title: The IBM Century: Creating the IT Revolution
author:  Jeffrey R. Yost 
description: Jeffrey R. Yost is associate director of the Charles Babbage Institute, a faculty member in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine Program at the University of Minnesota, and editor-in-chief of IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. He has published books on the history of the computer industry and scientific computing, and more than a dozen single-authored, peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the business, social, cultural, and intellectual history of computing. He has led or co-led more than $1.6 million in National Science Foundation sponsored historical research projects on computing, software, and networking.
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  ROY A. BAUER,
  
  
  EMILIO COLLAR, and VICTOR TANG, with JERRY WIND and PATRICK R. HOUSTON
  
  
  B\ the mid-1980s. IBM's leadership in midrange computers was under siege, and
  in fact one of its most respected sites. IBM Rochester (in Minnesota), was in
  deep trouble. The birthplace of the IBM System 3 and family of profitable mid-
  range computers, Rochester had become dazzled by its own technological
  prowess, producing one sophisticated, elegant machine after another, and doing
  straight-line financial planning for growth. But then, Rochester discovered
  that it had lost touch with its market. The result was disastrous. Rochester's
  market share of mid-range computers had been gradually eroding over time—it
  was literally going out of business. But rather than lay down and die,
  Rochester initiated the most radical cultural change in IBM's history,
  switching from a product-driven to a market-driven approach to doing business,
  and set up the Silverlake Project to create a new mid-ra