IBM has undergone a large number of

mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

during a corporate history lasting over a century; the company has also produced a number of

spinoffs Spin-off may refer to: *Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work *Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity * Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gov ...

during that time. The acquisition date listed is the date of the agreement between IBM and the subject of the acquisition. The value of each acquisition is listed in

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

because IBM is based in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. If the value of an acquisition is not listed, then it is undisclosed. Many of the companies listed in this article had subsidiaries of their own who had subsidiaries who ... For examples, see Pugh's book ''Building IBM'', page 26.

Precursors 1889–1910

Herman Hollerith Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine The tabulating machine was an electromechanical machine designed t ...

initially did business under his own name, as ''The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System'', specialising in

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

data processing equipment. In 1896 he incorporated as the ''Tabulating Machine Company''. *1889

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 and Simplex Time Recorder Company. It was the fi ...

incorporated. *1891 Computing Scale Company incorporated. *1893 Dey Patents Company (soon renamed the Dey Time Register Company) incorporated. *1894 Willard & Frick Manufacturing Company (

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

) incorporated. *1896 **Detroit Automatic Scale Company incorporated. **Hollerith incorporates the

Tabulating Machine Company The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems subsequently known as IBM. In 1911, financier and noted trust organizer, "Father of Trusts", Charles R. Flint ama ...

. Will be reincorporated in 1905. *1899 Standard Time Stamp Company acquired by Bundy Manufacturing Company. *1900 **

International Time Recording Company The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems subsequently known as IBM. In 1911, financier and noted trust organizer, "Father of Trusts", Charles R. Flint ama ...

incorporated, acquiring the time-recording business of the Bundy Manufacturing Company and the Willard & Frick Manufacturing Company (Rochester). **Chicago Time-Register Company acquired by International Time Recording Company. **Dayton Moneyweight Scale Company acquired by Computing Scale Company. **Detroit Automatic Scale Company acquired by Computing Scale Company. *1905 Hollerith reincorporates as ''The Tabulating Machine Company''. *1907 Dey Time Register Company acquired by International Time Recording Company. *1908 Syracuse Time Recorder Company acquired by International Time Recording Company.

Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems subsequently known as IBM. In 1911, financier and noted trust organizer, "Father of Trusts", Charles R. Flint amal ...
, 1911

Since the 1960s or earlier, IBM has described its formation as a merger of three companies: The Tabulating Machine Company (1880s origin in Washington, DC), the International Time Recording Company (ITR; 1900, Endicott), and the Computing Scale Company of America (1901, Dayton, Ohio). However, there was no merger, it was an

amalgamation Amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form. Amalgamation, amalgam, and other derivatives may refer to: Mathematics and science * Amalgam (chemistry), the combination of mercury with another metal **Pan am ...

, and an amalgamation of four, not three, companies.NY Times June 10, 1911 ''Tabulating Concerns Unite: Flint & Co. Bring Four Together with $19,000,000 capital''
/ref> The 1911 CTR

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

prospectus states that the Bundy Manufacturing Company was also included. While ITR had acquired its time recording business in 1900 Bundy had remained a separate entity producing an adding machine and other wares. * The Tabulating Machine Company *Computing Scale Corporation *

CTR owned the stock of the four companies; CTR neither produced nor sold any product; the four companies continued to operate, as before, under their own names.

Acquisitions during 1912–1999

1912–1929

*1917 **American Automatic Scale Company acquired as International Scale Company. **CTR consolidates three already-existing Canadian companies: The Canadian Tabulating Machine Co., Ltd, the International Time Recording Co. of Canada, Ltd., and the Computing Scale Co. of Canada, Ltd., in a new holding company, International Business Machines Co., Ltd. *1921 **Pierce Accounting Machine Company (asset purchase). **Ticketograph Company (of Chicago). *1923 **

Dehomag Dehomag was a German subsidiary of IBM with a monopoly in the German market before and during World War II. The word was a portmanteau for Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen GmbH ( en, German Hollerith Machines LLC). ''Hollerith'' refers to the Germa ...

