International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. As of September 2011, IBM was the second-largest publicly traded technology company in the world by market capitalization.
The company was founded in 1911 as the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation through a merger of three companies: the Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company, and the Computing Scale Corporation. CTR adopted the name International Business Machines in 1924, using a name previously designated to CTR’s subsidiary in Canada and later South America. Its distinctive culture and product branding has given it the nickname Big Blue.
In 2011, Fortune ranked IBM the 18th largest firm…