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Big Blues; The Unmaking of IBM
This is the inside story of why one of the most successful enterprises in business history has had to cut back on staffing levels worldwide.IBM was THE word in computers!
304 pages, Paperback
First published August 24, 1993
7 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
Paul B. Carroll
10 books9 followersPaul B. Carroll has excelled at the highest levels of journalism for decades, while pushing the state of the art on business strategy and innovation.
For 17 years, he was a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about information technology. The WSJ nominated him twice for the Pulitzer Prize, and he was a finalist once. He left to become a partner at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, where he founded and edited a magazine that was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. For the past eight years, Paul has been the editor-in-chief at Insurance Thought Leadership, an affiliate of The Institutes that drives innovation in insurance.
He is the best-selling author of numerous books, beginning with “Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM,” published by Crown in 1993. In 2008, Paul and Chunka Mui published “Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn From the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years,” based on 20 researchers’ two years of analysis of 2,500 corporate disasters. While Jim Collins looked at success stories and said, Here’s how to be like those guys, “Billion Dollar Lessons” looked at failures and said, Here’s how not to be like those guys. The Wall Street Journal review called the book “fascinating…, insightful and crisply written.” Most recently, Paul, Chunka, and Tim Andrews have published “A Brief History of a Perfect Future: Inventing the World We Can Proudly Leave Our Kids by 2050.”
Paul was the writer on the National Broadband Plan, which the FCC submitted to Congress in 2010, and on a report that the Department of Energy produced later that year on a $36.5 billion innovation initiative funded by the Stimulus Act.
He and Chunka have founded a boutique consulting firm, the Future Histories Group, which stress tests corporate strategies. They have worked with senior management at numerous major organizations.
Paul graduated magna cum laude from Michigan State University’s Honors College at age 19 and earned a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University the following year.
For 17 years, he was a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about information technology. The WSJ nominated him twice for the Pulitzer Prize, and he was a finalist once. He left to become a partner at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, where he founded and edited a magazine that was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. For the past eight years, Paul has been the editor-in-chief at Insurance Thought Leadership, an affiliate of The Institutes that drives innovation in insurance.
He is the best-selling author of numerous books, beginning with “Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM,” published by Crown in 1993. In 2008, Paul and Chunka Mui published “Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn From the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years,” based on 20 researchers’ two years of analysis of 2,500 corporate disasters. While Jim Collins looked at success stories and said, Here’s how to be like those guys, “Billion Dollar Lessons” looked at failures and said, Here’s how not to be like those guys. The Wall Street Journal review called the book “fascinating…, insightful and crisply written.” Most recently, Paul, Chunka, and Tim Andrews have published “A Brief History of a Perfect Future: Inventing the World We Can Proudly Leave Our Kids by 2050.”
Paul was the writer on the National Broadband Plan, which the FCC submitted to Congress in 2010, and on a report that the Department of Energy produced later that year on a $36.5 billion innovation initiative funded by the Stimulus Act.
He and Chunka have founded a boutique consulting firm, the Future Histories Group, which stress tests corporate strategies. They have worked with senior management at numerous major organizations.
Paul graduated magna cum laude from Michigan State University’s Honors College at age 19 and earned a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University the following year.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 20, 2011
This book details the epic fail that is IBM from 1980-1993. The word 'epic' is often abused nowadays but this was truly epic. I was enraptured by the detailed conversations, anecdotes, and personalities the author obviously had first-hand access to. I learned a lot about the computer industry and how it developed from the time I was born right up until I bought my first PC in 1995. I highly recommend this this book to all software developers born before 1980, or to anyone who remembers calling home computers "IBM Compatible".
November 26, 2013
Mostly about the personality of the leaders at the top of various IBM divisions during the period leading up to the crisis in 1993. Just a hint of the remedial measures that were put in place that re-established IBM's position in the marketplace that it holds today.
August 1, 2011
Excellent. (This review was written in July 2011, a few years after reading the book.)
August 2, 2016
Interesting story, nicely told.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews