Editing IBM Rochester

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{{Short description|Rochester Technology Campus in Rochester, Minnesota}}
{{Infobox building
| name = Rochester Technology Campus
| alternate_names = 
| status = Complete
| image = IBM Rochester photo.jpg
| image_alt = The sprawling Rochester Technology Campus in Rochester, Minnesota.
| image_size = 
| caption = 
| location = 
| address = 3605 Highway 52 North
| location_town = [[Rochester, Minnesota]]
| location_country = [[United States]]
| coordinates = {{coord|44|03|30|N|92|30|20|W|type:landmark_region:US|display=inline,title}}
| groundbreaking_date = 1956
| start_date = 
| inauguration_date = September 30, 1958
| architect = 
| structural_engineer = 
| services_engineer = 
| owner = Industrial Realty Group
| cost = 
| floor_area = {{convert|3100000|sqft|m2|abbr=on|sigfig=2}}
| floor_count = 3
| awards = 
| parking = 
| public_transit = {{Bus icon}} [[Rochester Public Transit|RPT]]
| embedded = 
| references = 
| map_type = 
| map_alt = 
| map_caption = Location in the Rochester Minneasota
| building_type = 
| architectural_style = 
| structural_system = 
| current_tenants = IBM, Western Digital
| height = 
| architectural = 
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| civil_engineer = 
| other_designers = 
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| rooms = 
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| diameter = 
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| grounds_area = {{convert|492|acre|hectare|abbr=on|sigfig=2}}
| website = https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/rochester/rochester_intro.html
}}'''The Rochester Technology Campus''' is a facility shared by several companies in [[Rochester, Minnesota]]. The initial structure was designed by [[Eero Saarinen]], who clad the structure in [[blue]] panels of varying hues after being inspired by the [[Minnesota]] sky<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tptoriginals.org/was-minnesota-the-inspiration-behind-ibms-nickname-big-blue/|title=Was Minnesota the inspiration behind IBM's nickname "Big Blue"?|last=Thao|first=Susan|date=August 2, 2019|website=TPT Originals|language=en-US|access-date=October 8, 2019}}</ref> and the nickname of the first occupant, [[Big Blue]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Zemsky |first=Robert |date=2013 |title=Checklist for Change: Making American Higher Education a Sustainable Enterprise |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vaJBAAAAQBAJ&pg=PP1 |publisher=[[Rutgers University Press]] |page=114 |isbn=978-0813561349 |quote=Located eighty-five miles due south of the Twin Cities, Rochester is the home of both the Mayo Clinic and a major IBM facility housed in an Euro Saarinen edifice affectionately known as the Big Blue Zoo.}}</ref>

==History==
===Early years===
IBM's CEO [[Thomas J. Watson Jr.]] reportedly chose the site of Rochester in honor of his copilot during [[World War II]], Leland Fiegel, who lived there.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McElvenny |first=Ralph |title=The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived |last2=Wortman |first2=Marc |isbn=978-1-5417-6852-9 |pages=311}}</ref> [[Groundbreaking]] took place on July 31, 1956.  When it was first completed, there was {{convert|576,000|sqft}} of floor space. After expansion, it has {{convert|3.1|e6sqft}} on the main campus, more than half the size of [[the Pentagon]] in [[Arlington, Virginia]].

The building was first dedicated in 1958, but has been expanded considerably since then.

===Current developments===
[[File:IBM Rochester Technology Campus.jpg|thumb|right|The site was renamed Rochester Technology Campus.]]
Employment at the site has gone through several cycles of growth and collapse, but is over twice what it was in the 1950s.

On May 4, 2016, it was announced that IBM would consolidate its remaining employees into the eight buildings on the east side of the complex and sell the remaining facilitates to a separate entity.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/ibm-to-sell-buildings-consolidate-campus/article_8a84da67-c943-5c50-bcb2-f0b257d71aaa.html|title=IBM to sell buildings, consolidate campus|date=May 5, 2016}}</ref> This occurred after years of IBM renting out its various facilities to companies it had spun or sold off such as [[HGST]]. The site's employee count (excluding contractors) was reported to be 2,740 in 2013 and 2,791 in 2017, a steep decline from the high of over 8,000.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.postbulletin.com/business/rochester-ibm-head-count/article_b21477fa-de71-58b5-b4c1-59b64c3cdc8c.html|title=Rochester IBM head count: 2,740|date=November 18, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.postbulletin.com/blogs/kigersnotebook/rochester-ibm-employee-numbers-are-up/article_3e193a24-09e8-11e8-9193-4bb95d9d2a36.html#targetText=This%20year%27s%20posting%20dated%20Jan,on%20the%20same%20OSHA%20form. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180204231615/http://www.postbulletin.com/blogs/kigersnotebook/rochester-ibm-employee-numbers-are-up/article_3e193a24-09e8-11e8-9193-4bb95d9d2a36.html#targetText=This%20year%27s%20posting%20dated%20Jan,on%20the%20same%20OSHA%20form. |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 4, 2018 |title=Rochester IBM employee numbers are ... up? |last=Jeff |first=Kiger |date=February 4, 2018 |work=Rochester Post-Bulletin |access-date=October 28, 2019 }}</ref>

In February 2018 the property was sold to Industrial Realty Group of Los Angeles.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://krocam.com/from-rapid-growth-to-slow-decline-history-of-ibm-rochester/|title=From Rapid Growth to Slow Decline - History of IBM-Rochester|last=Andy Brownell|website=News Talk 1340 KROC-AM|language=en|access-date=August 19, 2019}}</ref>

