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IBM To Leave The Desktop?
Matey-O writes "John C. Dvorak's got an interesting article on IBM's behavior towards desktop PCs of late. In short, aside from the profitable laptop sales, their desktop sales lost the company roughly $1B in a serioulsy UP market. Showing no interest in the 20 year anniversary of the desktop, it looks like IBM wants to get out of the industry it effectively started. " Granted, the article is extreme conjecture, but it's still an interesting thought - the Thinkpad group, tho', rocks.
I guess that is why Dell, Gateway, Apple and others are making SO much money selling desktop computers?
We all know Apple started the desktop market. IBM just got into it once Apple's hippy founders were gazillionaires. Nothing gets a large corporations attention like money.
Trolling is a art,
I though IBM had lost its (desktop, not laptop or server) market share years ago, mainly to Compaq, HP, Dell, and Gateway.
Does this mean that the older, behind-the-times folks I know who still refer to all Windows machines as "IBM-Compatible" or "IBM PCs" can shut the hell up? ;-)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Seriously, when was the last time you saw an IBM desktop? As a computer professional, having seen and worked in many different offices in the last few years, I can't even remember the last time I saw one. Laptops, yes, plenty. Servers, yes, a few. Desktops, none. They had already lost the battle there, this is just the nail in the coffin.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
I really like the Thinkpads and some of their desktop machines. I think IBM PCs will always have that image problem that they are expensive and underperforming, regardless of their true merits.
:)
It's a Dell/Compaq world for PCs at the moment. They're cheap, come with Winprinters, winmodems, built in audio, built in ethernet, and crappy support with crappy drivers. Our company just bought ~100 Dell Optiplexes, and they are horrible, horrible performance, horrible price, and junky hardware.
Say what you want about IBM's products, but their support is awesome.
No matter what happens though, IBM keyboards are the best ever made.
ibm hasn't relised a normal desktop in year so them pulling out of the desktop market is no big surprise ...
although their notebook are very nice, My college(Polytechnic University) proved one for every student and we haven't had any major problems with them..
Who controls the information, controls the world...
The company has not been a leader with its desktop machines, and appears to lose money on them. Rumors persist that IBM will end this aspect of its business.
They've really never dominated the PC industry once the clones entered.
They make great servers, microcomputers, mainframes, and good desktops, but the stuff is expensive.
Personally, I don't like the NetVista line at all.
We had PC 300 GL's in school, they were great.
I've got 2 Netfinity servers here at work, can't complain about them, or IBM's service support one bit. I'd buy IBM desktops if we weren't currently entrenched in Dell. (which I have no problem with either)
They need to embrace Linux, even more than they do now. Maybe their own distro, one that works perfect with ThinkPads and a new line of PowerPC machines!
~~~~~
Salmon, mang!
Ask anyone selling hardware now how the market is and they'll tell you it's damn tough, be it Dell or the corner shop. Profit margin's have steadily declined as competition among manufacturers and quality has increased. Machines after IBM's PS1 and PS2 lines were made mostly by subcontractors and were poorly built. They had this coming, especially with the way the market has gone. It's a good thing they kept the Thinkpads in-house, their still my favorite laptop by far.
Tho those PS/2 systems and PCjr were pretty good whacks at coffin nails.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
No, it's your 3rd - I checked your user profile :-P
IBM is, for some ungodly reason, stuck on manufacturing the UGLIEST desktop computers that the world has ever seen!! They seriously need to take a hint from Dell, HP, Compaq, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) Apple - all of them have made NICE LOOKING consumer-level PC's. While it is true that IBM has never shown any slack in pumping out good quality computers, one must remember that the average consumer is more interested in something that looks good. PC's with rounded, curvy, colorful (or black or silver) exteriors are leading the market, and the other manufacturers out there are capitalizing on this. IBM, on the other hand, hasn't released a decent looking PC since the first Aptiva line back in 1994. Everything since then has been big, clunky, boxy, and generally ugly - and the sales figures have reflected that trend. Even the Thinkpads, as good as they might be, are horribly ugly machines!!
All i can say to IBM is that it's their own fault that they aren't selling anything. ANY armchair analyst can see that they weren't trying hard enough to stay in contention with the other manufacturers, and because of that, they lost. Sorry, IBM - sucks to be you.
i've used several different ibm desktops and laptops... overall i'd say their laptops are better than their desktops.. their desktop systems have left me fairly unimpressed. they were decent, but that's about it. there is also an ibm tax... last i shopped around ibm pcs seemed to be more expensive for the same product... i don't know if this has changed.
for desktop i'd recomend micron
for laptops i'd say fujitsu first, then ibm... then everyone else somewhere... though the g4 titaniums are really nice too
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
ThinkPads are only selling because they really are a lot nicer than the competition in many cases. Customers put up with all the other problems in order to get them. But for desktops, there are plenty of alternatives.
Well, I'd say almost all the PC's on the market are really ugly. Dell has a few decent looking cases, so does Sony, but most of the crap out there looks too funny.
You'd figure a big company like Dell (IBM could, but they'd be the last) would hire an art department like the geniuses at Apple have.
I guess you can't have you cake and eat it too.
If you make the top of the case round, where will I put my drink?
Am I the only one confused with this? I thought IBM -owned- Dell! Does anybody have a web site with who owns who, because I lose track all the time?
(And there pops in a AC/DC song: "Who owns who...who owns you...")
Also, what's going to happen to the Linux market with IBM, if they stop selling desktops?
Zodiac Survey
I worked for the University of Wisconsin, my deparment mandated that IBMs were the ONLY PC to be purchased, mainly because of the consitency of the parts that they used, and we had a lot of microchannel (MCA) token ring cards. 1997 was the last time I saw an IBM PC in use.
It may also be because the they were priced at a premium, but I've also noticed that no stores distrubute them any more, COMPUSA, Best Buy and even Radio Shack used to carry IBMs. I wonder whose decision it was to remove them from the shelves.
what about the Stealth line from the late 90s?
Why is IBM getting out of the PC business? In the business of building computers, people more often look at the price than what hardware/software it comes with. Of course you can sell a decent PC for , but don't expect a hardware modem, or non-hard wired video and sound.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
When IBM attempted to "take over the clones" with the Micro Channel bus, they shot themselves in the foot, and it's been downhill with the desktop line since. (To this day, I see an IBM desktop and wonder, "Gee, wonder if I can actually put a real card in there.")
That's fine by me. Any dumbass with a screwdriver can build desktops. I like IBM for its innovation (Microdrive, GMR storage.)
