What effect does war have on the economy? Can you also give some examples of companies that developed during the war? Thank you!

War can promote a country's military industry and heavy industry, but it will cause damage to the country's agriculture and light industry. The most famous company that developed during the war was IBM. On June 15, 1911, C. Flent, an adventurous financial investor on Wall Street in the United States, spent money to acquire the tabulating machine company and two other companies. The companies, International Chronograph Company and American Slide Rule Company, were pieced together into a company called CTR, where C stands for calculation, T stands for tabulation, and R stands for timing. However, Flint himself was not an expert in running a business, and CTR was in debt due to his nonsense and was almost on the verge of bankruptcy. Flint thought of "capturing" a new manager to help him out.

In 1914, Flint, who was looking for talents everywhere, recruited Thomas Watson (T. Watson), the manager who had just been fired from the National Cash Register Company (NCR), to the company to take charge of the business. Born in a poor peasant family, Watson is 40 years old, quick-thinking, shrewd and capable. He started selling sewing machines and other products door-to-door at the age of 17. He was taken in by NCR boss Patterson when he was in his 30s, and slowly climbed to the second-in-command position of the company. Patterson is recognized as the "Father of Modern Sales" in the history of American business. Watson worked with him for 18 years and learned a full set of business and sales strategies. Later, he was kicked out by his boss because of his "high achievements". The door.

When Watson took office, he was staffed by tobacco chewers who could only sell butcher scales and coffee grinders. He used the slogan "THINK" to motivate employees and cultivate corporate team spirit. In the first four years, the company's revenue reached US$2 million, and its business expanded to Europe, South America and Asia. Watson hated the "big miscellaneous" name of CTR from the bottom of his heart. After many twists and turns, he finally changed the company's name to a very grand name in 1924 - International Business Machines Corporation, the English abbreviation of IBM.

The outbreak of World War II not only allowed IBM to survive the recession of the "Great Depression" era in the United States, but also allowed the company to expand rapidly. During the war, Watson signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to manufacture large quantities of machine guns, sights, engines and other munitions. Two-thirds of the company's new factories were devoted to the production of military supplies, and production volume tripled. In 1945, the company had 20,000 employees and sales soared to 140 million. At the same time, the war also enabled IBM to enter the computer field for the first time.

In 1944, Watson invested 1 million and sent four engineers to assist Dr. H. Aiken of the Naval Ordnance Bureau in successfully developing the famous "Mark I" computer at Harvard University. MarkⅠ is an electromagnetic computer, also known as "automatic sequence controlled computer", consisting of more than 3,000 relays. The machine is about 15 meters long, 2.4 meters high, weighs 31.5 tons, and has a computing speed of one addition per second. However, this machine became "a thing of yesterday" not long after its birth. The first generation of computer products such as ENIAC and UNIVAC assembled with electron tubes came out one after another, causing IBM to face a major crisis of losing its traditional tabulating machine business.

Watson ordered the rapid development of IBM's own "best, latest, and largest supercomputer." In 1947, after spending the same $1 million, IBM launched the "Selected Sequential Control Computer" (SSEC). However, this machine was a hodgepodge of tradition and innovation, with 12,500 tubes and 21,400 relays assembled incongruously across a total length of 120 feet. Although it represents IBM's move from the tabulating machine industry to the computer field, the industry calls it a "huge technology dinosaur" and it is not even a computer that stores programs.

The old Watson, who is in his 70s, is so famous that he even set a record for the largest entry in "Who's Who in America" ??with a length of 16 and a half inches. He was unwilling to face the fact that IBM was lagging behind. Instead, he pretended to be calm and branded the IBM tabulating machine as the "poor man's ENIAC"; almost none of the IBM engineers understood electronic technology, and even the chief designer could not figure out how to install a vacuum tube. Even so, Watson Sr. still believes that IBM has reached this point in a new technology like computers. He even asserted: "The world market demand for computers is only about 5 units.

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In the early 1950s, Watson’s eldest son Thomas Watson Jr. (T. Watson Jr.) was appointed at the critical moment to implement fundamental changes in the company’s development direction. Reform, IBM began to transcend tradition. As a child, Watson was a playboy, but during the five years of World War II, he joined the army and flew bombers for 2,500 hours, and became an Air Force lieutenant colonel. The war taught him to move forward courageously and plan wisely. Well, he learned how to organize and unite his subordinates.

Watson first promoted Wally McDowell, the only MIT graduate in the company, to be the director of research, and hired von Neu. Mann served as a consultant to the company and recruited more than 4,000 energetic young engineers and technicians. At that time, the U.S. Air Force was preparing to implement the Semi-Automated Ground Air Defense Engineering (SAGE) program. Watson lost no time in securing the project for IBM, establishing an automated factory, and training Thousands of manufacturing and assembly workers. On this basis, IBM set out to develop an all-purpose electronic computer for national defense.