Editing IBM Personal Computer (section)

=== Success ===
Sales exceeded IBM's expectations by as much as 800% (9x), with the company at one point shipping as many as 40,000 PCs per month.<ref name="hayes19831024">{{cite news|author=Hayes, Thomas C.|date=October 24, 1983|title=Eagle Computer Stays in the Race|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/24/business/eagle-computer-stays-in-the-race.html|access-date=January 10, 2015}}</ref> IBM estimated that home users made up 50 to 70% of purchases from retail stores.<ref name="burton198303">{{cite news|author=Burton, Kathleen|date=March 1983|title=Anatomy of a Colossus, Part III|page=467|work=PC|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7wCiNAUEuAMC&pg=RA1-PA467|access-date=March 30, 2014}}</ref> In 1983, IBM sold more than 750,000 machines,<ref>{{Cite web|date=August 12, 2006|title=Origin of the IBM PC|url=https://lowendmac.com/2006/origin-of-the-ibm-pc/|access-date=October 4, 2020|website=Low End Mac|language=en-US}}</ref> while [[Digital Equipment Corporation]], one of the companies whose success had spurred IBM to enter the market, sold only 69,000.<ref name="ahl198403">{{cite news |author=Ahl, David H. |author-link=David H. Ahl |date=March 1984 |title=Digital |pages=38–41 |work=Creative Computing |url=https://archive.org/stream/creativecomputing-1984-03/Creative_Computing_v10_n03_1984_Mar#page/n39/mode/2up |access-date=February 6, 2015}}</ref>

Software support from the industry grew rapidly, with the IBM nearly instantly becoming the primary target for most microcomputer software development.<ref name="Pollack"/> One publication counted 753 software packages available a year after the PC's release, four times as many as were available for the Macintosh a year after its launch.<ref name="infoworld19850114">{{cite news|author1=Watt, Peggy|author2=McGeever, Christine|date=January 14, 1985|title=Macintosh Vs. IBM PC At One Year|pages=16–17|work=InfoWorld|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-i4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA15|access-date=December 28, 2014}}</ref> Hardware support also grew rapidly, with 30–40 companies competing to sell memory expansion cards within a year.<ref name="markoff19820823">{{cite news|author=Markoff, John|date=August 23, 1982|title=Competition and innovation mark IBM add-in market|page=20|work=InfoWorld|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VDAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA20|access-date=January 29, 2015}}</ref>

By 1984, IBM's revenue from the PC market was $4 billion, more than twice that of Apple.<ref name="libes198509">{{cite news|author=Libes, Sol|date=September 1985|title=The Top Ten|page=418|work=[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1985-09/1985_09_BYTE_10-09_Homebrewing#page/n401/mode/2up|access-date=October 27, 2013}}</ref> A 1983 study of corporate customers found that two thirds of large customers standardizing on one computer chose the PC, while only 9% chose Apple.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1984-09/1984_09_BYTE_09-09_Guide_to_the_IBM_PCs#page/n33/mode/2up|title=Byte Magazine Volume 09 Number 09 - Guide to the IBM PCs|date=Sep 1984}}</ref> A 1985 ''[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]'' survey found that 56% of American companies with personal computers used PCs while 16% used Apple.<ref>{{cite magazine | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pq3POofPsBEC | title=Ostracized PC1 Designer Still Ruminates 'Why?' | magazine=PC Magazine |volume=3| issue=18| date=September 18, 1984 | access-date=October 25, 2013 | author=Porter, Martin | page=33 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

Almost as soon as the PC reached the market, rumors of hardware and software compatible clones began,<ref name="pcommuniques19820203">{{cite news|date=February–March 1982|title=PCommuniques|page=5|work=PC Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w_OhaFDePS4C&pg=PA5|access-date=October 20, 2013}}</ref> and the first legal [[IBM PC compatible|PC-compatible]] clone—the [[MPC 1600]] by [[Columbia Data Products]]—was released in June 1982, less than a year after the PC's debut.<ref>{{cite book | last=Rohlfs | first=Jeffrey H. | date=2003 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rmFag8P4CF8C | title=Bandwagon Effects in High-technology Industries | publisher=MIT Press | page=122 | isbn=9780262681384 | via=Google Books}}</ref>

Eventually, IBM [[Acquisition of the IBM PC business by Lenovo|sold its PC business to Lenovo in 2004]].