On April 24, 2018, in a presentation to the local community, it was announced that the site was renamed Rochester Technology Campus.<ref name="kttc-2018-04-24">{{cite web
|url=http://www.kttc.com/story/38033482/2018/04/24/big-blue-gets-new-name-community-gets-new-opportunities
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180428082947/http://www.kttc.com/story/38033482/2018/04/24/big-blue-gets-new-name-community-gets-new-opportunities
|url-status=dead
|archive-date=April 28, 2018
|title=Big Blue campus gets new name, community gets new opportunities
|last=Bunner
|first=James
|date=April 24, 2018
|access-date=April 25, 2018
}}</ref>

==Products==
The mile-long facility is best known as the plant that produced the AS/400 computer system. The AS/400 system was itself an advancement of the System/38 that was introduced several years earlier with an inbuilt Relational Data Base Management System (RDBMS) making it leading edge for its time. The AS/400 was later rebranded as the iSeries. Development of the OS/400 operating system, now known as [[IBM i]], continues at Rochester.

[[IBM Power Systems]] development is here.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.itjungle.com/2016/05/09/tfh050916-story05/|title=IBM To Sell Off Two-Thirds Of The Rochester Labs|date=May 9, 2016}}</ref>

[[PureSystems]] were originally assembled at this site,<ref>[http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh042312-story08.html IT-Jungle Volume 21, Number 16 -- April 23, 2012]</ref> but are now mainly assembled in New York and Mexico.<ref>[http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/03/06/ibm-moving-rochester-production-to-mexico-ny IBM moving Rochester production to NY, Mexico] March 6, 2013, at ''MPRNews''</ref>

The [[IBM 3740]] Data Entry System was developed at the facility in 1973 and the follow-on [[IBM 5280]] Distributed Data System had its beginnings there, but was transferred in 1981 to the Austin, TX facility, where it was released for production. The advent of personal computing swallowed up this type of data entry by 1990.

The [[IBM 5110]] personal computer was developed and manufactured in the facility.

IBM Rochester was important to the [[Summit (supercomputer)|Summit]] and [[Sierra (supercomputer)|Sierra]] supercomputers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.postbulletin.com/news/heard_on_the_street/heard-on-the-street-ibm-rochester-supercomputers-remain-top-two/article_bfcdd0d0-9203-11e9-8b6f-6349006dffd6.html|title=Heard on the Street: IBM Rochester supercomputers remain top two fastest in the world|last=Kiger|first=Jeff|website=PostBulletin.com|date=June 19, 2019|language=en|access-date=August 19, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/rochester-team-helps-ibm-create-world-s-fastest-computer/article_97600b72-749f-11e8-aeea-abe31634e1c1.html|title=Rochester team helps IBM create world's fastest computer|last=Kiger|first=Jeff|website=PostBulletin.com|date=June 26, 2018|language=en|access-date=August 19, 2019}}</ref>

[[RS/6000]], now [[IBM System p|System p]], and [[hard disk]] development occurred here.

==Distinctions==
The [[AS/400]] division at the plant received the [[Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award]] in 1990. In November 2004, the facility claimed the top spot in the [[TOP500]] list of fast [[supercomputer]]s with a prototype [[Blue Gene/L]] system containing 32,768 [[computer processor|processor]]s. It was clocked at 70.72 [[teraflop]]s. The manufacturing output of the site is so great that if it was a separate company, it would be the world's third-largest computer producer.<!-- this is from the [[IBM]] article -- only for non-PC systems? -->

The plant, which is near [[U.S. Highway 52]] in the northwestern part of Rochester, was recognized in 1990 by the [[National Building Museum]] as one of the significant contributions of IBM to the built environment of the [[United States]], along with IBM's [[New York City]] headquarters and the IBM [[One Atlantic Center|building]] in [[Atlanta, Georgia]].

==Tenants==
[[Hitachi Global Storage Technologies]], although having been spun off from IBM Storage Technology, remains on-site, leasing otherwise unused space from IBM. Along with the [[Mayo Clinic]], the IBM plant is one of the biggest employers in the Rochester area, reportedly numbering around 5,000 in 2002.

In 2019, Crenlo LLC rented part of the IBM facility to move part of its EMCORE manufacturing division, where it is currently separate from the Crenlo Cab Manufacturing line of products, as EMCORE was sold in 2021.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
*(Winter 1990). [https://web.archive.org/web/20041228153812/http://www.nbm.org/blueprints/90s/winter90/page8/page8.htm Honor Award 1990.] ''Blueprints'' Vol. VIII, No. 1, p.&nbsp;8. National Building Museum.
*''IBM Rochester: A Half Century of Innovation'' (IBM, 2006—a commemorative history prepared by the [[Charles Babbage Institute]] based on interviews and [[documentary research]]) [http://www.cbi.umn.edu/hostedpublications/index.html '''available on line'''] from the [http://www.cbi.umn.edu/ CBI website].
*[http://purl.umn.edu/120173 Oral history interview with Glenn Henry], [[Charles Babbage Institute]], University of Minnesota. Subjects include IBM Midrange AS/400 development at IBM Rochester.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060512162533/http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/rochester/rochester_intro.html IBM Rochester from the IBM Archives]

==External links==
*{{Commons category-inline|IBM Rochester}}

{{IBM}}
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[[Category:IBM facilities]]
[[Category:Eero Saarinen structures]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in Rochester, Minnesota]]