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Is IBM on a Strategic Path to Control Java?
nightspd writes "David Berlind of Cnet has written a series of articles over at ZDNet about IBM's return to market dominance, including this one titled When Will IBM Buy Sun? It's a VERY interesting read and a very interesting predition, and poses a question. With the mega-merger of Compaq and Hewlett-Packard going forward, can we expect other possible mega-mergers down the line in the tech arena? Is a IBM buyout of Sun possible and/or viable?"
I wouldn't count on that seeing as just a few days ago IBM reported that it isn't doing as good as they hoped it was. Their income came out much lower then expected.
As if the FTC/SEC/EU would let that happen... since HP and Compaq effectively decided to self-diminish, the "merger" of the two largest commercial Un*x server companies would probably raise a few eyebrows... something about a Parker Brothers' game, I believe...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
For those who have not already checked it out, IBM's little tank simulation program for teaching java, RoboCode has hit version 1.0
http://www.kubuntu.org/
You know, just because Ziff Davis became the media giant it is because of the PC doesn't mean the world revoles around PCs.
Yes IBM does well with the Thinkpad division, and yes I'm sure there are sour grapes over OS/2, but do you think anyone is crying that they're not selling PCs at a profit of 6 cents per machine? They own Lexmark! They own Lotus! They make a fortune selling AS/400s and RS/6000s and Z/90s (if that's what they're called this week).
There is a small tug of war over Java, no denying that, but why would IBM buy Sun other than for their customers? They are two completely different companies in mindset and direction. You think HP and Compaq will be a difficult merger?
There are also Sun's partners to consider. Larry Ellison is not going to like it if Sun buys IBM, since Oracle ties itself so closely to Java these days, and IBM just bought Informix. I would rather see Oracle and Sun merge and split the software division.
Interesting conjecture on the part of the author, but I think it's pretty unlikely.
"All I ever wanted was to see Larry Wall give Bill Gates a Perl necklace."
http://www.eisenschmidt.org/jweisen
Obviously the writer does not realize how big IBM is already! A lot of those other companies are merging just to compete with IBM as it is right now! IBM is kicking everybody's ass without SUN.
And they'll open-source Java. And everyone will start coding their applications for the java virtual machine, and Microsoft will be like "shit!" and WINE will be like "okay, we can go home" and we'll be like "look, C#, it's not that I don't love you. But I'm not in love with you."
fourth-quarter 2002. You heard it here first!
If IBM buys Sun and applies its marketing 'EXPERTISE', then we're going
to see the demise of yet another product that 'could have been'. Think OS/2...
As much great technology that comes out of IBM, they always screw it up when
it comes to marketing..
..and the new Corporate name? SunBM?
This is pure speculation with no basis in reality. It is bad enough that zdnet rewards writers to fabricate this stuff, why should slashdot repeat it? All this does is reward zdnet by creating more hits for their advertising clients.
Believe nothing -- Buddha
There would be a *huge* culture clash trying to combine these two companies... much more than ever will happen with HPaq.
IBM is a long way off from all white shirts all the time days, I'd suggest that Sun is much more conservative than IBM from a business perspective these days... Sure there are pockets of IBM that are still starched *way* too much, but overall they're quite innovative and nimble.
Sun, while it pushes Java hard, it quite a proprietary company (note that Java is not open source), and IBM on the other hand, is willing to get into about any business that it feels like it can get a foothold in, and see what works out. It's services folks are often implementing all kinds of non-IBM technologies. Sun would *never* do that.
I don't see it working... even if IBM is the acquirer, the culture mishmash would be a disaster.
No man is an island, but Gary is a city in Indiana.
While I don't think Sun would martyr itself just to challenge Microsoft, it's a good possibility that IBM could try to buy more Java rights or buy the technology outright from Sun, if a merger isn't in the cards.
Java is a innovative (and I use this term judiciously) technology which Microsoft has not been able to successfully clone, copy, or kill, yet. It is Sun's current anchor for relevancy amongst its main competitors. I can't see Sun letting go Java without a lot of compensation or litigation.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Considering how much money AOL/TW lost, and how painful the HP Compaq merger is becoming, I would think that IBM would want to stay away from mergers for a while.
Gee, IBM wants to take over the computer industry... Stop the presses!
