© IFIP, 2011. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission
of IFIP for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version has been
published as Paju, Petri: “IBM Manufacturing in the Nordic Countries.” In John
Impagliazzo, Per Lundin, Benkt Wangler (Eds.): History of Nordic Computing 3. IFIP
AICT 350. Springer, Heidelberg 2011, 215–227.
IBM Manufacturing in the Nordic Countries
Petri Paju
Cultural history department, University of Turku, Finland
petpaju@utu.fi
Abstract. Unlike other foreign computing companies, in addition to sales and
service IBM early on also established production facilities in the Nordic
countries. To provide a better understanding of the role of IBM in these
countries, the article surveys IBM manufacturing in the region: what was
produced, and where were these functions located? The term “production” is
understood in a rather narrow sense, as manufacture. The results show that for
several decades, IBM produced punched cards in four Nordic countries, but that
after 1960 there has been only one IBM factory for hardware in the region,
located in the Stockholm area. The article also discusses the reasons for
Sweden’s importance in IBM manufacture, and suggests that Nordic companies
contributed to IBM manufacture through subcontracting.
Keywords: IBM World Trade Corporation, punched card, hardware
production, subcontracting, computer history, Nordic countries.
1 Introduction
From World War II to the 1980s, one of the most influential actors of the computer
industry in the Nordic countries was IBM, the International Business Machines
company. Throughout the period, this American multinational corporation was the
data-processing market leader in all five countries belonging to the Nordic cultural
region. Unlike many other foreign computer companies, in addition to sales and
service IBM early on also established production facilities in the Nordic countries.
IBM’s wide international connections had many implications for national
developments, from Iceland to Finland. As in many other parts of the world, IBM was
or became a contested player in Scandinavia too, no doubt partly because of its
formidable size and dominance. According to some current beliefs, IBM was often
perceived as, or argued to be, a counter-force to the national computer industries. To
better understand the role of IBM in the Nordic area, this article discusses IBM
manufacturing in the Nordic countries.
Some parts of IBM production in the Nordic area may be well known, but not the
whole or big picture. In the book History of Nordic Computing, Hans Andersin wrote
about IBM’s role in the early development of computing in the Nordic countries. A
recent study has argued that IBM’s success in Europe was partly due to its production
structure, which was organized in terms of the whole continent, [1], [2]. IBM has
usually been dealt with on a national basis, although IBM itself was comprised of
several levels and perspectives, national as well as multinational. During most of the
period covered in this article the Nordic IBM subsidiaries were part of the IBM World
Trade Corporation; this organization did business everywhere except in the United
States, where IBM sales were managed by the IBM Corporation.
In the article, I ask the following questions: What did IBM produce in the Nordic
area? Where were these functions located? The term “production” is understood in a
rather narrow sense, as manufacture, i.e. mainly plants that produce things. Other
productive activities, such as training and software-writing, are thus excluded. A
further question is, did the Nordic IBM plants in turn make a special contribution
within IBM?
To some extent, this article contributes to the discussion of the effect of these
operations, including their possible influence on the national information technology
industries in these countries. In addition, it provides information – although indirectly
– on IBM’s customers and computer users and their concentrations in the region.
The paper is based on a varied array of material and literature. I have used some
archival sources from the IBM Corporation in the USA and from IBM Finland, as
well as IBM publications, including IBM’s internal staff magazines. For the most
part, however, my main sources consist of the secondary literature, such as academic
studies.1 The article is part of a larger, ongoing research project, which examines the
co-shaping of computer expertise in Europe in the Cold War era, and visions of
European capabilities, through the use of IBM technology. To grasp the long
evolution of IBM’s manufacturing in the Nordic area, I need to start from the state of
data processing before the computer, [3].
2 IBM Enters the Nordic Countries
The first national IBM subsidiary in the Nordic area was established in Sweden, in
1928. At the time, however, IBM had already had sales agents in most Nordic
countries for several years. The first IBM or Hollerith machines had been delivered
even earlier. In fact, in 1894 Norway became one of the earliest countries outside the
United States to test the punched card machines developed (for purposes of census
tabulation) by Herman Hollerith in the 1880s, [4]. In 1911, Hollerith’s technology
became a key product for the company that was renamed IBM in 1924. Soon
afterwards IBM founded its first factories in Europe, located in France and Germany.
