[SIGCIS-Members] IBM history in Europe

[Petri Paju]

Hello all,

This article from past summer should be of interest to people interested in early computer business, especially IBM, and its relations to and with Europe and European integration. In it we write a lot about electric typewriters but the system and thinking were arguably of direct relevance to punched card business and soon computer manufacture:

Paju, Petri and Haigh, Thomas. "IBM Rebuilds Europe: The Curious Case of the Transnational Typewriter." Enterprise & Society, vol. 17, issue 2 (June 2016), pp. 265-300.

As Tom put it on his pages: This article blends perspectives from business history, European history, and the history of technology to explore IBM's development of a unique typewriter manufacturing system that overcame post-War trade restrictions to force cooperation between recent enemies. This laid the groundwork for its subsequent domination of the European computer industry and anticipated political efforts to build a common European market. 

There's a preprint online at:
http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/IBMRebuildsEuropePREPRINT.pdf

Final one at:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/enterprise-and-society/article/ibm-rebuilds-europe-the-curious-case-of-the-transnational-typewriter/35D5A3FD95F5948F12754DBE07E9D89F

Best,

Petri



Petri Paju
PhD, Researcher in the project Towards a Roadmap for Digital History in Finland
History of Industrialization & Innovation Group, Aalto University, 
and Department of Cultural History, University of Turku
http://utu.academia.edu/PetriPaju