I have news for ZDNet... It is the fiduciary duty of every publicly owned corporation to attempt to gain a monopoly in every market it enters. It is not illegal to have a monopoly, just illegal to take advantage of that monopoly to retain and extend dominance.
It should come as a surprise to no one that IBM is attempting to wring profit out of open source. What else to you expect it to do? IBM does not exist to promote free software. It exists to make money, and if free (beer or speech) software is a way to do that, so be it.
And no, IBM will not be buying Sun any time soon. They have plenty of money dedicated to continuing the improvement of the already quite fine pSeries/RS6k boxes. What do they need to buy Sun for, when they have a perfectly good UNIX box already? What a moron. Buying competition at an inflated price simply to put them out of business would be a silly and stupid move.
SirWired
Lexmark is a public company. IBM doesn't own even a substantial part of it.
This is not the first time there has been talk about IBM buying Sun.
AIX (IBM's brand of Unix) has always been the red-headed step child of Unix OSes, lagging far behind Solaris and HP/UX in market share.
IBM has always wanted people to develop applications for AIX and usually resorts to paying ISVs huge sums of money to port their apps to AIX.
Buying Sun just makes sense. You get rid of AIX, which isn't that popular (outside of the scientific computing arena) anyway. You can concentrate the Power architecture R&D on its use in the iSeries 400 (AS/400). You can bring the huge resources of IBM's semiconductor business to bear on making SPARC more competitive on a performance basis.
As for IBM's control of Java, who knows? I think they have been coveting Java for quite a long time now. They would kill for an opportunity to co-opt Java to their own devices, but Sun stands in their way.
IBM would rule the commericial Unix computing market, which is why the FTC/EU would never approve the merger.
It's something to think about, but unlikely to happen.
"I'm not a journalist, but I play one on TV."
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I just finished up reading a copy of Jim Carlton's book, Apple, and Sun was right there in the thick of things years ago, looking to possibly buy Apple on several occasions. A very well written book for those of you that like that kind of thing (not just for Apple fans!), and a book that portrayes Scott McNealy as the type that doesn't seem all too likely to sell.
Microsoft is only bigger in market capitalization : IBM is the larger company, and has been for some time. In any case obviously you're trolling as generally IBM targets a very different audience than Microsoft (computing is a massive, and very disparate, field).
Having said that, mergers and acquisitions are hilarious, and it's a riot seeing how upper-management of very large organizations fools the public into believing that they "Create value" worth their enormous compensation packages : The market goes through a flurry of mergers and acquisitions when that fad is big, and then afterwards they turn ship and move into divestitures and spin-offs that'll "recover focus" and "capitalize on success", afterwhich they return to mergers and acquisitions. It really is laughable from a distance, but up close everyone buys it and believes it.
IBM has been reclaiming control of its destiny since Lou took the reigns a while back. IBM's recent profit warning notwithstanding (who isn't issuing these things right now?), they've been on a road towards success that most other companies can only dream about. They have a strong business and a strong idea of the business that they are in, and I don't currently see them jumping into their longboats to embark on a campaign of Executive Hubris that is threatening the roots of Compaq and HP at this very moment.
Now they are facing a merger between Compaq and HP, and they could probably not be happier with the impending disaster that will arise from it. Sure, the merged company might rival theirs on paper, but such rearward looking statements does little to ensure the financial viability of such a company years down the road. And keen IBM Execs are sure to see this.
I struggle with the article numerous ways, not the least of which is that it is buzzy and hypey and that it utterly disregards the fact that IBM is already a massively dominant force in the industry.
Maybe the fellow is working for Sun, and hopes that some buzz and hype will inflate Sun's stock value and therefore his own.
Like Sun's stock, I ain't buying it.
What would this mean to Java? Would the linux-loving Big Blue company open up Java? What about Tomcat and JBoss? Would IBM make WebSphere and Visual Age the ultimate in J2EE enviroments?
It would be interesting to see how IBM would handle Java if it did buy Sun. It almost seems like it'd knock some part of open source (the Java source and the proprietary webcontainer and IDE IBM sells).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I got the impression Sun was not exactly wooing IBM... I got the impression that they would be very much against that sort of thing.
linux-kernel.tk = goatse, you have been warned.