*1924 **CTR was renamed "IBM".

1930–1949

*1930 Automatic Accounting Scale Company. *1932 National Counting Scale Company. *1933 The separate companies were integrated in 1933 as IBM and the holding company eliminated. *1933 Electromatic Typewriters Inc. (See: IBM Electromatic typewriter) *1941 Munitions Manufacturing Corporation.

1950–1969

*1959 Pierce Wire Recorder Corporation. *1964

Science Research Associates Science Research Associates (SRA) was a Chicago-based publisher of educational materials and schoolroom reading comprehension products. The company was acquired by McGraw-Hill Education in the early 2000s. History Science Research Associates Inc. ...

1970–1989

*1974 CML Satellite Corporation; renamed

Satellite Business Systems Satellite Business Systems (SBS) was a company founded by IBM, Aetna, COMSAT (and later wholly purchased by IBM and then subsequently sold to MCI), that provided private professional satellite communications through its SBS fleet of FSS geosy ...

(SBS). *1984 ROLM *1986 RealCom Communications Corporation.

1990–1999

*1993 **CGI Informatique (France), bought in 1993, ran independently until 1996, and was then progressively absorbed by IBM, country by country, this process being achieved in 1999. *1994 **

Transarc Transarc Corporation was a private Pittsburgh-based software company founded in 1989 by Jeffrey Eppinger, Michael L. Kazar, Alfred Spector, and Dean Thompson of Carnegie Mellon University. Transarc commercialized the Andrew File System (AFS), n ...

(Transarc Corporation bought by IBM in 1994, became part of IBM proper in 1999 as the IBM Pittsburgh Lab) *1995 **

Lotus Development Corporation Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018. Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1-2- ...

for $3.5 billion. ** Information Systems Management Canada (ISM Canada) **K3 Group Ltd. *1996 **Wilkerson Group **

Tivoli Systems, Inc. Tivoli Software encompasses a set of products originally developed by Tivoli Systems Inc. IBM bought the company and ran the operation as its Tivoli Software division. Additional products were acquired and run under the Tivoli portfolio brand. ...

for $743 million. **Data Sciences Ltd, prior to 1991 comprising ''Thorn EMI Software'', ''Datasolve'' and the Corporate Management Services Division of Thorn EMI, for £95 million. **

Object Technology International Object Technology International (OTI) was founded in Ottawa, Ontario (Canada) in 1988 and acquired by IBM in 1996. OTI, in conjunction with the IBM development lab in Cary, NC, developed the VisualAge line Smalltalk and Java development tools th ...

(OTI) is acquired by IBM **Cyclade Consultants (Netherlands) **Fairway Technologies **Professional Data Management, Inc. / LifePRO *1997 **Software Artistry for $200 million. **Unison Software. **Dominion Semiconductor (Manassas, VA) is created by forming a 50/50 joint venture with Toshiba to produce 64MB and 256MB DRAM chips. Administrative offices are located in Building 131 the former IBM Federal Systems campus now primarily owned by Lockheed Martin; the new state-of-the-art fabrication facility was built from on adjacent land. *1998 **CommQuest Technologies. **DataBeam Corporation, Lexington, KY ** Ubique Ltd., Israel *1999 **Dascom Technologies (USA), A subsidiary of Dascom Holdings. **Mylex Corporation. **

Sequent Computer Systems Sequent Computer Systems was a computer company that designed and manufactured multiprocessing computer systems. They were among the pioneers in high-performance symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) open systems, innovating in both hardware (e.g., cach ...

for $810 million.