John Dvorak and "interesting article" in the same sentence.. now there's an oxymoron for you.
It's been a long time since Dvorak could be considered a journalist. Take what he writes with a grain of salt - most of it is needlessly inflammatory, speculation. Just look at some of the absurd pieces of Linux FUD he's authored in the past.
His concept of journalism falls neatly into the 10 o'clock news scaremongering school of thought. He'd 'break the news' on Bill Gates' army of cyborg warriors if it would get his column some hits. ZDNet in general, and Dvorak (and his MS-worship pal, David Coursey) specifically cannot be trusted for decent news/commentary.
You're right - most cases look VERY stupid next to a nice G4 tower - but you have to consider the advantage that Apple has in that arena - they can redesign hardware around a case without too many difficulties. The reverse is also true - they can design new, interesting cases around their hardware. They can do these things because they control the entire manufacturing process (well, most of it). Compaq, HP, Dell, and the other PC vendors don't really have this advantage. Their goal is to make cheap PC's that look good. To keep them cheap, they can't do too much dicking around with the case, because they might end up having to redesign hardware. And then the additional cost comes in, immediately placing them behind the competition. Apple doesn't have this type of competition in the traditional sense. People who buy Apple desktops are looking to buy an Apple desktop - and only one vendor makes Apple desktops. PC buyers have a number of vendors to choose from, all of whom are trying to undercut the others' prices. So the best they can do is sell a slightly-glitzed-up ATX case that looks a little better to "most people." Anything more would be overkill (at least to their marketing departments).
Give me a GSM phone and TiBook any day.
Damn desktops are dinosaurs. It's like the phones everyone used until base stations/wireless took over.
Now, of course, everyone should use GSM (and will, soon), so why the hell would anyone want to have a computer tied down, when you can carry it anywhere?
That said, quit making the damn things TOO SMALL. Sony is out of control. Axe the desktops, make the laptops a decent, feature-full size, and call it good.
GSM and laptop. The end.
For IBM, this is a smart move as commodity electronics is not closely related to their new profit centers - research, services, and high end computing.
For Compaq and HP, continuing to go up against Dell is simply going to result in more layoffs and downsizing.
Hai! I get a strong sense of deja vu reading this non-news headline. Anyone remember Ambra? I remember trying to run Windoze NT 3.5 on one with a IBM 386SLC cpu. Very slow, and could only be booted from a floppy due to lack of NT drivers for the then-highly integrated on-board controller, or something like that.
IBM's key business focus is on services. When it got into the desktop PC market some 20 years ago, it got in by accident not knowing what the result would be.
In addition, many companies go down the drain simply because they keep beating on a dead horse (their product) hoping that it will come back to life and win the race. IBM doesn't see it like that -- it will let go of failing business and move on.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
we thank you :)
-ibm thinkpad guy
Alienware makes some amazingly cool cases. Too bad they won't let you buy just an empty case :( Prices are good for the support they offer, though.
And the Dell Optiplex is pretty????
Thats all we need, a reason to make sequel to Pirates of Silicone Valley.
I've never seen "Pirates of Silicone Valley". Would it by any chance be an adult video featuring women with artificially enhanced bosoms?
Or maybe you meant "Silicon Valley", but I'd really rather see the other one.
...and with that he ended his strongly-worded opinion, pausing only to confirm that his post would indeed be Anonymous.
------
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(Steve Jobs doesn't give consumers the choice between ugly and pretty Macs. I don't know for sure how many people bought pretty Macs because they were pretty, and how many because they were Macs; very few and almost all, I'd guess.)
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Overkill? You think slightly glitzed up is overkill? Browse throught this gallery, and tell me most a "slightly-glitzed-up ATX case" is over kill.
No, that site wasn't my summer obsession and didn't inspire a short lived hobby, why do you ask?
I think IBM's biggest screw up was their proprietary desktops. The PS/2s, the Aptivas... weird hardware, high prices. Compaq/Gateway/Dell are desktop companies. They know how to make a buck in that market. Remember back in 1994 when you could buy an IBM desktop with OS/2 and Dell/Gateway/Compaq with Windows 95? They bundled a failing OS (OS/2 rocks, M$ marketdroids made it fail) into a proprietary box and charged more money. I'm not a genius, but it's pretty simple to see how IBM lost their desktop market.
Still, Netfinity servers, Thinkpad notebooks, and their midrange (AS/400, S/390) servers rock. IBM knows that's where their money is, and they do a great job at it.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
IBM may be leaving the desktop, but they still rule the notebook field.
I have had a Thinkpad 600X for over a year now, and I'm still extremely happy with it. It's sturdy enough to handle the abuse I give it. It's held up to frequent installs/uninstalls/formats.
Starting at just over $1,000 and going up from there, you can spec out your own notebook at IBM's Thinkpad Site
In my opinion, a much better notebook than Dell's any day of the week.
Chuck
How these columnists just wet themselves in the rush to declare something "dead?"
This is the same columnist who used to anchor the group of "Bob the office guy" columnists at PC Magazine with gems like "if you don't have a 21-inch monitor, then your PC is worthless."
Easy to say when all your hardware is comped there, Sparky. How about a column or two about something OTHER than how great it would be if we could just hook all these neat colorful high-tech little icons together and make a new enterprise application? Can't point and click your way through orbital mechanics, can you? Oops, there's another blue screen. Better upgrade Norton and Dr. Watson!
I always got the feeling that the constant pounding of the upgrade drum over there was really just so they could get a new "sleek" desktops of icons to click. This column is no different.
I'm sure IBM will close everything down now and go back to marketing something that columnists don't understand so they don't have to read "Is X dead yet?" "Time for X to go?" "X in 2002: What to expect" on every magazine cover.
X is dead, therefore you should buy Y. Same article, different nouns. Yawn.
If IBM would stop trying to sell PCs based soley on the name 'IBM' and start selling based on the performance of the PC itself, maybe more people would buy one.
In Vancouver BC, Canada, an IBM Netvista with a CELERON 800 (?), 128MB of SDRAM, 20GB HD, ONBOARD Video (eeew) and several useless "features" like a V.90 modem, can cost around $1999.00 CAD! (That's like $999 USD)
Meanwhile, a "clone" PC at any local outlet: PIII 1100, 256MB SDRAM, 40GB HD, 150W 2.1 Sound, 10/100 NIC, 32MB DDR Video Card, etc... costs $780 CAD ($390 USD).