The Nordic national IBM companies were founded in the period from 1928 to
1967 (see Table 1). These dates, and their order, may have played a role when IBM
1
See also the article by Eric Malmi, Timo Honkela and myself, in this volume.
management chose locations for IBM facilities, so they merit some attention. The
Swedish subsidiary was established first, and evidently became an administrative
centre for IBM’s expansion in the region. This history probably offers some
explanation for the large part that Sweden would play in further IBM development in
the Nordic region.
Table 1. The Establishing of Nordic IBM Country Organizations.
Year
Country
Organization type
1928
Sweden
Subsidiary
1935
Norway
Subsidiary
1936
Finland
Subsidiary
1950
Denmark
Subsidiary
1967
Iceland
Branch Office
The Danish agent was evidently doing so well that IBM waited until the late 1940s
to push for a national subsidiary there. From 1950 onward, when the IBM World
Trade Corporation (WTC) was established, this new company, with its global reach,
included a newly formed IBM subsidiary in Denmark. In Iceland, prior to 1967, IBM
had had a national representative from 1948, coordinated from Denmark. In
Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital, IBM punched card machines were first introduced in
1949, [5].2
3 Punched Card Production
IBM started production in the Nordic countries in 1932, with the manufacture of
punched cards. Unsurprisingly, it was Swedish IBM that was involved, since it was
the only IBM Company in the region. In 1932 the Swedish IBM company build a
Carroll Press, named after its designer, the IBM engineer Fred Carroll. In the first
year, 18 millions cards were printed. The punched card plant moved to Vällingby in
1954. Punched card printing peaked in 1969, when the factory in Sweden produced
one milliard (in European usage, billion in American usage) cards. Card manufacture
ended in Sweden in 1980. [6] In other words, IBM Sweden was printing punched
cards for almost fifty years.
Although often unappreciated as a key part of data processing in its time, punched
cards were of crucial importance to the data processing business and to IBM. The
cards themselves were used in most things IBM and its customers did, but especially
in large-scale data processing; for a considerable time, nothing could be done without
those actual pieces of special paper. For IBM, moreover, the cards had been a highly
profitable and steady source of income already in the 1930s, and they continued to
2
For a history of the IBM branch office in Iceland, see Sverrir lafsson’s article in this
volume. For information on the Danish IBM agent and early IBM business in Denmark, see
Søren Duus Østergaard’s article in this volume.
give the company financial stability, [3], [7]. Thus a significant part of IBM’s
business was the production and delivery of punched cards.
IBM punched cards needed in Finland, for instance, were first shipped from
Germany and later from Sweden. In Helsinki, the first Hollerith cards had been
ordered by the Statistical head office in 1922. After 1932, with the inception of the
Swedish plant, punched cards for the Finnish IBM agent and later for the IBM
subsidiary (est. 1936), as well as for customers, were probably supplied by IBM
Sweden, [8].
The period of World War II brought a wave of IBM production to the Nordic
countries. This was probably because of difficulties with IBM punched card
deliveries. Between 1940 and 1943, punched card plants were established in Norway
(1940), Finland (1942) and Denmark (1943), although the Danish plant was owned by
the national IBM agent, [8], [9], [10]. It seems remarkable that IBM Sweden was able
to help both the Danish IBM agent and IBM Finland in establishing card plants,
considering that Finland was in a state of war and Denmark was occupied by German
troops [8].3 Nevertheless, along with eventual assistance from IBM Sweden this
period reveals some tension and competition among the IBM companies.
For the Finnish subsidiary, securing a punched card factory was not all that
straightforward. As mentioned, in the late 1930s IBM Finland received its punched
cards from Sweden. In wartime these deliveries could not be guaranteed, and IBM
Finland came up with the idea of producing its own punched cards. The CEO of IBM
in Finland, Einar Dickman, visited IBM Sweden’s card plant in August 1940, during
the interval of peace in Finland between the Winter War of 1939–1940 and the
Continuation War which began in the summer of 1941. (Sweden of course maintained
neutrality during the Second World War.) Dickman calculated that if Finnish IBM
made its own cards, one of the printing machines in Sweden would became idle and
could be moved to Finland. He suggested this to the European headquarters, but IBM
Sweden did not agree; they said they needed all of their machines. In 1942, however,
a used printing machine was imported from IBM Sweden to Helsinki, where a Finnish
IBM punched card factory operated during 1942–1946, [8], [11].