>>"It's a lot easier to create a natural monopoly by simply selling a better product(ala Microsoft) than to create a monopoly by buying up all of your competitors."
Sorry Sheldon, Microsoft in no way has a superior product. None of it's products are "best of breed". Furthermore, Microsoft illegally created and leverages it's monopoly. It's also continuing to try and grow into other markets by buying other companies. Never forget, Microsoft *never* invents anything, it either steals it or buys it.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
IBM doesn't need to merge with Sun to be bigger than MS - they already are.
... there is simply no comparison.
They earn more money than MS, they have more employees, located in more countries, sell more products
I'm not going to complain about the way that Sun manages he Java environment, they do a darn good job at involving the community in the process, however, IBM has also done great things for Java and their management of the technology would be as good or better than Suns does.
IBM has a strong loyality to the OS community, I doubt we would ever see their Eclipse platform introducing propriatary stuff into the langauge.
Troy
Would Tremendous Blue buy the SPARC line as well or do they simply want the intellectual property of the software division? Does IBM want to maintain Solaris? Do they want to cross port AIX and Solaris into each other's hardware platform? Linux for both and screw AIX and Solaris? Kill off the SPARC line altogether?
An IBM/Sun merger just doesn't make any sense. IBM has a successful Unix division using a completely different CPU and completely different OS. If Solaris/Sparc had significant advantages OR disadvantages to AIX/Power, then maybe. Don't forget that IBM is absolutely notorious for not likeing one division canabalizing the sales from another. Heck, that's one of the factors that led to the clone market and IBM's unwillingness to innovate in the pc arena for years. So what are they going to do if then acquire Sun. Which platform do you push? What do you say to customers who are trying to buy a "IBM" solution? Nope, just a big mess.
One could also imagine scenerios where Sun customers would jump ship, since Sun has long been viewed as the anti-IBM (young and spritely vs old and lethargic). If IBM bought Sun, how many potential Sun people would look elsewhere (read PC's w/ Windoze/Linux) specifically because they DON'T want to tie themselves to IBM.
The Compaq/DEC merger was fine since Compaq for the most part didn't play in DEC's sandbox. The HP/Compaq merger has a chance (as far as Unix goes) since PA/RISC is moribund and so is Alpha. No such situation here though.
Also, one would have to imagine that the govt would have a VERY close look at any such merger, since the combined companies would own over half the Unix market and the feds are always on IBM's *ss about any type of monopolistic activities.
IBM/Sun - Just say NO.
is a sequel to Blade Runner. Then on all the buildings we can put interactive advertisements for these hypothetical megacorporations. Bam, instant smackdown.
[o]_O
What we want is an open language standard with a simple runtime, something that people can build on without being tied to a single company. That's the way it worked for C, and that was good. Maybe ECMA C# fits the bill, if it can establish a life independent from Microsoft. Let's hope so.
That said, Sun is in the hardware business, and to a much smaller degree the services business. I think that the Java brand is worth something to Sun, but as a Sun stockholder (I also hold IBM), I don't see the Java brand as crucial to their bottom line.
I would like to the the following things change:
- Sun release Java to a sandards body
- the onslought of new Java APIs should stop!
One of the things that I like so well about Common LISP is that it is standardized and basically does not change. Java, at least on the server side, is an awesome tool, to be sure. However, I would like to see Java frozen, except for bug fixes. I find it interesting that the same guy, Guy Steele, has been so important to two languages - Java and Common Lisp. (Actually, he also wrote one of the first Scheme compilers).Anyway, I think that Sun and IBM should not merge in any way, and that Java should be standardized and frozen.
-Mark
From the article:
t ories/mai n/0,14179,2860394,00.html
"When asked about the desire to own Java, IBM's Director for eBusiness Standards Strategy Bob Sutor said 'I don't know about owning it, but we'd sure like to see it open sourced.'"
I think the author's point in the article is that IBM needs to influence control over Java to gain equal footing opposite Microsoft -- the type of control that would come through a hostile takeover. The author delves into what such a fantasy takeover would entail as an extended metaphor for what kind of control [he believes] IBM could have were Java to become open sourced or a true open standard.
The author continues with this point (open source could essentially get IBM what it'd get with a buyout) in this article, in the same series:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/s
Very interesting!