It's not like the IBM PC is any more reliable, after all, BOTH PCs come with WinXP installed?
I don't care if they invented the PC, doesn't mean anyone with half a noodle would pay $1999 for a freaking CELERON!
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
Don't believe anything he writes. 99.99% of the time it's bullshit and wrong. 99.99% beats Katz any day, infact for any finite number of 9s after the dot, Dvorak wins against Katz.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
-Sauce unknown
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
That's what those slide-out cup-holders are there for.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
It is called FreeBSD.
You can.
On behalf of IBM we thank you for not giving us the finger...believe it or not, we do try :)
Just use the 40X motorized cupholder, silly!
With IBM's recent interest in Linux, I don't think it would make sense for them to back out of the desktop market. They have the ability to overthrow Microsoft.
With the usual MS crap being sold at increasingly ridiculous prices, everyone is looking for an alternative to Windows. Linux is the obvious answer, but the problem remains that not enough people, and not the right people take it seriously.
Managers don't feel comfortable about switching their whole systems over to a "free" OS. They like to have a big name like Microsoft to back their software. This is exactly where IBM comes in. They've got the big name that the PHB's like, and they've got the resources to create a distro that works. One that's guaranteed to work with their hardware, and in concert with their servers and laptops. Its a total solution.
As for the home desktop user who also wants to get away from MS, it offers the same benefits. A linux distro that can come preloaded, is guaranteed not to conflict with the hardware and has great tech-support. Plus with a name like IBM behind it, and enough homogenous linux machines out there, some of the major software and hardware developers might start to take linux seriously as well.
The best part of it all, is that this is the perfect beginning to the demise of Microsft. They've set the stage with their recent moves for people to look elsewhere. Now IBM just needs to slip into that gap and give everyone exactly what they're looking for.
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
I have always heard the whole "You pay more for IBM because of the name" thing. I bought an Aptiva about 3 years ago, the same time as many of my friends bought Gateways/Dells/etc that cost significantly less. Mine has been turned off only for hard drive upgrades, adding RAM, and kernel updates. Most of my friends have had to toss their boxes and replace them. I'll pay a little more for longevity.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
When it [IBM] got into the desktop PC market some 20 years ago, it got in by accident not knowing what the result would be.
Say what? They didn't get in by accident. The planned to take over the entire industry! In fact, the only reason they outsourced parts, like the CPU from Intel, is because they new they had to get a product to market quickly. Outsourcing went against everything IBM was used to doing. They did it because they knew they couldn't develop a PC from the ground up on their own in time.
Someone above wrote ...
IBM is, for some ungodly reason, stuck on manufacturing the UGLIEST desktop computers that the world has ever seen!!
I remember back in '96 when I saw my first "swanky" IBM Aptiva. I almost chuckled at the non-standard case, the wierd drop-down-from-the-monitor drive bay, and those odd holes in the side of the case. Although it wasn't a success, you certainly can't accuse them of not trying to be stylish, and doing so way ahead of most competitors.
Now, IBM already seems to have ditched its not-so-well-received Aptiva line of computers. They have two "desktop" lines: the Intellistation (primarily intended for office use) and the NetVista (for home or small office use).
The Intellistation (successor to the PC300GL line) is what you expect a workstation to look like. A box with stuff in it. Pretty standard, as the comment above says, pretty ugly, but not really intended for anything other than work. My only gripe with them is that the graphics system seems to be sub-par, but then again, this thing isn't meant to really be a graphics demon.
The NetVista line warrants a bit more attention, especially the X series. IBM is experimenting again, in my opinion with great success, trying to change the paradigm of what a desktop PC looks like. The X Series models are totally upgradable (I slapped an extra 512MB of RAM into mine) and very pretty. They take the best of the ThinkPad line and put it into desktop form. The drop-down bay makes a reappearance, and the thing has USB ports all over it. I've found it to be an excellent little home system. Again, my major gripes with them (owning an X40 myself) are the graphics system (the newer models come with a Rage 128, which trumps my SiS 330) and an oddly non-standard keyboard. Also, the lack of serial and parallel ports on it is a little annoying - I'm not totally USB yet.
Just thought I would give a shout out to how great I think IBM laptops are. Best 1000 dollars I ever spent I don't even use my uber computer anymore. Runs Debian great with minimal tweaks, just awesome to hear that division is doing well because they will get a lot more of my business.
No I don't work for IBM.
You're misquoting the poster. They said it would be overkill to the most people thing. Most people are happy with the stuff that PC makers sell - otherwise the demand would mean the cases similar to those you've pointed out would be selling better. Beleive it or not, corporations do listen to consumers and try to give them what they want.
> And the Dell Optiplex is pretty????
Since when is an Optiplex a desktop PC (and aimed at the consumer market, for maximum sales)?..
Dvorak's right; IBM makes very little money on PC's, perhaps is even loosing money, when looked at by itself. That's why they no longer sell to people through office stores and so on. But IBM has a services/solutions arm, and having a PC division allows the services division to sell complete IBM solutions, which is very profitible. So, the moral here is to look at things from a company point of view, not at individual divisions.
Note, I work for IBM, but have no real connection to the PC division, though I do think my ThinkPad rocks. The above is conjecture.
Silly signature limit . . .
IBM hardware is some of the best out there unfortunately it does come at a premium price.
Funny, that sounds a lot like Digital's home PC offerings.
Well, if IBM gets out of the business, there goes the last brand (aside from Apple) I can actually recommend to people in good faith. So far as I can tell, every other brand is equivalently crappy, but I've never had a problem with IBM gear.
Oh, well. Time to go buy some poorly constructed components, I suppose.
--saint
I've heard stories that IBM had a choice between the Intel 8088/8086 and the Motorolla 68000 for the first PC. We all know they went with Intel, but why? The 68000 is a superior chip. Why didn't IBM realize how bad the 8088/8086 architecture was? Imagine what the computing world would have been like today if IBM went with the 68000.
I couldn't use a regular floppy, which was around $50 at the time, because IBM had elected to make every last connector a proprietary one.
That $249 price difference went a long way toward replacing that 286 with another at a higher clockspeed.
how the fuck is the first post redundant? look up what redundant means you fools! offtopic or troll, fine, but no way is it fucking redundant!!!!!
It seemed to me that the market hardly warmed to it and when sales were sluggish IBM axed it, rather prematurely.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I dunno, can YOU justify an extra few hundred bucks for a fancy case with a light bulb inside the case, and a window so you can see it?
Ya do know that the only visible movement inside a case is the CPU fan, right?