During the war, IBM Finland also received some help from IBM Sweden and IBM
Norway. In addition to spare parts, they occasionally sent engineers for service tasks
while Finnish engineers were at the front or otherwise serving the war effort, [12].4
Help was also sought from a Polish expert, but apparently the Germans wanted to
keep him, [11].
In using punched cards and in IBM’s business with them, the most important thing
was card quality: not only in a general sense, but more specifically because bad card
quality made the machines jam and IBM service had to fix them. Since the IBM
machines were rented to the customers, service meant extra costs for IBM. It was the
need to minimize costs that made card quality so essential for business.
The importance of card quality is indicated by the fact that in 1946 IBM Finland
again started importing cards from Sweden; the old printing press in Helsinki could
no longer produce cards of sufficient quality. Moreover, because of the growing post3
4
For the card plant’s situation in Denmark, see Søren Duus Østergaard’s article in this volume.
Cf. According to Anttila [11] it was often difficult to get that (or any) help. Anttila had access
to the original correspondence, which is now missing.
war demand the Swedish subsidiary could not deliver cards for Finland in sufficient
quantity. The Finns therefore applied to the World Trade Division in New York for a
new printing machine to be placed in Finland, [11], [8].5 It is clear that the Swedish
and Finnish IBM companies had different interests in card production. The national
subsidiaries negotiated over this question with and through IBM headquarters. Within
the multinational company, this certainly exemplifies international competition over
company facilities and functions. Such negotiations among IBM nationals may have
also reinforced the parties’ national feelings.
Finally, in 1952, an IBM punched card factory (re)opened in Helsinki. The card
plant began production despite difficulties in the first years. The greatest problems
were in meeting the high standards that were required for functional paper cards. The
paper for the cards was manufactured by and bought from a medium-sized Finnish
pulp and paper company, the G. A. Serlachius factory at Kangas, near Jyväskylä, [8].
IBM card manufacture continued in Finland until the late 1970s, for 26 years. All this
was certainly an important argument for the IBM Finland’s national significance.
In the 1960s, the same Finnish pulp and paper company started selling and
exporting its material to foreign IBM subsidiaries as well. Finnish IBM printed cards
for Finland, but it also exported them to other IBM subsidiaries. Interestingly, in the
mid-1970s the Finnish subsidiary, as a subcontractor, also exported cards to the
Soviet Union. [13] These were most probably delivered to the IBM operation
coordinated from Moscow.
One consequence of the punched card press and related technology transfer to
Finland was that the manager of the IBM press, Ulf Enbom, resigned from IBM in
1957 and started a card plant of his own in 1958. He co-developed new machinery for
card printing and competed with IBM Finland by producing punched cards. In the
1960s, however, the new company could not compete and had to close down. [14]
In 1950, when the Danish IBM subsidiary was established, it also took over the
punched card press there. In 1970, seventy percent of all Danish computer systems
used punched cards as their input medium. At the time, card production was mostly
carried out within the country and accounted for some one milliard (European usage)
cards. [9] Thus IBM Denmark, the clear market leader, continued to produce cards
there at least well into the seventies. In Norway the peak of IBM’s punched card
production, 600 million cards a year, was achieved in 1970, a year later than in
Sweden, indicating the long-lasting demand for the cards, [15].
For all these national plants, quality control and testing were essential. In these
respects, IBM’s international network of transnational resources played a major role
in the manufacture of cards and other “information record” devices. In the Finnish
case, tests were performed by the Finnish subcontractor and by an IBM print
technology laboratory in Stockholm. Another IBM laboratory, located in
Sindelfingen, West-Germany, tested the color ingredients for the color tapes (used in
IBM typewriters). There were also several other IBM units involved, although not in
dealing with punched cards. [16] In other words, the international IBM network made
a big difference for national card production sites as well. Evidently, most of these
IBM laboratories served all of the IBM card plants in Europe. This made the plants’
5
The IBM World Trade Division was the form of organization in 1947, right before the
establishment of the World Trade Corporation.
available transnational IBM resources hard to compete with by means of national
resources alone – particularly with regard to card quality.