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
This reminds me of a number of problem we had with Java API's supplied by IBM (for instance the ones you can download from their website or the ones supplied with WebSphere).
After simply including the API's on our classpath, the Java VM stopped behaving normally. Execution would suddenly jump from one class to the second(!) line of an exception handler in another class. After removing the API's things returned to normal.
I don't know if IBM is planning to buy Sun, but they certainly have their own ideas about Java.
I thought that I recalled the name David Berlind from somewhere. It was an article I read over at The Register about one of the most clueless half-witted tech articles ever written. The register article is here and the original ZDNet article is here. Both make for very amusing reading.
Sun and Apple merge.
Think about that for a second.
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
One of the most overlooked computer companies on ./ is Fujitsu. They are the second biggest computer company, behind only IBM. They have been in the Unix server market in Japan and Europe for years, and have started in North America with their Primepower SPARC servers. The Primepower 2000 is a very powerful 128 SPARC CPU (SPARC64 GP) Solaris box. Fujitsu owns a good chunk of Sun already (25-30% I think, I have no hard numbers on this). If any body were to buy Sun, its Fujitsu.
Sure IBM makes chips for Sun, so does TI, Motorola and Fujitsu. Everybody makes chips for everybody these days, its the way of business. Infineon does a lot of chips for IBM, Infineon is owned by Siemens, in turn, owned by Fujitsu. Give the market 10 more years, and there will only be 3 computer companies.
I think what IBM may be seriously considering is putting up some serious amounts of money to beccome the co-developer of Java with Sun or even outright buy the technology from Sun.
I mean, look at what IBM has done with Java--not only have they produced some great applications written in Java for mainframe and AS/400 systems, but also has proven that IBM's own Java Development Kits are way better than anything Sun has done.
With IBM being at the helm of Java, it could convince Microsoft to support a pure Java implementation again. Despite the fallout over OS/2 I think Microsoft would rather deal with IBM than Sun with their big ego upper management (Scott McNealy and Bill Joy).
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
There would be no advantage whatsoever for Apple in a merger with IBM or anyone else, and it would likely be counterproductive. Apple's culture is too different from the rest of the industry. And IBM has not been successful with hardware on the desktop, nor are they very interested in it.
I understand your desire for competition to Microsoft, but another monopoly is not the answer. It is important that there are smaller companies like Apple that try different things. Computing should not be reduced to a two-party system between AIX and Windows.
Lies about crimes
Clearly this is not the first to make this interesting observation. I have heard it said other places as well; IBM is on a sub death watch.
.NET, Sun has no real way to make or reinforce core product sales thru Java. In fact, Sun as a software services company is very week, so there is no core value there either once Sparc sales take the big dive south.
.NET to leverage itself as an application services business as well as reinforce the sales of it's .NET "client" and "server" platform, by making the language standard but not the platform. This will steel potential revenue directly from IBM.
Consider, how much of a future is there really for selling sparc boxes? Unlike Microsoft with
Now IBM is the one company well positioned to take advantage of Java. If they could gain control of it, they could do the one thing Sun cannot; make it into a real standard. The problem Sun faces is that, unlike Microsoft, which choose to hang their valuable trademark on the "whole" (.NET) rather than C#, Sun trademarked the language rather than Sun NetOne,
Hence, it's painless for Microsoft to make C# a "pseudo" standard, but since Sun licensed and trandemarked on the language itself, they are stuck.
Microsoft can use
So IBM waits. The sparc business dies off, and it can pick up Sun for a mear $100 million or so. Very cheap. Then it can do the one thing Sun can't, and make sure Java is everywhere, that it is free, that everything has it. It doesn't need the revenue from Java licenses the way Sun does and will by then, but it needs to establish a platform not controlled by or redirecting revenue into Microsoft.
So if Sun goes under, the world of enterprise computing might finally be free and everyone else benefits, except Microsoft. Not a bad scenareo. Hey, Scott, do you think you can do the world a favor and pull it off soon?
Of course, if Microsoft manages to outbid IBM for the dying Sun or offer them a bridging "deal" like they did to Apple to get Java out of the marketplace, well, that is the day I leave the industry for good.