PLEASE tell me you people know that!!!!
Yes it is. It's been said before. Many, many times. Therefore, it's redundant. Superfluous and needlessly repetitive are two synonyms.
Use fewer exclamation points!!!!!
Hell I have one that's sitting comfortably as my Linux-router.
This was my first PC, an Ambra Sprinta II 486. Although I have replaced the harddrive and put in more RAM since I turned the machine first on about 7-8 years ago it hasn't failed on me yet. The only thing that has broken down was a faulty monitor that came with it, it broke after about 2 weeks, I simply got a new one the next day.
The mouse still worked perfectly when I used it last time and I'm typing this on the big ol' clunky clicketyclick IBM keyboard (with an Ambra logo) that came with it, which I have been using since I bought it.
Now THAT'S IBM quality for you.
*shudders*
Thank god.
And I think my iBook is just so fash!!!
Try "sucks ass."
Aptivas were poorly made computers unworthy of the IBM nameplate. They contained crap parts and science experiments like the MWave combo sound card/modem they used in some of them.
Aptiva were to IBM what PowerPC Performas were to Apple.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I'd say that's because the G4 tower looks stupid enough to spill over to anything near it. Functionally, the G4 tower kicks ass, but I don't see what everyone's so excited about as far as looks. The best I can say about it is that it looks different, but different isn't necessarily better. If I were going for looks I'd pick Alienware's mid-tower over the G4 tower any day.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
It is becoming a lighweight server.
Game consoles, Handhelds, cellulars, laptops, notebooks, mp3 players, etc, are sharing the market with the PCs.
Where does IBM get their desktop keyboards? I suspect they have a millions of 3270 keyboards stocked in a warehouse that they have tried to unload over the years into they desktop computers.
I'm curious... why don't you like the netvista line? Personally, I love the case design. I have to open up PC's a lot to swap around harddrives and such, and I've never had an easier time getting to the hardrives/cd-roms, etc as I do with this line. And I've never had any of the hardware fail on me yet (Can't say the same about IBM monitors tho... We've had a few of them die right out of the box)
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Oddly enough, I have to agree.
IBM's Desktop PC's look like they are 5 years old as soon as you open the box.
OTOH, I prefer working on IBM machines to HP or Compaq machines, at least IBM builds a decent machine in a decent case with (mostly) standard parts.
Just my $.02
I'm sure some people do, but I don't, and most people I know and work with don't either. I look at price and features. Fancy packaging and 'sleek' designs be damned. I want to know the specs - speed, memory, etc.
creation science book
Don't forget semiconductors!
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
Who uses 'looks' to decide to buy a computer? I'm sure some people do, but I don't, nor does anyone I work with. Price/performance/features/specs - those influence my purchase decision. "Sleek" exteriors and flash packaging don't do it for me.
creation science book
I submmitted similar comments twice - sorry about that! Wasn't looking at what I was doing (too engrossed in my cool looking computer case...)
creation science book
What i first saw the title... "IBM To leave Desktop"
my mind interpret it as about abandoning OS/2. but actually the hardware.
Why dont the just license the IBM name to other asian PC maker who are not easy to have good brand.
they can be Mc Donald of IT industry.
A lot of good IT brand name wasted .
-- Hasbullah bin Pit (sebol)
Agreed on the last point, while IBM continues to advertise their Linux support, you're *very* limited on the laptops you can buy from them with Linux preinstalled...Namely their higher-priced hardware...Not sure why. :^(
I'd hate to see IBM leave the desktop market but I wouldn't be suprised. (Although I doubt they'd leave the laptop market...)
The software rules the hardware. IBM is in a much better position than other players like Gateway (ouch!) to get out of boxmaking, because they've always been a service company. Fighting for thin margins against a company (Dell) that is optimized towards doing one thing (distributing custom computers using just in time inventory controls) is a fool's errand, and IBM is smart enough to know that.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Linux will go away and FreeBSD will take over? Seriously, I wish IBM would "support" FreeBSD on there servers.
Linux is nice, but FreeBSD has a no thrills, get the job done, no questions asked, updating ports, professional feel.
http://www.freebsd.org
I had 760ED a while ago, and now I got T20. Both models are extremely reliable. T20 rocks. Really. In between I had Compaq portable and I had a bunch of problems with it. Defective display (had to replace two times), defective built-in mouse. Problems with built-in modem. With Thinkpad T20 I don't feel like I need a desktop (ok, I also have Sparcstation if I need to do something heavy).
I don't think IBM has been a big player in the desktop market since the days before the PS/2. The main problem is that most consumers are extremely price sensitive and are not willing to pay to a premium for the IBM name unlike corporate buyers who never got fired for buying IBM. Tack on high prices to unimpressive design and have you have a bad combination.
As a big-time Mac user, I haven't had too much interaction with PC laptops, but when I have, there's been one thing I've ALWAYS hated about ThinkPads specifically: that little red nubbin of a mouse. I fail to understand why IBM uses niether a trackball nor a trackpad. Everyone I've spoken with hates the nubbin. Otherwise, their laptops look pretty decent.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
personally i would not add a 3d video card to some of those new optiplexes... atleast the ones we recieved...
they work great, but those cases are really tightly packed... and the cpu fan blows right to the space where the agp card would fit... maybe i'm wrong, but it sounds like a heat trap waiting to happen
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
I remember the microsoft FUD from recent history that went something like "Linux on the desktop is dead". I think the microsofters were right, but they also forgot about something else: The desktop itself is dying or dead. The new mantra for gui and OS programmers/designers should be "The desktop is dead" - move on or die with it.
Microsoft can't really beleive that the desktop is going to continue to be a source of increasing revenue can they? Not with their behavior with regards to the gaming console market, hand helds, java replacements, etc. They themselves seem to be operating under that principle.
While it is true that IBM has never shown any slack in pumping out good quality computers, one must remember that the average consumer is more interested in something that looks good. PC's with rounded, curvy, colorful (or black or silver) exteriors are leading the market, and the other manufacturers out there are capitalizing on this.
Black, did you say?
Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
I would say that IBM's desktop is really just more of a marketing loss leader. Sure they my lose money in the fact that PCs are at an extreamely low profit margin market, but they get the piece of mind from people that see IBM on there desktops at work.
Just becasue Joe Schmoe is useing an as390 server if he has a Dell desktop he thinks he is useing a Dell computer for everything.
IBM already has the big name and everything but for them to keep it they need to make sure that they have computers on peoples desks and not just in the server room.
