were used as evidence against him. That lesson taught Watson to thereafter keep very little in writing. After Watson had been at CTR for 11 months the Appeals Court ordered a retrial. Although he refused to sign a Consent Decree, a new trial never took place, and he was duly promoted by the board of CTR to the position of president.
So the die was cast and CTR was joined with Thomas J. Watson, the final paradox being that the true founder of the modern IBM, a moralistic company, was at that time a felon convicted of business practices unacceptable even in a time that was notable for its lack of standards. Clearly, though, he had already decided that the future of CTR was to be very different. One of the things Watson brought to CTR from NCR was the motto THINK.
Surprisingly, in view of his past record at NCR and his later colossal influence on IBM, he initially maintained a very low profile (almost tantamount to seeking obscurity) for the next decade until 1924, when the chairman George W. Fairchild died and he finally took over sole control. For the whole of the previous decade, in some ways uncharacteristically, he consistently deferred to Flint, Fairchild and Hollerith.
In the meantime he took personal charge of 400 demoralized and poorly-supervised salesmen. His stated objective was to produce a sales force in the NCR mold, as well as advanced machines that would be superior to any of the competitors' machines. In a series of small meetings he presented his 'competitive proposition' to the sales force. Despite the aggressive-sounding title, right from these beginnings there was as much emphasis on the ethics and philosophies of the business as there was on sales techniques. In particular he stressed sincerity, integrity and loyalty, saying that they should do nothing that could be construed as 'unfair competition' and should conduct themselves in an 'honest, fair and square way' -- something which would be radical even today. Musical events, even IBM songs, were introduced to improve and maintain employee morale.
The other philosophies that motivated CTR and IBM for the next three-quarters of a century were also evident. The company motto was to be 'We sell and deliver service'; CTR was to be in the business of genuinely assisting its customers. Watson strongly believed that when a sale was made both sides came out ahead.
CTR was a company with three separate elements. Computing Scale was always a problem; and the largest element of this (Dayton Scale) was eventually sold off in 1933, to Hobart Manufacturing
. Time Recording was then still the main revenue earner, and was used by Watson as a vehicle for diversification, though none of these was great success.
The piece of the action that most interested Watson, perhaps because it was closest to his NCR experience, was the tabulating business and this was where he directed much of his attention; and by the early 1930s this had indeed become the largest piece of CTR.
Returning to the 1920s, though, while still under Fairchild's domination Watson went for a significant degree of growth. This saw revenue grow from $4.2 million in 1914, when he took over, to the peak of $16 million in 1920. The price of this, however, was a precarious cash position and when in 1921 sales fell to $10.6 million he faced a cash-flow crisis. Once again CTR was to be funded, and indeed rescued, by Guaranty Trust. Watson was forced to cut costs across the board, including reducing R & D and laying off some employees. He never again allowed his cash position to fall so low. He subsequently maintained a policy of low dividends, high revenues and careful cost controls. He adopted very conservative accounting principles.
Hollerith, beginning with the 1890 census, had rented his machines so that his company could provide the maintenance necessary to assure reliable operation.. Watson recognized other benefits and in particular took on board the idea that renting equipment was inherently more stabilizing, since the income continued when equipment orders would otherwise have dried up. Less obviously, it forced sales personnel, aware that they might lose the rental, to maintain regular contact with customers, thus ensuring — even as early as the 1930s — that customer relationships were well-managed. This approach became central to IBM's activities.
Thereafter, Watson deliberately lagged on the introduction of new products (but not on research). Even after competitors launched he still waited until the market was ripe for large scale development. But Watson also recognized the importance of sound R&D, appointing, in 1922, James W. Bryce
to manage this (moving him from its Time Recording Division, which he had joined in 1915); however, Watson continued to be personally involved R&D, not least through his insistence on rigorous standards.
In 1917, the CTR entered the Canadian
market under the name of International Business Machines Co., Limited.
Fairchild died in 1924 and, at the age of 50, Watson at long last came out of the shadows to create the company in his own image; and, for the next quarter of a century until he was 75, he led it to greatness. Almost the first move he made was to rename it International Business Machines, IBM. This was a name he had already given in 1917 to the Canadian subsidiary (and later to CTR's South American operations). It was prophetic because at that time CTR was only barely international, and was just on the fringes of 'business machines' — a concept that did not emerge fully until the 1960s.