Acquisitions since 2000

Number of acquisitions per year according to table below: * In 2020 IBM acquired 5 companies * In 2019 IBM acquired 1 companies * In 2018 IBM acquired 3 companies * In 2017 IBM acquired 3 companies * In 2016 IBM acquired 12 companies * In 2015 IBM acquired 13 companies * In 2014 IBM acquired 4 companies * In 2013 IBM acquired 9 companies * In 2012 IBM acquired 9 companies * In 2011 IBM acquired 8 companies

Spin-offs

*1934 – Dayton Scale Division is sold to the Hobart Manufacturing Company. *1942 – Ticketograph Division is sold to the National Postal Meter Company. *1958 – Time Equipment Division is sold to the

Simplex Time Recorder Company SimplexGrinnell, a subsidiary of Johnson Controls, is an American company specializing in active fire protection, active fire protection systems, communication systems and testing, inspection and maintenance services. The company headquarters is i ...

. *1974 –

Service Bureau Corporation The Service Bureau Corporation (SBC) had its origin in 1932 as the Service Bureau Division within IBM and was spun off as a wholly owned subsidiary in 1957 to operate IBM's burgeoning service bureau businesses. IBM had operated service bureaus ...

sold to

Control Data Corporation Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer firm. CDC was one of the nine major United States computer companies through most of the 1960s; the others were IBM, Burroughs Corporation, DEC, NCR, General Electric, Honeywel ...

*1984 –

Prodigy Prodigy, Prodigies or The Prodigy may refer to: * Child prodigy, a child who produces meaningful output to the level of an adult expert performer ** Chess prodigy, a child who can beat experienced adult players at chess Arts, entertainment, and ...

, formerly a joint venture with

Sears, Roebuck and Company Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

. *1985 –

sold to

MCI Communications MCI Communications Corp. (originally Microwave Communications, Inc.) was a telecommunications company headquartered in Washington, D.C. that was at one point the second-largest long-distance provider in the United States. MCI was instrument ...

*1988 – Copier/Duplicator business, including service and support contracts, sold to

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

. *1990 – ARDIS mobile packet network, a joint venture with

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

. Motorola buys IBM's 50% interest in 1994. Now Motient. *1991 –

Lexmark Lexmark International, Inc. is a privately held American company that manufactures laser printers and imaging products. The company is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky. Since 2016 it has been jointly owned by a consortium of three multination ...

(keyboards, typewriters, and printers). IBM retained a 10% interest. Lexmark has sold its keyboard and typewriter businesses. *1991 – Kaleida, a joint Multimedia software venture with

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

. *1992 –

Taligent Taligent Inc. (a portmanteau of "talent" and "intelligent") was an American software company. Based on the Pink object-oriented operating system conceived by Apple in 1988, Taligent Inc. was incorporated as an Apple/IBM partnership in 1992, and ...

, a joint software venture with

. *1992 – IBM Commercial Multimedia Technologies Group, spun off to form private company Fairway Technologies. *1992 – IBM sells its remaining 50 percent stake in the Rolm Company to

Siemens A.G. Siemens AG ( ) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal ...

of Germany. *1994 – Xyratex enterprise data storage subsystems and network technology, formed in a management buy-out from IBM. *1995 – Advantis (Advanced Value-Added Networking Technology of IBM & Sears), a voice and data network company. Joint Venture with IBM holding 70%, Sears holding 30%. IBM buys Sears' 30% interest in 1997. AT&T acquires the infrastructure portion of Advantis in 1999, becoming the AT&T Global Network. IBM retained business and strategic outsourcing portions of the joint venture. *1994 – Federal Systems Division sold to

Loral Loral may refer to: * Loral Corporation, contractor founded in 1948 in New York by William Lorenz and Leon Alpert as Loral Electronics Corporation * Loral Space & Communications, satellite communications company * Loral GZ-22, a non-rigid airship * ...

becoming Loral Federal Systems. The Federal Systems Division performed work for NASA. Loral was later acquired by

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

. *1996 –

Celestica Celestica Inc. is a Canadian multinational electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. History Leadership Celestica's President and CEO is Rob Mionis. Mionis took over leadership on 1 August 2015 af ...

, Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS). *1998 – IBM Global Network sold to

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

to form AT&T Business Internet. *1999 – Dominion Semiconductor (DSC) IBM sells its 50% share to JV partner

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...

