Beginning of Essay
The dominance that IBM enjoyed over the computer industry from the mid-1950's to the mid-1970's was not achieved primarily through superior technology, but through superior marketing and customer service. IBM realized that customer were interested in solutions t ....

Middle of Essay
.... As Frank Cary, a future president of IBM put it shortly after the release of System/360, "We don't sell a product…we sell solutions to problems." And this is exactly what they did. Often times, software would be custom tailored for a particular business's needs. IBM's greatest advantage, however, was its reputation as a service-oriented vendor. Recognizing the importance of training, the company set up programming courses to train users and established field-engineering teams to resolve problems on-site. The firm was celebrated for responding to a malfunctioning computer with a dedicated task force until the problem was fixed. This was a lev ....