4 Hardware Manufacturing
In addition to punched cards, other IBM manufacturing in the Nordic area started
properly in the early 1950s in Sweden and Norway. In his compilation of information
on national IBM history in Europe in the late 1960s, James Connolly mentions that
IBM Sweden produced its first hand key punches already in 1941, [17]. It was in
1951, however, that IBM commenced assembling electric typewriters in Stockholm
(at Norra Stationsgatan). Two years later, in 1953, the Stockholm factory produced its
1000th electric typewriter. These typewriters were made in Sweden until 1961, [18],
[10], when other production in Sweden was expanded.
In 1952 IBM Norway started producing time recorders. In the late 1950s, IBM
Norway also manufactured electric typewriters for a few years, [15]. By 1959, the
Oslo Plant had produced its 5000th IBM 780 job cost and attendance time recorder,
[10].6 Production in Oslo continued until 1960, when it was moved to other countries
as IBM reorganized or cut its manufacturing, [15]. In 1964, IBM World Trade ended
its time recorder business altogether, [10].
In 1954, all IBM manufacturing in Sweden was concentrated at a new factory in
Vällingby, in the Stockholm area. At the new premises IBM workers printed punch
cards, assembled electronic typewriters and punched-card machines, and made time
recorders. [6] The punch card machines produced were the IBM 082 sorter, the IBM
416 tabulator and the IBM 513 reproducer.7 Initially the factory employed 120 people.
[10]
Tellingly of Sweden’s modernization in city planning, and of IBM’s place in this
development, Vällingby, the location of the IBM factory complex, was the first “town
of the future”. It was an “ABC City” — an acronym for “Arbeta-Bo-Centrum”, or
“work and residential centre” – a suburb designed to offer its residents everything
they needed, similar to an independent city. It was inaugurated in 1954, the same year
IBM moved in. [19] The new city and its architecture attracted public attention in
Sweden and even internationally.
In 1961 IBM enlarged the Vällingby factory, although they also stopped producing
typewriters the same year, [10]. The expansion was needed for the manufacturing of
new products. In 1960 the factory had commenced the production of two new
punched card machines, the IBM 088 and the IBM 1402. The IBM 088 was a collator,
a machine that shuffled separate decks or card piles together into one or more decks,
[20], [17]. The IBM 1402 was a card reader punch, originally designed as part of the
IBM 1401 data processing system. In 1967 the plant began manufacturing another
peripheral for the IBM 1401 computer, the IBM 1403 printer, [10].
The IBM 1401 was the first transistorized computer system for smaller businesses,
which could continue using the punched cards and get a computer relatively cheaply.
6
7
Cf. Nerheim & Nordvik [15], who give 1957 as the year of the 5000th IBM 780.
The factory’s products changed from time to time. The products listed in this article were the
main items produced, but the list is not comprehensive.
The 1401 system was announced in 1959 and became IBM’s breakthrough model in
computers until its withdrawal in 1971, [7], [21], see also [2]. With the peripheral
machines, which were integral to the computer system – the IBM 1402 and especially
the printer IBM 1403 – production in Sweden contributed to and shared in IBM’s
worldwide success.
5 The IBM Factory in Sweden Focuses on Printers
Thanks to its fast-growing sales, IBM erected a new factory at Järfälla (or Jarfalla, the
form used in English) in 1970. The Järfälla municipality, like Vällingby, is located in
the greater Stockholm area. In fact the new factory site was located only a few
kilometres from the older site at Vällingby, [22]. With the exception of the punched
card plant, which remained in Vällingby until its closure in 1980, [18], all IBM
manufacture in Sweden was relocated to the Järfälla premises.
Already in 1970, the factory was making printers for all of Europe. During the
seventies, several new printers went into production in Järfälla. After the introduction
of the IBM system 370 in 1970, for instance, came the IBM 3211 line printer. In 1976
the Järfälla plant shipped its first IBM 3800 laser printers. [10] Most of the production
at the factory was for export, [18].
According to information provided at an international press conference at Järfälla
in 1971, 95 percent of products were exported to 108 IBM countries. Out of about
3300 IBM employees in Sweden, a little over 1000 worked at the factory. This
manufacturing supported a large number of subcontractors from several countries.
