IBM and Its Way

Abstract

To understand computing you must understand IBM, for not only does all the world consider the two synonymous, but, for better or worse, IBM bestrides the industry like the colossus it is. The company has been the subject of an almost uncountable infinity of popular articles as well as a few books (see the list on page 308), but never before has an IBM officer written a book about IBM. You might think that The IBM Way would be merely a shallow recitation of the company gospel as delivered by its finest preacher, thirty-four-year veteran F.G. “Buck” Rodgers, who retired in 1984 after ten years as corporate vice-president of marketing, then settled down to polish off the book (with some help from coauthor Robert L. Shook). To some extent what you expect is what you get, for at first glance the work appears to be a popular sermon that repeats ad nauseam the cliche-ridden message of its best-selling model, In Pursuit of Excellence, in the homely, friendly, and simplistic terms of a sales manager’s speeches, while it romanticizes, justifies, and glorifies IBM and its ways. But out of this flood of superheated treacle, the informed and interested reader can fish more, much more, about the inner workings of Rodgers’s beloved firm.