I think it would be a bad idea for IBM to stop selling PCs completely but maybe just come up with a way to reduce the loss some.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
I don't remember which computer company was it - back back at the eightees I've seen a PC Magazine with some of the computer ads - with a model lifting IBM clone in a tray with 1 hand...
Couldn't stop laughing the entire day..
It took the ad industry lots of times to see that selling computers with supeermodels - doesn't work.
Down here in New Zealand IBM mostly withdrew from standard retail some time ago. These days you can still get some of the boxes via mail-order, but you won't see much of them on the street anymore. They're definitely tilting at the business angle only, which can be seen by looking at their product range at http://www.ibm.co.nz/. Even their business PCs haven't been doing so well though.
They were seeing losses in their PC division over this way some time ago, so it was no particular surprise when this happened.
I wasn't sorry to see their PCs go, but their laptops are often pretty innovative, and I'd bet my business on their bigger (non-intel) machines any day. Of course you can still get those :)
One of IBM's problems is that most of their really cool hardware isn't targetted at consumers, so most hobbyist types have no idea what they actually produce...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
IBM wanted to get in the PC business to stop Apple and Radio Shack from killing their mini business. They contracted out the design of 3 machines and picked the lamest (that was just bettter than the Appleand & TRS) and went with that.
I think IBM's intention was to kill Apple and Tandy and then just close down the PC line and say "oh we had problems with the toy computers and we don't sell them anymore"
Fine by me.
I mean seriously, if I ever hear another one of those idiotic tv commercials I think I'll puke. You all know the one... some theme song keeps repeating
"Do you think you really want a clone?" and people scream out "no!".
/me groans
I am BelDion's
PC's are commodity items, based mainly on price and performance. Design, and I mean Industrial Design, costs money as does good mechanical design, quality materials & finishes just add more to the costs of each unit. Industrial Design costs money, BUT good industrial design makes a product not only distinguishable from other similar products, it is provocative, and almost compels consumers to purchase that product. Realize that good industrial design for one segment of a market many not be appealing to another segment, therefore different designs are offered for different market segments. One of the reasons that IBM has such bland looking products could be that those persons in charge at IBM may have not been trained in the field of design, or in art, and therefore struggle to make decisions based on aesthetics.
Back to the commodity thing, there are few commodity laptop computers, if you have ever looked inside a laptop, especially recent models, you might notice the proprietary mechanical design of the interior packaging and other components (motherboard especially). Laptops are expensive for these reasons. There is very little profit to be made in commodity items, it is very competitive in a commodity type market, and choice is limited.
IBM is making a wise choice to exit the desktop market all together. Apple makes it for different reasons, a long and careful study is required to understand why, this I am not going into. Sorry if this is incomplete, I have house stuff to do...
I haven't seen an IBM desktop in ages.
Mabye having -ZERO- market exposure in the desktop market arena is to blame?
I have not seen an IBM desktop in a store, at a business, or anyplace else, that is anything near modern.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
IBM wasn't in to personal computers before Apple -- Closest thing they had were fairly expensive mini-computers (IBM 5120) and so forth. Apple made the personal computer popular by making the machine not only cost effective ($1000) but by making it much easier to use. Apple had Apple II's in the business market as a PERSONAL PC (not mini or main-frame) well before IBM did.
>> Even the Thinkpads, as good as they might be, are horribly ugly machines!!
My T22 is terribly offended. I happen to like the look of the ThinkPads. And if the appearance of the Apple iBooks (at least the colored ones) is right, I'll gladly be wrong!
my $.05
Am I the only one who remembers that IBM actually DID something like this once before, with the "Ambra" brand? Ambra had a short and unhappy life somewhere around 1993-1994.
Ambra was an IBM spinoff. Of course it was an addition to, not a replacement for, IBM-branded products.
I believe it was heralded as one of the first examples of a "virtual company." In their ads they never could quite decide whether they wanted you to know and think of Ambra systems as "really" being by IBM or not.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Gee, I don't know, there's also the fan on my motherboard, video card, the extra system fan I hooked up to cool the machine (yes, I know - I don't have a computer, I have a jet engine running .. the whine sounds exactly like the times when you're waiting on the tarmac to take off).
while $66 Million is a large amount to me personally, from a corporate point of view, esp the Global 2000, it's lunch money....
and Apple is a small, boutique computer maker, that had gone down from nearly $10 billion in sales to nearly $1 billion in sales....if the iMac hadn't come along when it did??????
(keep the flames to yourself, i support both Apple and wider PC choice by buying them...i'v bought (just for my personal business) 6 in the last 12 months...)
what exactly can Apple do with the $66 million?
is it enough to start a whole bunch of R&D programs into Natural Language or Data Mining?
maybe a few small R&D programs could be started with that money, but what do you do about bonuses for your best workers, rebates to your best channel partners, R&D into improving current generation products, cash payments to Motorola for G5 production, etc, etc.
Blue makes THE VAST MAJORITY OF ITS ****PROFITIBILITY**** on SERVICES...it's estimated by industry insiders that Blue lost ***20 billion dollars*** on OS/2 alone (though they won't admit to more than 10-15 billions lost), and more billions were lost on the MCA-PS/2 desktops
about 3 years ago, there had been a push from Global Services inside Blue to dump ALL the h/w (except big iron) and just concentrate on their highly profitiable services and consulting efforts...
the ThinkPad line was restored to prove that they could do it, (i've owned 3 in a row, 770ED, 770Z and an A22P, they ROCK) they've restored their rep in laptops and now many inside Blue want to move on...as seen by IBM's really strong $$$$$ committment to LINUX and Java....
the Wintel PC, from the standpoint of the much debated ***innovation*** is D-E-A-D...that doesn't mean that many, many billions more won't be sold, but each year the margins will get thinner and thinner as the PC falls into the "home appliances" category...with appropriate accompanying (much, much lower) commodity hardware margins
that's why the Wintel Boyz are pushing the upcoming Tablet PC so hard, to try to maintain their eroding margins on CPU's (i owned the original Tablet PC, the Grid Convertible, even if the thing had worked as designed, it's one of those ideas that look better on paper, it's a niche machine design, and will stay that way, all marketing hype aside)
another view on Apple's 66 million dollars profit...if the story is true (about a one billion dollar loss for ibm on PC desktops last year)....
IBM lost ***FIFTEEN TIMES AS MUCH MONEY**** in one year as Apple made, and for IBM, the loss wasn't even noticeably in either their stock values/market cap or overall analysts' buy recommendations
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
All of this is fine with me. In the PC world, people that want a fancy case make it themselves and/or buy mod-kits for their cases.