He also celebrated his new status with the first Quarter Century Club. Even though CTR had only been going for 13 years, he based qualification on the earlier constituent companies. Personnel management was clearly to be the core of the business.
Endicott, New York
Endicott is a village in Broome County, New York, United States. The population was 13,038 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Binghamton Metropolitan Statistical Area. The village is named after Henry B...
a few miles west of Binghamton
Binghamton, New York
Binghamton is a city in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. It is near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers...
. CTR was formed through a merger of four separate corporations: Tabulating Machine Company (founded 1896 in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
), the Computing Scale Corporation (founded in 1891 in Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
), the International Time Recording Company
Time clock
A time clock, sometimes known as a clock card machine or punch clock or time recorder, is a mechanical timepiece used to assist in tracking the hours an employee of a company worked. In regards to mechanical time clocks this was accomplished by inserting a heavy paper card, called a timesheet,...
(founded 1900 in Endicott, New York) and the Bundy Manufacturing Company
Bundy Manufacturing Company
The Bundy Manufacturing Company was a 19th-century American manufacturer of timekeeping devices that went through a series of mergers, eventually becoming part of International Business Machines. The company was founded by the Bundy brothers....
(founded in 1889). The companies that merged to form CTR manufactured a wide range of products, including employee time-keeping systems
Time clock
A time clock, sometimes known as a clock card machine or punch clock or time recorder, is a mechanical timepiece used to assist in tracking the hours an employee of a company worked. In regards to mechanical time clocks this was accomplished by inserting a heavy paper card, called a timesheet,...
, weighing scale
Weighing scale
A weighing scale is a measuring instrument for determining the weight or mass of an object. A spring scale measures weight by the distance a spring deflects under its load...
s, automatic meat slicers and, most importantly for the development of computers, punched card equipment
Unit record equipment
Before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical devices called unit record equipment, electric accounting machines or tabulating machines. Unit record machines were as ubiquitous in industry and government in the first half of the twentieth century...
.
Tabulating Machine Company
Herman Hollerith
Herman Hollerith was an American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data. He was the founder of one of the companies that later merged and became IBM.-Personal life:Hollerith was born in Buffalo, New...
, and specialized in the development of punched card
Punched card
A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...
data processing equipment
Unit record equipment
Before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical devices called unit record equipment, electric accounting machines or tabulating machines. Unit record machines were as ubiquitous in industry and government in the first half of the twentieth century...
. Hollerith's series of patents on tabulating machine technology, first applied for in 1884, drew on his work at the U.S. Census Bureau from 1879–82. Hollerith was initially trying to reduce the time and complexity needed to tabulate the 1890 Census. His development of punched cards in 1886 set the industry standard for the next 80 years of tabulating and computing data input.
In 1896 the Tabulating Machine Company leased some machines to a railway company but quickly focused on the challenges of the largest statistical endeavor of its day – the 1900 US Census. After winning the government contract, and completing the project with amazing speed, Hollerith was faced with the challenge of sustaining the company in non-Census years. He returned to targeting private businesses both in the United States and abroad, attempting to identify industry applications for his automatic punching, tabulating and sorting machines. In 1911, Hollerith, now 51 and in failing health sold the business to Flint
Charles Ranlett Flint
-Further reading:**...
for $2.3 million (of which Hollerith got $1.2 million).
Computing Scale Company
In 1891, Edward Canby and Orange O. Ozias, two businessmen from Dayton, Ohio, purchased the patents for the newly invented computing scale and incorporated the Computing Scale Company for the production of commercial scales.International Time Recording Company
Auburn, New York
Auburn is a city in Cayuga County, New York, United States of America. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 27,687...
. A year later his brother, Harlow Bundy, organized the Bundy Manufacturing Company
Bundy Manufacturing Company
The Bundy Manufacturing Company was a 19th-century American manufacturer of timekeeping devices that went through a series of mergers, eventually becoming part of International Business Machines. The company was founded by the Bundy brothers....
