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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 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.
Actually, Dell and Apple were the only two computer companies to post profits this last quarter. Gateway posted nice losses. Apple profited by $66 million.
Now, I don't know about you, but to me, $66 million is a fair amount of money...
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
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.
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.
I'm on one right now, bought earlier this year. There are several hundred throughout the building I work in, and probably quite a few more in other buildings.
I think they're more or less out of the mainstream consumer field, but businesses still buy a fair number of them directly from IBM. At least ours does...
-Corvidae
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 don't know about Apple, but Dell has been steadily adding enterprise solutions to it's product line. And dell even has "consultants" to come in and set up all that stuff for you or sell you a solution. No one makes money on just PC's anymore.
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.
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.
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.
I know several people that cannnot justify paying more that $1500CDN on a machine when they know that can replace in 12 months for $600CDN. The though here is why pay for a warranty/support that you're probably not going to use.
I can tell you that a big buyer is the Government, but that's hardly surprising. Dell is making inroads with the government, but after 2 or 3 support calls the big depts go back to IBM or HP.
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
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).
"Seriously, when was the last time you saw an IBM desktop? " Er, 20 seconds ago? I work for a construction company and IBM's are all we buy. Although we're moving to laptops, we still buy a fair number of desktops. Their support is great, and they're bulletproof. We put them if the most un-computer-friendly environments (dirt, dust, and construction trailer electrics) and I have yet to see one crap out on a hardware problem.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
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.
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
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.)
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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
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
Why is IBM getting out of the PC business?
No one said they are. It's just speculation about profits and the lack there of.
In the business of building computers, people more often look at the price than what hardware/software it comes with.
Some look for Mhz of processor (debate AMD vs. Intel clock speeds in your mind), some look for price, and I sware some look at the day of the week, flip a coin, add in the ASCII value of the first letter of their mother's maden name and pick that to be the system at the store they select (counting from the first system they see of course).
Of course you can sell a decent PC for , but don't expect a hardware modem, or non-hard wired video and sound.
It's just a quality vs. price debate and with people possibly starting to get the idea of a throw away (donate away, whatever) PC that lasts a little while who needs the support IBM provides?
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
Someday, someone may fit 19" or 21" foldable screens and expanding keyboards on laptops, or direct projection to eye and typing onto void may become a cheap alternatives to traditional input/output. Until then desktops are here to stay.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
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
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.
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 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!!!!
When they were building the first PC they already had manufacturing rights to the 8088/8086 because they used the 8086 in the Displaywriter Intelligent Typewriter. Since they could already produce the chip it fit in well with their "off the shelf" component structure of the PC.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
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.
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
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
Money.
At the time Intel was dying so IBM said We want a chipfor x amount, and Intel did it, motorola wanted more. Now considering how people thought PCs would evelove it made sense, of course it didn't happen that way.
The engineers, in general wanted the Motorola, easier to work with, but suits made the decsiion, not the sliderules.
If companies did what the engineer thought was best, we would all be sitting in front of are Xerox GUI, running on Motorola chips.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
the clients, or the desktops?
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.
66 million dollars is about the same as a FEW HOURS worth of interest on microsoft's cash assets. How's that for perspective?
every day....
the AVID non linear video editor suite is based on IBM intellistations becauise of the hardware quality and performance.
IBM desktops and towers are commonplace in the entertainment and media industry.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
EXACTLY!!!!
My Computer here for example... 2 processor P-III 866 (I know I am running horribly old technology.. sorry. you can beat me with your 3Ghz Athalons later) with SCSI U160 and 3 10Krpm drives with nice cooling and a nice all aluminum case with removable drive pods that have cooling fans for the drives. Cost me about $2K when I got it new. Many of my friends choked and wanted to know why I spent that much when they bought their 1.2Ghz machines for $999. and got a free super crappy printer.
Well today, I am still using my pc and can swap out the processor up to a 1.4Ghz (and will probably when they get cheap enough) Them? they bought new machines already. and Mine with my Geforce2 card still waxes theirs in framerate and resolution...
Quality will always win out with those that know better... The other 80% of the world? they want cheap.
h
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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"?
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!
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
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.
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.
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?"
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.
Wow, I absolutely love the trackpoint. I won't buy another laptop without it and I'm looking for a desktop keyboard with one too. You see, I'm a 10 finger typist and moving my hands off the home-row is a waste. Gotta keep the LOCs up. ;)
I would guess that no more then 30% of professional computer users know how to type and that is why they have no problem grabbing a mouse to change a font, switch windows, use a menu, etc.
As a software developer, I'd like to see how many programmers are 10 finger typists. From my 15 years experience, I'd venture to say it's less then 50%. Drives me nuts to help someone out with a coding issue and have to wait "forever" for them to find the keys to peck out the line of code.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
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.
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?