[23]
Printers had become the target area for Swedish IBM production. It may be
relevant here that the Swedish company Facit had been highly regarded, by IBM
executives among others, for its peripheral devices. In late 1958 the top management
of IBM World Trade met with Facit executives at the IBM World Trade
Corporation’s New York headquarters; IBM expressed ample interest in co-operation
with Facit, especially because of the latter’s expertise in peripherals, including
printers. However, soon afterwards, in 1959, IBM suddenly withdrew from these
plans and continued as competitively as ever. [24]
In this focus on printers, it is possible that IBM was impacted by Swedish knowhow, leading IBM World Trade to choose to focus on printer production at its
Swedish factory. In Sweden, IBM might be able to hire printer specialists from or
around Facit, or at least to weaken Facit’s competitive status in manufacturing, by this
production decision and the related hiring and subcontracting.
6 Subcontracting for IBM’s European Plants
Most of the Nordic countries contributed some subcontractors to IBM’s
manufacturing in Europe. In Finland, for instance, subcontracting via IBM Finland
started in the early 1960s, when several foreign IBM subsidiaries began ordering the
custom-made stiff paper for their punched cards from the same supplier, the
Serlachius pulp and paper company, that had been supplying the Finnish IBM card
factory since 1952, [25].
Importantly, subcontracting was apparently one thing the IBM subsidiary could
increase in response to the criticism that IBM’s business consisted too much of just
importing hardware and software to Finland. This debate, and the subsequent actions
(on both sides) were part of a larger European response to the debate over the
American challenge in the late 1960s. The debate of the late 1960s and early 1970s
included the 1967 book Le Défi Américain, by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber. The
next year the book was published in English as The American Challenge, as well as in
Swedish and Finnish translations; the Finnish title was Dollarin maihinnousu
(Invasion of the Dollar, 1968). A similar debate, and the IBM reaction, especially in
the form of increasing subcontracting, was going on in all the Nordic countries; in
fact, the only Nordic country with no subcontractors for IBM plants was Iceland.
Subcontracting possibilities were in fact seriously investigated in Reykjavik too, but
no business justification could be found, [26].
IBM Finland appointed a coordinator for subcontracting in 1970. He reported both
to the European Purchasing Competence Center (EPCC) which coordinated
subcontractors in Europe and IBM’s European Plants, and to the CEO of IBM
Finland, [27]. In the late 1960s the price level in Finland was low by international
standards, making the country more attractive for IBM buyers, [25]. Just as IBM
production was organized continentally, so evidently was subcontracting as part of
IBM production structures.
Already in 1971, the value of Finnish subcontractors’ deliveries to foreign IBM
companies equaled 30 to 40 percent of IBM Finland’s imports, and the figure was
expected to grow during the seventies. In 1976, some twenty companies in Finland
made products for IBM companies in Europe. These deliveries secured around 200
jobs annually, [28], [25]. Three years later IBM estimated this figure at 250 jobs. In
the 1980s, a significant producer for IBM’s personal computers was the large Finnish
consumer electronics company Salora, later merged with Nokia, which delivered
monitors to an IBM factory in Italy, [29], [30].8
In Norway there were some twenty subcontractors in 1985 delivering to IBM’s
European factories, [15]. In addition to subcontracts, actual production could also be
transnational or trans-border, when for instance in 1983 a Danish subcontractor was
chosen to manufacture the new IBM 4250 printer in support of the IBM plant at
Järfälla, Sweden, [10].
On the demand or IBM side, the Järfälla plant, as the one Nordic IBM factory, was
by far the biggest IBM customer for subcontractors in the Nordic countries. In 1971
the new factory utilized approximately 500 subcontractors, [23]. Out of this
significant number of businesses, presumably many were from Sweden and the other
Nordic countries.
By its choice of subcontractors, the IBM World Trade Corporation benefitted from
the strengths of individual companies in the Nordic countries; and perhaps vice versa,
the Nordic companies had an impact on IBM products. The supplier and product
examples above represented the contributions to and involvement in IBM’s European
production system of Finnish, Norwegian and Danish subcontractors.
8
The Salora Company also manufactured monitors for several other computer companies [30].
7 IBM and Other Production
What about other computer vendors – did they produce something similar in the
Nordic region? One of IBM’s rivals, the (French) Bull Company originated in
Norway; but the construction of Bull punched card machines was relocated to France
already in 1931, [4]. By 1967 Burroughs had a demonstration centre in Sweden, but
no actual manufacture in Scandinavia, [17]. It was mostly Nordic, more specifically
Swedish and later Finnish (Nokia) computer companies that maintained production
facilities in several Nordic countries. Compared to other major computer companies,
IBM was clearly the one most involved in computing-related production in the Nordic
countries.