. DSC becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba. *2001 – Information Services Extended department, developer of specialized databases and software for telephone directory assistance, is spun off to form privately held company ISx, Inc (later sold to Local Matters). *December 31, 2002 – IBM sells its HDD business to

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies HGST, Inc. (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) was a manufacturer of hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and external storage products and services. It was initially a subsidiary of Hitachi, formed through its acquisition of IBM's disk d ...

for approximately $2 billion.

now provides many of the hardware storage devices formerly provided by IBM, including IBM hard drives and the

Microdrive The Microdrive is a registered trademark for miniature, 1-inch hard disks produced by IBM and Hitachi. These rotational media storage devices were designed to fit in CompactFlash (CF) Type II slots. The release of similar drives by other ...

. IBM continues to develop storage systems, including

tape backup A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and a long archival stability. A ...

, storage software and

enterprise storage Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are consid ...

. *December 2004 –

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...

acquires 90% interest in IBM Personal Systems Group, 10,000 employees and $9 billion in revenue. *April 3, 2006 – Web analytics provider Coremetrics acquires SurfAid Analytics, a standalone division of IBM Global Services. The deal was said to be in the "eight-figure" range, making it worth at least $10 million. (Note: Since then Coremetrics has in turn been acquired by IBM) *January 25, 2007 – Three-year joint venture with IBM Printing Systems division and

Ricoh is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company (law), company. It was founded by the now-defunct commercial division of the Riken, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) known as the ''Riken concern (business), Concer ...

to form new Ricoh-owned subsidiary, InfoPrint Solutions Company, for $725 million. *September 2009 – IBM launches online business IT video advice service in association with GuruOnline. *September 2009 – IBM sells its U2 multivalue database and application development products (created by VMark, UniData, System Builder and Prime Computer, obtained via the Informix acquisition) to Rocket Software *April 2012 – IBM sells its Retail Store Solutions division (Point-of-Sales) to

Toshiba TEC Subsidiaries of Toshiba. Together, these companies form the Toshiba Group. Subsidiaries As of April 2020, Toshiba is organized into six groupings as follows: *Electronic Devices & Storage Solutions **Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporat ...

*January 2014 – IBM sells its

IBM System x System x is a line of x86 servers produced by IBM – and later by Lenovo – as a sub-brand of IBM's ''System'' brand, alongside IBM Power Systems, IBM System z and IBM System Storage. In addition, IBM System x was the main component of the ...

business to

for $2.3 billion. *October 2014 – IBM sells its

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre-sc ...

(computer chips) business to

GlobalFoundries GlobalFoundries Inc. (GF or GloFo) is a multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Malta, New York. Created by the divestiture of the manufacturing arm of AMD, th ...

. IBM will pay GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion over 3 years to take over the business. *December 2014 –

UNICOM Global UNICOM Global is an American multinational technology corporation headquartered in Mission Hills, California. The company was founded by Corry Hong in Los Angeles, California in 1981 to develop AUTOMON/CICS and related products for the CICS main ...

acquires IBM Rational Focal Point and IBM Rational Purify Plus. *January 2015 – IBM sells Algorithmics Collateral to SmartStream Technologies *December 2015 – UNICOM Global acquires IBM Rational System Architect *December 2018 – HCL Technologies to acquire Select IBM Software Products for $1.8B. *July 2019 – IBM Watson Marketing business spins off into standalone company Acoustic, after acquisition by

Centerbridge Partners Centerbridge Partners is a multi-strategy private investment firm focused on leveraged buyouts and distressed securities. The firm manages over $32 billion of assets

*October 8, 2020 – IBM announced it was spinning off the Managed Infrastructure Services unit of its Global Technology Services division into a new public company, an action expected to be completed by the end of 2021. * January 21, 2022 – IBM announced that it would sell Watson Health to the private equity firm

Francisco Partners Francisco Partners is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. Founded in August 1999 and based in San Francisco with offices in London and New York City, Francis ...

References

External links

IBM list of selected acquisitions
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Mergers And Acquisitions By Ibm *

IBM