IBM saw itself as a hardware company when it came out with System/360. From what I've seen, System/360 was a good OS for its time.
Did they see themselves as a "hardware company", or as a "computer company" at a time when the hardware and the software all came together, and there wasn't really a separate software industry?
Which would make them the Apple of their time, where they built and sold the hardware needed to deliver the software?
I think they did see themselves as a hardware company. Software was something they had to make to make their hardware work, but they didn't think of it as a major part of their business. I happened to work for the "world's first software company" which was founded by a star IBM salesman. (Cincom Systems Inc. in 1968.) The Smithsonian has a write up on it. It was the first time that a company was intended to make all of its money from the sale of software, and succeeded in doing so.
Just look at the historical shitpile that is printer drivers.
Or the software bundled with digital cameras.
Car companies are all hardware-oriented, with Tesla being the first and only mass-producing exception.