, and began mass producing time clocks. In 1894, J. L. Willard and F. A. Frick of Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, formed the Willard and Frick Manufacturing Company as the first card time recorder company in the world. In 1900 George W. Fairchild
George Winthrop Fairchild
George Winthrop Fairchild , was a six-term Republican U.S. Representative from New York.Prior to joining congress, he was a businessman and investor, best known as the chairman from 1915-1924 of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company which later became IBM.-Biography:He was born in Oneonta New...
formed the International Time Recording Company as the selling agency of the Bundy Manufacturing Company, Willard and Frick Manufacturing Company, and Standard Time Stamp Company, which also manufactured a card recorder. In 1901 The International Time Recording Company acquired the Chicago Time-Register Co., the first autograph time recorder company in the world, and a manufacturer of key, card and autograph employee time recorders.
In 1906 Harlow Bundy moved his business into a new three-storey brick building in Endicott, New York. The first dial recorder was invented by Dr. Alexander Dey in 1888, and in 1907 ITR acquired the Del Ray Register Company. In 1908 the Syracuse Time Recording Company, a manufacturer of dial recorders, was acquired by the International Time Recording Company.
The merged companies
The key person behind the merger was financier Charles Ranlett FlintCharles Ranlett Flint
-Further reading:**...
, who brought together the founders of the three companies to propose a merger, and who remained a member of the board of CTR, later IBM, until his retirement in 1930. It had a bonded indebtedness of $6.5 million, 25 times its current assets, of which $4 million was borrowed from the Guaranty Trust Company. Flint assigned it a value of $17.5 million, though in reality its tangible assets only added up to $1 million. The product lines were very different; Flint stated that the consolidation
... instead of being dependent for earnings upon a single industry, would own three separate and distinct lines of business, so that in normal times the interest and sinking funds on its bonds could be earned by any one of these independent lines, while in abnormal times the consolidation would have three chances instead of one to meet its obligations and pay dividends.
Based in New York City, the new company had 1,300 employees and offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York; Dayton, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Washington, D.C.; and Toronto, Ontario. The chairman was George Fairchild, who, having been a member of Congress since 1906, was not expected to take an active part in management. When the first president left after just one month, however, Fairchild took over and ran CTR until 1912, when Frank N. Kandolf, formerly CEO of the International Time Recording subsidiary, took over.
In 1914, having been fired from NCR Corporation
NCR Corporation
NCR Corporation is an American technology company specializing in kiosk products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check...
and with a prison sentence threatening his future, Thomas J. Watson
Thomas J. Watson
Thomas John Watson, Sr. was president of International Business Machines , who oversaw that company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956...
approached Flint, as a leading financier, for assistance in finding a similar job. Despite his apparently perilous situation he was still very clear as to the type of job he wanted. He had already turned down a number of offers. He wanted control of the business for himself, and be able to earn a share of the profits. Flint offered him CTR. Flint was, as described earlier, a great promoter of trusts and was presumably less worried about Watson's impending jail sentence. The other members of the CTR board were less sanguine, asking who was to run the company while he was in prison. As a result, they only gave him the title of general manager.
Thomas J. Watson Sr.
Thomas J. Watson
Thomas John Watson, Sr. was president of International Business Machines , who oversaw that company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956...
, became general manager of CTR in 1914, at a time when he was a convicted criminal: he had been convicted in 1913 of corporate and monopolistic conspiracy for his role in a widespread National Cash Register scheme to blackmail used cash register retailers and run them out of business. (See John Henry Patterson (NCR owner)
John Henry Patterson (NCR owner)
John Henry Patterson was an industrialist and founder of the National Cash Register Company. He was a businessperson and salesperson.-Early years:Patterson was born in 1844 on the family farm near Dayton, Ohio...
.) Watson's own extortionate writings were used as evidence against him. That lesson taught Watson to thereafter keep very little in writing. After Watson had been at CTR for 11 months the Appeals Court ordered a retrial. Although he refused to sign a Consent Decree, a new trial never took place, and he was duly promoted by the board of CTR to the position of president.
So the die was cast and CTR was joined with Thomas J. Watson, the final paradox being that the true founder of the modern IBM, a moralistic company, was at that time a felon convicted of business practices unacceptable even in a time that was notable for its lack of standards. Clearly, though, he had already decided that the future of CTR was to be very different. One of the things Watson brought to CTR from NCR was the motto THINK.