However, IBM not only produced things in the Nordic countries, but also the
reverse: it sought to undo or to discourage competition. According to Hans Andersin,
who was at IBM Finland, and on two assignments in Sweden, all during 1956–1965,
IBM headquarters (IBM World Trade Corporation HQ in New York, presumably) had
specialists whose job it was to prevent the establishment of national computer
industries, obviously also in the Nordic countries. They offered cooperation and subcontracting agreements and/or advised against competing with IBM. IBM, for
instance, tried – unsuccessfully – to discourage the Finnish Cable Factory, later
Nokia, from embarking on the computer business in the early 1960s. [1]
8 Discussing the Bigger Picture
In this article, I have addressed the question of IBM manufacturing in the Nordic
countries before the 1990s. Previously, the stories of IBM subsidiaries in Scandinavia
have been framed primarily in national terms. I hope to have shown that a wider,
international Nordic perspective brings significant benefits for understanding IBM in
each of the Nordic countries. Further, the picture of IBM production structures has
become considerably clearer.
On the one hand, the printing of punched cards started early on in Sweden and
spread, in the war time and soon after, to all four Nordic subsidiaries. (See Table 2.)
In punched card manufacture, all the subsidiaries took part in IBM’s transnational
coordination and co-operation structures. The only exception in the region was the
IBM branch office in Iceland, which was less independent than a national subsidiary
and had no IBM manufacture; it merely imported punched cards from the USA, [26].
The four IBM card plants in the Nordic countries serve as a reminder of the great
importance of punched cards to the data-processing business. For a considerable time,
at least half a century, punched cards were essential for most IBM data processing.
Millions and millions of those precisely shaped pieces of special paper were used in
most of the activities of IBM subsidiaries – activities consisting of sales and services,
which have mostly been ignored in this article. In these operations, IBM personnel
made most of their contacts with customers and computer users. A major reason for
establishing and maintaining IBM punched card plants in the four Nordic countries
was no doubt the proximity to customers, giving easy accessibility and minimizing
transportation costs. This was one way in which Nordic IBM customers indirectly
influenced and benefitted from IBM activities in the region and from their location.
Table 2. New IBM Plants &
1990s
IBM
1930s
1940s
Sweden
Punchedcard (PC) press
Norway
P-C
Press
Finland
(P-C
Press)
Denmark
Agent:
P-C
Press
Iceland
Location by Country in the Nordic region up to the
1950s
Factory,
misc.
products;
typewriters,
punched
card
machines
Factory,
esp. time
recorder
production
(until -60)
P-C Press
1960s
New
products,
printers
1970s
New Järfälla
site,
manufacturing
printers for
Europe
1980s
P-C
Press
closed
(-80)
Subcontracting,
P-C Press
closed
P-C Press
est. 1967
as an
IBM
Branch
Office
All but Iceland:
Subcontracts
The distribution of other manufacturing was much more uneven. As IBM’s
production system was European, the Nordic region did not form a coherent unit in
the system but was integrated into the larger production network. Clearly, Sweden
was the big player in IBM manufacture among the Nordic country organizations and
locations (see Table 2). Within the Nordic region, the most significant hub of IBM
production developed in the Stockholm area. In the 1950s, other manufacture was
temporarily located in Norway. From 1960 onwards, the only IBM manufacturing site
for hardware in the Nordic countries was IBM’s Swedish factory.
There were probably numerous reasons why Sweden, industrially the most
advanced and successful of the Nordic countries, became the location of so much
IBM manufacture. An excellent explanation is offered by the national computer
markets: the first IBM computers in the Nordic region were installed in Sweden in
1956.9 According to the World computer census in December 1966, the number of
computers in the Scandinavian countries was (roughly, at least) as follows, [32]:10
Sweden 350.
Denmark 175.
Norway 150.
Finland 90.
Iceland 3.
Clearly, Sweden was the earliest and biggest national market, in digital computers
too, in the Nordic countries. However, it also had the toughest competition. Among
the Nordic countries, it was Swedish professionals who had the highest hopes for a
successful national computer company; this meant that IBM was also heavily
criticized, especially when the Swedish companies could not sustain the competition
(see [33], [24]). Perhaps this competitive situation contributed to the fact that Sweden
was able to attract a lot of IBM functions and operations.