As far as I'm concerned, the beige rectangular box is just fine. I could care less about having a nice looking case, or for that matter, a nice desktop background. It's what's inside the other little windows that I care about.
My case is a beige full tower. One side is flush up against the desk. The other side is 2 feet away from a book shelf. The top is usually covered with books and stuff. The back is, well... it's in back. That leaves the front, which is roughly 8 inches by 2 feet of beige space with drive doors and stuff on it. Why would I want to waste time decorating that little space, when there are many square meters of white walls in the room (which I do decorate with pictures, I'm not a sensory deprevation freak).
These are just my preference. For people that care about eye candy on a computer, the supply is plentiful. They just have to pay for it themselves, which is fine with me because if they didn't it would add to the cost of my PC.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Well, the IBM/Linux combo in my humble opinion, is a very good thing. However, the reasons for it are probably less ideal than most people would like to think. In my opinion, I believe IBM decided to distribute linux on their eservers and such out of necessity rather than an active choice. I mean think about it, their server market share was dwindling to IIS and others, and the software used to run them was pretty crude compared to many others. Now, if the IBM heads decided, we need a boost, we need it quick, and preferably cheap, what comes to mind? Linux! It's a market strategy that was pioneer since it was one of the biggest companies to adopt Linux. Unfortunately, their desktop market can't be saved by the same strategy because IMHO, IBM would be just throwing away money in that sector with Linux, at this point, anyway. Linux is not enough of a widely used personal package as it is for servers and other uses, obviously. For IBM to adapt it, it would be a considerably risky investment. Being as there is no other choice for the IBM desktop range other than to follow other vendors, their lack of pace with that market has already sent it to an early grave. Therefore, I'd rather see it go so that IBM can cut dead weight and focus on what really matters, their linux touting servers and all it's glory. -vik
That is all I got to say.
hear me?
OPEN OS/2 SOURCE!!!
I agree with some of the other posts. The IBM Thinkpads are undoubtably -THE- ugliest things on the planet. I'm sitting at work looking at a ThinkPad T23 (best they make right now AFAIK) and a much much older P200 ThinkPad. On the inside there's a world of different, on the outside they're /exactly/ the same case minus a shiny black strip above the keyboard on the T23. Both of them are horrendously ugly things. The screen is in a thick casing, sticks when you open it so you have to really pull on it, has no wrist rests or pads, and is just bulky. Now, the new Dell laptop I have here is a beautiful, sleek machine with nearly identical hardware, approximately equal in cost, and doesn't embarass me when I take it into meetings. It's sleek, trim, fast, and visually appealing. I would pick a visually appealing compaq or dell over a bulky, ugly, cumbersome Thinkpad any day.
-DISCLAIMER-
These remarks are my own opinion and do not represent or reflect the views of my employer in any way
Companies like Apple and Commodore started the desktop revolution. IBM thought that there was a worldwide market for maybe 3 computers.
As a desktop computing company, they never really showed leadership. Yeah, they came out with the PC x86 architecture. But it's a crappy architecture.
IBM thought computing on the desktop was so valueless that they allowed anyone who wanted to to clone the hardware, and many companies were able to do so -- and sell for far less than what IBM was charging for their hardware.
If IBM had wanted to be competitive on the desktop, they would have sold their hardware at a more competitive price, and, if not lock other vendors out, then at least try to control their access to the market through leveraging patents.
IBM cared so much about computing on the desktop that they let some tiny, barely competant company called Microsoft deliver what would become the standard OS for the desktop, DOS, and let them have full control over its development without trying to take a piece of their profits.
DOS sucked. If IBM wanted to compete in the desktop market, they would have developed their own OS that didn't suck. And, while they did come up with OS/2, they did so far too late in the game for it to mean anything, after giving far too much away to MSFT.
They had a good business sense for hulking behemoth mainframes and servers and such, but they've never really been a true player on the desktop, even if Wintel machines are commonly called IBM-compatible PCs. The term is one of pure legacy derivation, really. IBM controls nothing relevant to desktop computing these days.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Not that i can remember the links to the stories, but hasn't IBM talked about leaving the desktop market several times in the past five years? They're like the kid that keeps threatening to take their ball and go home.
I've had nothing but luck with IBM desktops and laptops, so i'd hate to see them go
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Of course you would. When the thinkpad group tried to screw over FreeBSD by using the FreeBSD disk ID.
To remind you if when this happened.
IBM getting out of the desktop business? Is their strength failing? Perhaps the following story might help to explain why:
O E5 I OCC98D444AA08EI 324
Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, paid me a visit. As we
were talking I mentioned that I had recently installed Windows XP on my
PC. I told him how happy I was with this operating system and showed
him the Windows XP CD. To my surprise he threw it into my microwave
oven and turned it on. Instantly I got very upset, because the CD had
become precious to me, but he said: 'Do not worry, it is unharmed.'
After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said: 'Take a
close look at it.' To my surprise the CD was quite cold to hold and it
seemed to be heavier than before. At first I could not see anything,
but on the inner edge of the central hole I saw an inscription, an
inscription finer than anything I had ever seen before. The
inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a
great depth:
12413AEB2ED4FA5E6F7D78E78BEDE820945092OF923A40EEl
'I cannot understand the fiery letters,' I said in a timid voice.
'No but I can,' he said. 'The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but
the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in
common English this is what it says:
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
It is only two lines from a verse long known in System-lore:
"Three OS's from corporate-kings in their towers of glass,
Seven from valley-lords where orchards used to grow,
Nine from dotcoms doomed to die,
One from the Dark Lord Gates on his dark throne
In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie.
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie."'
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
A former (thankfully) boss of mine believed that all her web designers needed the latest in video card technology in order to do, um, web design.
I have seen $500+ video cards used to do nothing but 800x600 and 24-bit colour. It's very wacky.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
is that it is about freakin' time!
Even after all these years, IBM still bones you with hardware gotchas like weird case configurations that only work with IBM mobos, PCI slots that only allow slim cards, crappy internal video chipsets, cards that are very slightly tweaked versions of off-the-shelf components so the standard drivers won't work etc. The PC division keeps trying to "innovate" by taking on misfeatures and charging higher prices. Even with employee discounts, they are too expensive.
Worst of all, their continued losing ways affect my annual bonus (variable pay)!
I say, let 'em die.
