Forbes.com readers and editors rank Thomas J. Watson Jr. as the sixth most influential businessman of all time.
　　In the early 1960s, Thomas Watson Jr. bet the future of the company his father made great, International Business Machines, on the success of computers in the workplace--then a revolutionary concept. He invested $5 billion developing the IBM System/360, a "family" of computers that gave customers the option of starting small and graduating to bigger computers as their needs grew. In 1969, IBM began selling hardware, services and software individually rather than as a package deal, giving birth to the multibillion-dollar software and services industries. Although IBM notoriously missed the personal computing revolution in the early 1980s, the current ubiquitousness of computers in the workplace has its origins in Watson's gamble. 　　
　　　　 　　
　　福布斯网站的读者和编辑将小托马斯•沃森列为第6位有史以来最有影响力的商人。
　　20世纪60年代早期，小托马斯•沃森将他父亲做大的IBM公司的未来押在了办公电脑的成功上，当时这可是一个革命性的概念。他投资50亿美元将IBM的System/360发展成为一个电脑家族，使得消费者可以随着他们需求的增长有一个从小电脑逐步到大电脑的选择。1969年，IBM开始分别销售硬件、服务和软件，而不是打包销售，促生了数百亿美元的软件和服务业。众所周知，在20世纪80年代早期，虽然IBM错失了个人电脑革命的机遇，现在无所不在的办公电脑却起源于沃森的冒险一搏。