# What does IBM stand for? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 20, 2005, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-ibm-stand-for/317910 "2005-08-20T19:29:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-ibm-stand-for/317910/21 "2005-08-22T14:15:59Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > ATT was American Telephone and Telegraph for instance. The company was the just changed to ATT. AT\*\*&\*\*T, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-ibm-stand-for/317910/22 "2005-08-22T16:54:41Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > My partner works for IBM., I"m looking at their annual report. IBM is still International Business Machines Corporation. I assume this question was posed because some companies whose initials USED to stand for something, but don’t anymore. ATT was American Telephone and Telegraph for instance. The company was the just changed to ATT. Heh, when I took my ground school course, we learned that a lot of the weather report stuff that pilots deal with have abbreviations which have no relation to their current names (though the abbreviations are at least distinctive from eachother. Kinda.) The A&M in “Texas A&M University” used to stand for “Agricultural and Mechanical”, but now just stands for “A&M” since they have expanded to include not only non-A&M related sciense stuff, but also a fairly robust liberal arts program. I seem to recall a bit of dialogue in 2010 (the book) discussing the IBM - 111 = HAL, but I don’t recall what the general jist of the conversation was. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-ibm-stand-for/317910/23 "2005-08-22T19:58:33Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > Here in Boca Raton there used to be a big IBM presence, and they transferred the employees all over the place frequently. The joke around here was that it stood for “I’ve Been Moved”. My father worked there. We’d been moved. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-ibm-stand-for/317910/24 "2005-08-22T20:59:01Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Well, i don’t know anything at all about this, but based on the way that it’s been described in this thread, it could be a difference between head office policy (support employee morale) and everyday middle management decisions (get rid of crappy employees in any way possible). Crappy (as in failing to perform) employees are usually fired. Especially if they work for companies like IBM. **Cheesesteak** has pretty much hit the nail on the head. Once you get transfered out of a managers group, their relationship with you ends. It is entirely possible that difficult employees found themself transfered frequently or it could just be the nature of the culture at IBM that transfers are frequent (and from what I understand, it is). It has been my experience with large corporations that such a high level of coordination and centralization rarely exists. There’s over 100,000 IBM employees. It’s seem ridiculous that the head office would be moving individuals around like Zeus on Mt Olympus in order to try to get them to quit. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-ibm-stand-for/317910/25 "2005-08-22T21:10:23Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It has been my experience with large corporations that such a high level of coordination and centralization rarely exists. There’s over 100,000 IBM employees. It’s seem ridiculous that the head office would be moving individuals around like Zeus on Mt Olympus in order to try to get them to quit. It’s a self-emergent system. No need for a queen bee to be involved at all. A worker ant simple has to make sure that “he’s not my problem anymore”, and his part is done. Having worked (as a contractor) at Big HAL, I can attest to the moving and intimidating of employees. It was a rather disgusting thing to watch. But that was around the time that Aker (?) became CEO, and the policy began to shift to “breathe wrong and your ass is outa here.” It was an exciting time to be part of the Blue Elephant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-ibm-stand-for/317910.md?page=1)