Hey! Stop sounding like a Linux zealot. You'll give FreeBSD a bad name. ;)
I started out being an IBM fan, that was of coarse back in the days when it was a PS/2 with a 16Mhz 386 CPU and a wopping 8mg of RAM. I hated that machine from the day it arrived. The design was very clunky, and upgrades? No way!
I have 2 Big problesm with IBM that have never been resolved. 1st, Propriatary designs. I can't stand manufactures that insist you must use their upgrades- memory is the best example, you have to pay double or tripple for IBM memory compaired to generic RAM. what the hell? I don't remember the bus name, but the origanal PC2 had a propriatary bus, not EISA, not ISA, (of course no PCI back then). Any thing you wanted to upgrade, took a 100% IBM premium. No Thanks! And what for, they are not know for being performace leaders. (OK maybe they do OK with today's Disk Drives, but they're pretty darm comparable to Maxtor, and Seagate!)
Secondly: Price. They're prices have always been a minimul of 20% higher than the compitition. And for what? I just don't agree that a Name in the computer business (other than Cisco) can ask a premium. Dells and Compaqs are usually the ones bringing home the support and performance trophies.
IBM's giving up Desktops? They should have right after the PS/2.
IBM hasn't exactly fit like a glove to users' needs for the past few years. The PS/2 (not the PS2!) wasn't exactly flying off the shelves. I had a few in '96, and needed a BIOS boot disk. It took me hours to find it on their site, yet they had the nerve to pop-up a support survey. They hurt...
Their fairly new systems aren't much better. I got a NetVista A20 through PeoplePC. This system is a joke. It has only two RAM slots and three PCI slots, one of which is filled up with the modem. They could have put it in the ill-fated AMR slot. The video was based from the i810 chipset, and using it from the 64 MB RAM didn't help. Also, the CD-ROM drive was slower than advertised.
To add insult to injury, after I tricked the system out with a 16MB Voodoo3, 64 MB more RAM, a 10/100 Ethernet adapter, and an optical mouse, I decided to upgrade to Windows 2000. I had a bit of trouble with the upgrade, wait 15 minutes on tech support, and am told that IBM will only support the Windows ME that shipped with the PC.
This was obviously a business system, yet they don't support a business OS? WinME was junk. I could either install Win2K again, or use the 1GB system restore partition to bring back WinME. Yep, as if 10GB wasn't small enough, a gig was for the system restore.
I got this system because I couldn't afford to buy one outright. I'll admit that for a free PC it's decent. And, when manufactured, it may have been a good system. That said, IBM disappoints me greatly.
Now, I've added a 12x8x32x HP CD Writer (up from my 2x HP Parallel model), 256MB more RAM is on the way, and a GeWhizBangForce 2MX is in the works. I wonder how long I can keep this beast comfortably...
John C. Dvorak's got an interesting article
How did "John C. Dvorak" and interesting come to be uttered in the same breath.
A man that makes the moronic philistines at ZD sound brilliant.
On a ruebrique of "buy-it", "try-it", or "skip-it". I select the ladder.
Yes he is, yes he is
I'm running a NetVista at home and a ThinkPad for work. I think ordering them is a pain in the butt, you have to wait a lot longer than with Dell and others to get it, and you'll pay more, but the differences really show when you take one apart.
I've torn apart PC's from Dell, Compaq, IBM, Packard Bell, and some local custom shops. The IBM's are the only ones I've seen that look like they were actually engineered - not simply thrown together. The quality in the boxes shows through when you look beyond the MHz specs and prices.
Again, I like their products, buy them, and recommend them when I can because I believe they are some of the best constructed ones around. Unfortunately, IBM ends up leaving a bad impression when people order them, wait longer to get them, and pay more than they are used to with the Dells and Gateways.
When ever i go to a lan party, the computers I DON'T see there are the HP's, or Compaq's... why? When was the last time you saw a case for sale that had those horrible rounded curves? Have you gone to a LAN party with a computer that screams out to the world that you are a newbie, who doesn't know enough about computers to make his own? This is what HP and Compaq computers do. And, god... I would never be caught dead with an HP or Compaq with the aesthetic crap they put out now. Dell puts out nice, aesthetic computers - they have, what i consider to be a cutting edge design, and not that overlly used, overlly cliched curved design...
And those imac's by apple... ick. i'm not even going to bother going there!
The article really doesn't explain what the mobile computer industry results will be for IBM. Does anyone know what will happen to the Thinkpad laptops that don't have a home? I want to really know, because I wanted to buy one. Maybe they'll let one off real cheap.
Neal Stephenson wrote about this in his essay In the Beginning was the Command Line:
But I'd tie it in with another point Stephenson makes in the essay: the Wintel world pretends to be immune to aesthetics, but actually has a well defined aesthetic, an aesthetic that proclaims respectability, common sense and businesslike appearance. I think that the "prettiness" of Macintosh hardware is outright repellent to most of the people making purchasing decisions. But instead of saying this, the purchasers say that looks are irrelevant.
Thanks you for your post. It was ***VERY INFORMATIVE***.
As a return gesture, I'd like to teach you that html has a bold tag - simply put <b> before and </b> after.
;-)
-Rob Ewaschuk
Actually, there's a lot of people spending hundreds of bucks just to modify their case, add a window, add a few extra fans, add a neon or two, a bay bus. Hell i paid a hundred bucks for my HSF.
Oh and inside every hard disk you have, there's a metal plate spinning, and a head moving around very quickly. Also, in your DVD/CDROM, there's a lens mounted on a rail moving around the surface of the disc.
Dave
For sure, we all know that, but that sound you're hearing is people ooohing and aaahing over the latest fruit colours from Apple.
I'd buy an Apple just to dress up my room! Using it would be a bonus, but I think it'd look good on my desk.
Once again proving that most computer geeks have no soul.
This is true of all IBM boxen from the PeeCees to the RS6ks and the Mainframes. IBM's Enclosure Design group needs to be shot and dragged through the streets. Never before have I ever seen such inconsistent and shoddy racks and cases. The new Z series mainframes are unsightly, they have angled vents, round pillar like things with clear plastic; very cumbersome to line up a number of them in a row in a data centre. The S690 RS6k has two enclosures, one for I/O and one for CPUs and whatnot. One case is about a foot higher and longer than the other. Both take up more than two floor tiles, it is really a fscking mess. They need to take a hint from Sun or Compaq.