Surprisingly, in view of his past record at NCR and his later colossal influence on IBM, he initially maintained a very low profile (almost tantamount to seeking obscurity) for the next decade until 1924, when the chairman George W. Fairchild died and he finally took over sole control. For the whole of the previous decade, in some ways uncharacteristically, he consistently deferred to Flint, Fairchild and Hollerith.
In the meantime he took personal charge of 400 demoralized and poorly-supervised salesmen. His stated objective was to produce a sales force in the NCR mold, as well as advanced machines that would be superior to any of the competitors' machines. In a series of small meetings he presented his 'competitive proposition' to the sales force. Despite the aggressive-sounding title, right from these beginnings there was as much emphasis on the ethics and philosophies of the business as there was on sales techniques. In particular he stressed sincerity, integrity and loyalty, saying that they should do nothing that could be construed as 'unfair competition' and should conduct themselves in an 'honest, fair and square way' -- something which would be radical even today. Musical events, even IBM songs, were introduced to improve and maintain employee morale.
The other philosophies that motivated CTR and IBM for the next three-quarters of a century were also evident. The company motto was to be 'We sell and deliver service'; CTR was to be in the business of genuinely assisting its customers. Watson strongly believed that when a sale was made both sides came out ahead.
CTR was a company with three separate elements. Computing Scale was always a problem; and the largest element of this (Dayton Scale) was eventually sold off in 1933, to Hobart Manufacturing
Hobart Corporation
The Hobart Corporation is a manufacturer of commercial equipment used in the foodservice and grocery industry. The company manufactures food preparation machines for cutting, slicing and mixing, cooking equipment, refrigeration units, warewashing and waste disposal systems, and weighing, wrapping...
. Time Recording was then still the main revenue earner, and was used by Watson as a vehicle for diversification, though none of these was great success.
The piece of the action that most interested Watson, perhaps because it was closest to his NCR experience, was the tabulating business and this was where he directed much of his attention; and by the early 1930s this had indeed become the largest piece of CTR.
Returning to the 1920s, though, while still under Fairchild's domination Watson went for a significant degree of growth. This saw revenue grow from $4.2 million in 1914, when he took over, to the peak of $16 million in 1920. The price of this, however, was a precarious cash position and when in 1921 sales fell to $10.6 million he faced a cash-flow crisis. Once again CTR was to be funded, and indeed rescued, by Guaranty Trust. Watson was forced to cut costs across the board, including reducing R & D and laying off some employees. He never again allowed his cash position to fall so low. He subsequently maintained a policy of low dividends, high revenues and careful cost controls. He adopted very conservative accounting principles.
Hollerith, beginning with the 1890 census, had rented his machines so that his company could provide the maintenance necessary to assure reliable operation.. Watson recognized other benefits and in particular took on board the idea that renting equipment was inherently more stabilizing, since the income continued when equipment orders would otherwise have dried up. Less obviously, it forced sales personnel, aware that they might lose the rental, to maintain regular contact with customers, thus ensuring — even as early as the 1930s — that customer relationships were well-managed. This approach became central to IBM's activities.
Thereafter, Watson deliberately lagged on the introduction of new products (but not on research). Even after competitors launched he still waited until the market was ripe for large scale development. But Watson also recognized the importance of sound R&D, appointing, in 1922, James W. Bryce
James W. Bryce
James Wares Bryce was an American engineer and inventor. In 1936, on the centenary of the United States Patent Office, he was honored as one of the country’s 10 greatest living inventors....
to manage this (moving him from its Time Recording Division, which he had joined in 1915); however, Watson continued to be personally involved R&D, not least through his insistence on rigorous standards.
In 1917, the CTR entered the Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
market under the name of International Business Machines Co., Limited.
Fairchild died in 1924 and, at the age of 50, Watson at long last came out of the shadows to create the company in his own image; and, for the next quarter of a century until he was 75, he led it to greatness. Almost the first move he made was to rename it International Business Machines, IBM. This was a name he had already given in 1917 to the Canadian subsidiary (and later to CTR's South American operations). It was prophetic because at that time CTR was only barely international, and was just on the fringes of 'business machines' — a concept that did not emerge fully until the 1960s.
He also celebrated his new status with the first Quarter Century Club. Even though CTR had only been going for 13 years, he based qualification on the earlier constituent companies. Personnel management was clearly to be the core of the business.