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By
Denise Dubie
Does the "B" in IBM stand for "business" or does it really signify "butcher"? What company CEO could best define the term "hat trick"? Was Electronic Data Systems named through divine intervention? And what is it about Computer Associates Chairman Charles Wang and ice cream? Here you'll find the answers to these and other probing questions about some of the Network World 200 companies that grace our headlines week to week.
On this butcher thing: In the early days of IBM, founded in 1911 as The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R), salesmen pitched all sorts of machines, among them meat grinders. The company's early catalogs also featured commercial scales, industrial time recorders, tabulators, punched cards and cheese slicers (to go with those meat grinders, apparently). So the company changed its name from C-T-R to International Business Machines for good reason. For those deli-ware doubters, or just the curious, IBM keeps all that old machinery on display in Somers, N.Y. And if you have ever wondered where the straight-laced, conservative image of Big Blue originated, the answer is with Thomas Watson. After coming on board as general manager in 1914, Watson implemented many policies, ranging from sales incentives to customer service and corporate activities that built company loyalty and team spirit. But it was Watson's "insistence on well-groomed, dark-suited salesmen" that stuck as IBM's image for decades.
Outside of work hours, true to its Canadian heritage, Nortel sponsored a hockey league. One of the players, Joe Malone, went on to the National Hockey League's Quebec Bulldogs and on Jan. 31, 1920, became the first NHL player to score seven goals in one game. Malone's record stands today. NW200 company Compuware also helped turn out NHL players. A year after founding Compuware, Peter Karmanos, Thomas Thewes and Allen Cutting formed a hockey league for the children of southeast Michigan. Among the 50 or so alumni of this youth league are NHL players Brian Rolston (Boston Bruins), Bryan Berard (New York Rangers) and Eric Lindros (New York Rangers). Compuware remains a hockey company. CEO Karmanos co-owns three hockey teams: the Carolina Hurricanes (NHL), the Plymouth Whalers (Ontario Hockey League) and the Florida Everblades (East Coast Hockey League). Like Compuware, storage vendor EMC had three co-founders ÷ well almost. Dick Egan, Roger Marino and a man whose last name started with "C" came up with the company idea in 1979. When Mr. C got cold feet and backed out of the company, the others decided it was too expensive ($100) to get his initial out of their company name. So the C stayed, but the man has remained forever anonymous. Some companies came to their names through more conventional inspiration. Take EDS. H. Ross Perot incorporated the company on June 27, 1962, but rumor has it he came up with the name in a not-so-corporate environment. Combining the words "electronic," "data" and "systems" struck Perot while scribbling potential names on a pledge envelope during a service at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas. Although Perot got EDS off to its start in God's house, he wasn't favored with any fast miracles for getting business. Perot had bought unused capacity on Southwestern Life Insurance's IBM 7070 mainframe computer with the hope of reselling it to other companies. It took Perot two months and 78 sales calls to find EDS' first customer. Many companies in their early days had to make do with few resources. It's well known that Microsoft operated its software business from one room during the company's first years, but others also plodded along without the technological resources they now afford their users. Micromuse operated out of a rented room above an auto repair shop in London's Chelsea district. The engineers got the back half of the room and the sales the front, but they all suffered from the frequent London rain and leaky roof. All visitors were greeted by the founder's dog, Olive, who dutifully sat on a sofa just inside the door. Novell employees ÷ then and now ÷ can sympathize with those Micromuse pioneers and their less-than-ideal working conditions. Novell got its start in a vacant truck dealership in an industrial park in Orem, Utah. Now it is located next to a golf course and a waste-processing plant. Depending on the day, employees are either dodging golf balls flying through the windows or struggling to take a fresh breath with the ripe smell wafting across the campus. Things are much more idyllic over at Computer Associates. Back in CA's early days, employees often heard the ding-dong sound of an ice-cream cart wending its way across campus. Despite his cutthroat reputation, CA co-founder Wang didn't hesitate to give his staff treats in the early days. Wang would hand-deliver ice cream to CA employees on especially warm days. And the company since 1976 has given all employees free breakfast on site ÷ after all, starting the day with a healthy meal makes people more productive! Dubie is a Staff Writer for Network World. She can be reached at ddubie@nww.com. Related links Net
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Of
course, IBM isn't the only company to change its name or mission.
Nortel launched as the Northern Electric Manufacturing Company,
and in 1895, it developed the No. 3 Signal Box, one of the first
fire-alarm boxes ever made. Five years later, the company now called
Nortel produced the first Canadian gramophone, a precursor to the
phonograph. 
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