You know, just a thought, but, maybe IBM would be making alot more money on their desktop PC's if they hadn't taken there desktop PC's out of the stores and decided to only sell them online. Seems to me it's hard for someone to buy a computer online when they don't have a computer to begin with.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
I work for one of the major rail roads in the US. The RRs got together to form a buying coalition to get better purchasing power, and IBM won the contract. I do not know how long the contract is good for, but they are stuck producing A LOT of PCs for a while.
Anyone fixated on the profitability of IBM's hardware manufacturing does not understand the IBM busness model. Did you know they lose millions on each mainframe sale? We have bought a couple of mainframes from them and they practically gave the hardware away. However, they soaked us for a multi-million dollar support contract, which more than made up for what they lost on the hardware.
I think they are now trying to persue a similar program in the desktop market. Sure, they are not going to make great inroads into the home PC market this way, but I do not think they care. For businesses, this model will work just as well as it does in the mainframe area. I know they have been trying this for a while. I remember a few years ago when someone told me IBM was pursuing the "total solution" model and practically offering the desktops for free, or not even talking about desktop prices, but rather, a package price. It did not work so well then, but the market is constantly changing. What failed in the past (such as having only employees working in your IT department) can change in the future (i.e. replace all of your employees with contractors).
However, the real value of this is not to be found in the reliability or solidity of the thinkpad, but rather in its application under times of crisis.
For example, there exists the possiblility that, someday, despite overwhelming the enemy with repeated dDoS attacks, they might eventually decide to invade using physical force. Unfortunately I doubt the average /.er combined hand to hand combat 101 with learning perl, so in that case what are you going to do?
The answer is obvious - use whatever is in hand, and I ask this question - do you want a Dell which would break with one good blow to your opponent (granted Dell customer service might replace the brokern machine quicker, but by that time they'll probably have your ethernet cable sticking out of you a$$)? Or do you want a hard edged, linear wrecking machine, which will probably still churn out Quake 3 after you have seen off the advancing hoards? Exactly.
N.B Thinkpads are no use against insults or bullets.
IBM Thinkpads are about as rough and tough as they come. (without buying the indestructible laptops featured here a long while back) I work at a LARGE general contracting firm and all of our field personell use IBM Thinkpads for their work on-site. A building that is under construction is NOT a healthy place for a laptop. They go through the worst of it. Large Amounts of dust, being dropped, being thrown in a work truck with 3 guys all wearing steel toed boots. And they physically outlast their 'technological' use. (ie: they are slow and out of date before they break)
The one complaint I have is the screens are not as sharp or big as they could be but on the other hand if they made them any bigger it would just increase the chance of the screen cracking exponentially.
Now on to dell desktops. You mentioned Dell Optiplex as having lots of problems and being useless. Did you ever consider you were getting what you paid for? Dell has no reason to offer 100% customer satisfaction and problem-free operation to somebody who purchases their low-end equipment. Our entire company uses Dell Dimension PC's with almost trouble-free operation. 90% of the problems that we deal with our user-related. (see my post about cameras on cell phones being used for tech support)
I think we still have some old Dell 266's being used because the user hasn't complained about it not working. Its sad but the people that don't complain and bother us don't get the newest equipment.
I'm getting a dell.
Kiss my bass.
I have ne'er met a Ibm desktop that I liked.
i just put in
you missed the point - intellistation PRO computers (emphasis on PRO fully intended) are not your typical, consumer-level PC's. And they really aren't that nice looking.
You're not the first to point this out - i should have mentioned the Netvista series in my original post.
You're right - they are black, but they still aren't very pretty - or widely available. Remember, i'm talking about typical, anybody-can-find-it-at-Best-Buy kind of available. If i recall correctly, IBM only sold the NetVistas through catalogs (tigerdirect and the like) and factory-direct. And maybe through Radio Shack, although i doubt it (they're partnered with Compaq now).
Those Netvistas were IBM's first actual attempt at hanging with the other major players, and all i can say is that they failed miserably. They're substandard computers stuffed inside an ugly black box. Not much consumer appeal there.
You actually like the new HP/Compaq PCs?
Give me a beige box anytime before I submit to their lunacy.
Re-read his comment. He said VISIBLE movement.
Do not read this
They are also an integral part of IBM's business as a solution provider.
Back in the early 90's and late 80's PS/2 cost, literally 2 to 3 times more than a clone of the same vintage. They had MCA, to boot. There are also a fair amount of those machines still in service. It's not terribly uncommon in certain enterprises to look in the back room and see an old PS/2 486 class machine serving up files for a work group or driving a printer. While certainly not a speed demon, it does the job. With MCA bus mastering in some situations it still makes an accpetable server for certain tasks. Part of the reason is becuase the machines are about as reliable as PCs get. IBM at that time was holding their hardware to much higher relibility standards than just about anyone else and they were more expensive because of it. At that time I thought they were doomed and would be out of the business. If you're selling solutions to people and those solutions will last decades and PCs are an integral part of the user interface you need good PCs.
The same can be said of RS/6000. Outside of a few markets they are under performers. I've also seen RS/6000 machines fall off of loading docs and get run over by a forklift and have cases that are all dented to hell and still run flawlessly. Is it the fastest workstation? No. Does it do the job IBM needs to sell a $10million contract? Yep. and because of that they keep making them.
I keep thinking that they need to get out of it or just focus on netfinity and thinkpad but the truth is, when they are selling an industrial solution, who are they going to buy PCs from? Compaq? Hell no, they are a big competitor. Dell? Possibly but I just don't see optiplexes running for 10 years like an IBM PC. Gateway? You've got to be kidding. If you think of a PC as the world's most expensive peripheral and you need those peripherals to run mainframes, minis and super computers then IBM will keep selling them.
IBM's consumer-targetted PC hardware isn't as slick looking as its business stuff, and I guess that was what you're original comment was about, and it's the lowest common demoninator (the typical consumer) that generates the sales numbers.
My bad...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
PC MARKET SHARE and changes in 2001 compared to 2000:
Dell: 23.6% (up 15.2%)
Compaq/HP: 22.1% (down 18.05%)
Gateway: 7.4% (down 16.3%)
IBM: 5.9% (down 10.7%)
others (mostly clones): 40.9% (down 6.0%)
The parent article ("The Perfect Storm", Nov.2001 issue -- that should be in the online archive) also noted that "Gateway is living on borrowed time" but said of IBM (and Dell) that it is going "full steam ahead" tho primarily via the server and online market, having pulled out of the retail storefront market.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I have seen some black IBM machines from the mid 90s that were absolutely gorgeous and better-looking than anything I ever saw from HP or Compaq.
You just can't go very wrong with black.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.