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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.
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.
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.
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 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).
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
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.
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.
So what you're saying, on both counts, is that Slashdot should seriously consider hiring him for a job as editor?
"And like that
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.
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!!!!
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...