Frank T. Cary (14 December 1920, Gooding, Idaho – 1 January 2006, Darien, Connecticut) was a U.S. Executive and Businessman. Cary served as the Chairman from 1973 to 1983 and CEO from 1973 to 1981 of IBM.
While he was not well known outside of IBM during his tenure as Chief Executive he presided over a period of rapid growth in product, revenue and profit. His most notable accomplishment was recognizing that the Personal Computer was going to be an emerging product category that could ultimately be a threat to IBM. Consequently he forced the creation of a special, small dedicated group to spearhead an answer to Apple within IBM but totally protected from the internal bureaucracy of a large corporation. Even though the PC, after a significant early success, did not maintain its promise it did leave a legacy both outside and inside the company that endures to this day.
Frank T. Cary died, aged 85, on New Year's Day 2006.
Famous quotes containing the words frank and/or cary:
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“The will is never free—it is always attached to an object, a purpose. It is simply the engine in the car—it can’t steer.”
—Joyce Cary (1888–1957)