Until the mid-1960s most of both national Swedish IBM facilities and international
Nordic IBM operations were located in or around the Swedish capital, [34]; later
Copenhagen started gaining IBM functions (see [9], [1]). To a perhaps significant
level, IBM companies could also be national and even nationalist in competing for the
allocation of IBM operations. This question too requires further study.
Was there some specifically Nordic contribution to IBM? One such area was
probably the focus of IBM’s Swedish manufacturing plant on peripherals and
especially on printers from the mid-1960s onward. Eventually, Sweden provided
printers for IBM in all of Europe. In each Nordic nation, subcontracts to IBM’s
European plants were another instance where the national Nordic companies could
use their individual strengths and capacity.
9 Conclusion
Unlike any of its major competitors, IBM early on established manufacturing
facilities in the Nordic region. These IBM activities have received limited attention,
but they may offer a tool both for a better understanding of IBM in the Nordic region
and for exploring Nordic contributions to IBM. For decades, IBM produced punched
cards in four Nordic countries, whereas after 1960 there was one IBM hardware
factory in the region, located in the Stockholm area. For several reasons, discussed
above, IBM concentrated its Nordic hardware manufacturing in Sweden. There (and
elsewhere in Europe), companies from four Nordic countries contributed to IBM
manufacture through subcontracting. In addition, the IBM factory in Sweden
specialized in printer production, which probably included local contributions.
Studying those contributions requires further evidence and scrutiny.
9
The first IBM computers followed in Norway (1958), Finland (1958; also the first computer
in the country), Denmark (1959), and Iceland (1964; the first computer in the country) [1].
See also [31].
10
Iceland was not included in this census source. Its figure is based on [26].
All in all, IBM may perhaps have been more Nordic than most of its competitors,
including those which were Nordic themselves. By Nordic, I mean here that some
manufacturing was performed in most of the Nordic countries (as opposed to being
done in one, two or three of them), and that IBM cooperation among the Nordic
countries was inclusive, usually including all or most of its Nordic organizations.
Moreover, the findings presented in this article suggest that IBM manufacturing in the
Nordic countries was linked to its success in the region; the relationship between
economic success and manufacturing, however, calls for further research.
Furthermore, IBM involved Nordic IBM staff in building its international and
transnational operations models. Meanwhile, IBM itself was influenced by and
incorporated the contributions of its Nordic subsidiaries. The precise nature of this
influence in each individual national environment remains to be examined: what did it
mean for their information technology industries? How and why the international
patterns of operations of the Nordic IBM companies evolve as they did? More Nordic
cooperation and contributions can be uncovered by studying IBM education and R&D
work in the region, [14]. Perhaps studying IBM’s operation pattern in the Nordic
region can help us to understand how IBM operated in other regions as well.
Finally, the ending of the Cold War division of Europe around 1990 brought many
changes for IBM manufacturing in the Nordic countries. In 1989, the Järfälla plant
became a subcontractor to an independent LexMark Company owned by IBM. Two
years later IBM sold this part of its business, including printer production, to another
American company. In 1994 IBM sold its majority share of the Järfälla plant, [18],
see also [11].
Today, a reorganized IBM continues its operation in the Nordic area, but its
manufacturing has moved on. What remains are memories of it and probably some
influence on the information technology industries in the Nordic countries.
Acknowledgments. This research project started as part of the European Science
Foundation EUROCORES Research program, “Inventing Europe: Technology and
the Making of Europe, 1850 to the Present”, and has benefitted from its collaborative
research project, Software for Europe. My part of it has been funded by the Academy
of Finland. Thanks are due to the staff at the IBM Archive and to James Cortada.
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About the Author
Petri Paju is a Postdoctoral Fellow funded by the Academy of Finland and works at
University of Turku, Finland, in the department of Cultural History. His doctoral
dissertation in 2008 concerned information technology and nationalism in the 1950s
Finland. He co-edited the book History of Nordic computing 2 (Springer, Berlin,
2009).
© IFIP, 2011. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission
of IFIP for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version has been
published as Paju, Petri: “IBM Manufacturing in the Nordic Countries.” In John
Impagliazzo, Per Lundin, Benkt Wangler (Eds.): History of Nordic Computing 3. IFIP
AICT 350. Springer, Heidelberg 2011, 215–227.