re his admiration for Hitler before the war. In a business sense (& without what we learned later) Hitler appeared to bring order out of chaos in the 1930s, the time when Watson spoke positively of Hitler. But we all know now how in the late 1930s he undid any good with a monumental chaos the tore Europe apart.

I wonder how many people realise how much Winston Churchill looked up to and admired Mussolini ? not many :-)

[link|http://www2.uol.com.br/speakup/stories_b/202_man.shtml|http://www2.uol.com....s_b/202_man.shtml]
EXTRACT >>>>
I mean, Churchill, for example, called Mussolini "the Roman genius" and wrote in the '20s, that, if he had been Italian, he was sure he would have been a Fascist. And even when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Churchill wasn't particularly angry even about that, although many others in Britain were. It was only when Mussolini declared war on Britain that Churchill's admiration - for obvious reasons! - turned to hatred
<<<<

All these Hitler & Mussolini comments prove is that at a different time & taken out of context. Much ado can be made of nothing !

So is IBM guilty of the holocaust because at one point in time Watson Snr expressed an opinion about the real perpetrator of the holocaust, before the event, and that he later regretted ?. Or is it a case of throw enough dirt & some will stick ?.


Cheers

Doug

#2

More recent evidence of Churchill's fondness for Facists
[link|http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/Churchill/Mussolini_letters/Times_030200.html|http://www.fpp.co.uk...Times_030200.html]

[link|http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/2001-02-14-maney.htm|http://www.usatoday....1-02-14-maney.htm]

Cheers

Doug
(This guy is being far more diplomatic than me about Black's use of 'facts')

#2 Now have some time to add additional comments re this whole topic.

When it comes to IBM, I have no hesitation in attacking the company & its leaders when it is justified. There are many posts I have made in IWETHEY where I criticize IBM's faults & praise its strengths.

In regard to Thomas Watson senior I could write volumes on him & his life and also offer opinions on his behaviour at different times in his incredible career and life. He has had some extraordinary ups and downs & has been guilty of some amazingly nefarious activities that I believe have only been matched & exceeded by Bill Gates (outlandish business bastardry).

Bill Gates best hope is that he transforms himself into as honest a person as Thomas Watson ended up in his latter years (1930s to 1950s). But Gates suspected medical condition may never allow that.

Watson established early fame as the nations top salesman at NCR under Patterson. NCR was a powerhouse in the early 1900s. But, in Watson's 'dark' years at NCR he headed up (founded) a skunkworks that back in those wild & less regulated days, built deliberately defective clones of NCR competitor's machines, set up temporary shops in the towns these competitors dominated, sold these inferior machines badged as the competitors companies equipment, then shut down & moved on to leave the frustrated customers to take their anger out on the unsuspecting apparent OEM. Both Watson & NCR owner Patterson received federal convictions for this bastardry but were saved by fate. A major flood hit Dayton Ohio after their convictions & NCR driven by Patterson & put in place by Watson, saved many lives by manufacturing punt boats in NCRs factories & using them to save many grateful people.

The pair became heros. Patterson & Watson appealed against their convictions (jail time involved) & were ultimately successful on a technicality (& some sympathy) despite their clear guilt & the enormity of the offense.

Later, NCR's Patterson decided Watson had to go. Watson found out when he turned up for work one day to find his desk & belongings on the NCR front lawn, on fire. For some weeks he suffered the indignity of having a desk in a corridor. Watson shortly thereafter decide to part ways with NCR and later joined a strugling company called ITR (International Time Recording company). Watson was still at his peak as a national salesman. He gained managerial control of ITR which later (1924) became IBM. Watson had became president & obtained a good shareholding in the company. Watson shows lots of evidence of having learned to be more honest (compared to his 'dark' days) & actually became a pillar of business morality even though some people felt he was still very dominant.

IMHO, Watson was not quite the bastard Bill Gates is. But, I have always believed that Bill Gates got his greatest inspiration from Watson except Gates with his 'slightly autistic' tendancies, was much more inherently amoral & still hasn't yet shown the signs that Watson definately did, that he can learn to become an honorable & respectable person. The US Justice dept forced Gates to step down as CEO of Microsoft in favour of Ballmer. Watson never had to suffer such a managerial indignity (unless his federal conviction (overturned) is considered worse). I would argue that the mitigating factor in Watson's favour over Gates actions, was that in the 1910s business was more of a wild west than in Gates days & that Watson never showed Gates nerd (autistic) tendancies.

My proof of how inferior Gates is to what Watson was, is how one of today's most respected US businessman, Lou Gerstner, could barely disguise his contempt for Gates in business as a dishonest showy bit of sh*t.

Anyway, my point here is that I have no 'hero worship' of Watson. Am quite happy I know his strengths & weaknesses (so much more I could add), but I consider Edwin Black's book about IBM & the holocaust to be exactly the same genre as the book that was going to be published about Linus, Linix & Minix.

I still feel that I could deck Edwin Black if I met him & discovered he had no better evidence & conviction than came across in his vindictive book. Black did extraordinary damage to a company and to people who did not deserve it or were were too dignified to respond such that would have given even more attention to his garbage mongering book.

I ask anyone to say how they would respond, as a respectable global corporation, to highly controversial but dubious sensationalism that went back to the earliest days of the company, at a time of war & had little to do with what the company had later become at the time the author decided to manufacture his book. Black's widespread press coverage was because of what IBM had become & not what it was or what Dehomag was at the time of the events he wrote of.

In 1930s IBM was hardly a household name (I had not heard of IBM until the 1960s ! - if I had heard of them before, it never registered as they were *not* a household name). In the 1930s & 40s, the word 'computer' *did not exist* in ordinary language anywhwere (that came in the 1960s). Hardly anyone knew about punched cards & punched card machines (that came a little in the 50s & more in the 60s), IBM did became a powerhouse in the 1950s & 60s & it was in this era that IBM 1st ran foul of the US justice dept & the 1st consent decree was enforced (1956). It was the 1960s that made IBM's real fame - the advent of the electronic computer era.

One of Black's most identifiable lies is on the cover of his 'book'. Black would have everyone believe that IBM was 'world famous' in pre-history. He has been severely criticised for this aspect of his book. This proof of his dishonesty is on the front cover where he makes this barefacedly dishonest assertion that underpins so much of his sensationalism "The strategic alliance between Nazi Germany and America's most powerful corporation". IBM was absolutely nothing like America's most powerful corporation in the 1930s or 1940s - this is an unmitgated lie. Ford might almost have qualified for such a title then, Standard oil might have a few years earlier. IBM at its peak was at best 25% of AT&T. Dehomag *was* a respectable company in Germany at that time but even it was not anywhere earning such a title. Black is a sensationalist liar.

Anyway - you clearly know how I feel about this Edwin Black 'person'. Same level of respect I hold for Ken Brown (The linus stole Minix for Linux man). Why did a poor Korean end up as a jihadist scarifice when both Ken Brown & Edwin Black would both earn the jihadists so much support from all sides and truly done the world a favour.


Cheers

Doug