I would say it's no more than 50/50 that this merger actually goes through. In the current post-Enron climate, all allegations of corporate wrongdoing are being taken VERY seriously.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
What will be very interesting is when (if?) IBM brings the POWER4 chip down the line from the p690. This has already happened with the p670. A 1.1GHz or 1.3GHz POWER4 chip in a low-cost, lower-end machine, like a 4 or 8 way server, would put some intense pressure on Sun and stuff like their V880.
The Java angle is also interesting...would IBM need Sun to dominate Java? They already claim to have the largest group of Java developers in the world. They produce their own quality Java compiler and JVM. They have a highly competitive Java application server and framework, and a suite of GUI RAD tools to go with them. They have a strong database server that links in with the app server, and supports Java too. In some respects, IBM's Java position may be stronger than Sun's. Maybe.
Looks like the mainstream (well, ZDNet) has found the slashdot story generator
The comparisions to Microsoft - unavoidable in any discussion on /. it seems - are very unfair. First, as mentioned in other posts, IBM is a much larger company than Microsoft, so that alone would not be a reason to merge with/buy Sun. Second, IBM has a very different business model.
Microsoft is a consumer product company that has been moving into the corporate world. IBM is a business product company that have tried making consumer products. In fact, apart from Lotus, IBM do not have any products directly competing with Microsoft. Microsoft is trying to get into the high-end mission critical systems, but so far they're mostly found on webservers and on PC clients.
IBM is also a services revenue driven company, with a successful and profitable consulting organisation. IBM recently made Visual Age for Java and also Websphere Studio available for free. That is an indication that they will continue to focus on their Websphere centred approach, trying to sell and implement the large infrastructure solution with WebSphere, MQ Series etc on their own hardware.
Back on topic, Java, that will be the platform of choice for IBM for one main reason: Microsoft won't make any money from it. IBM sell hardware and software that support the use of Java applications. Microsoft has clearly shown it want to control the runtime environment as well, but we'll see who wins that race.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
This could actually work as there is very little product over lap, and the two lines would probably complemet each other very well.
The downside however is the SPARC vs PowerPC war that would erupt, ditch one, ditch the other, keep both?
Bonus all the media on the public fights between McNealy and Jobs.
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
Sounds as though someone's portfolio needed a little stroking. Hrmm, Sun trading at a three-year low. We need to leak a takeover rumour.
illegitimii non ingravare
Please don't ever mention Oracle obtaining Sun again.
Oracle corporation employs programmers which know little-to-nothing nothing at all about the following concepts:
Source Control
Indentation/Formatting
API
Static Linking
Kernels
Filesystems
Debugging
Oracle is a fine database - but it would be worthless if the 5 programmers in the world who understand its source code suddenly died or contracted Alzheimers: which isn't really unlikely considering that they will be getting old long before they can explain that mess to anyone.
Sun saw the light: their days were numbered. Eventually Linux will surpass Solaris in the one remaining area that matters: SMP. After that Sun is in biggo trouble. They are better off grabbing Linux and coaching embrasure of their hardware, Linux software and Java for platform independance. IBM buying them makes sense for IBM because IBM already plays nice with Linux. Oracle buying them will mean that Solaris will become iexorably tangled up with Java and Oracle and turn into a very very nasty mess.
I want to see IBM buy Sun, build a kernel module JVM running at near-compiled speed, and open Java up completely.
Now that would be sweet.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
If IBM bought Sun and folded it underneath, that would make IBM pretty much the only serious player in the mid to high-end UNIX server market. Once that happens, the anti-trust lawyers would get pretty eager again and try to take IBM to court. Especially considering that if IBM bought Sun, it would have no interest in the hardware end since IBM makes its own hardware which directly competes with Sun's products. Either Sun's hardware group would get spun back off like they did to Lexmark, or they would simply re-design them as low-end pSeries products with Power processors instead of the Sparcs. Plus, why bother to support Solaris when you make AIX?
.02....
These lawsuits charging IBM of monopolizing a marketplace has happened before (IBM Global Services used to be a subsidiary called ISSC to help thwart anti-trust charges), and with the current Microsoft case I think others (Hitachi, Amdahl, etc.) would prob. like to get in on anti-trust lawsuits against IBM.
Just my
note that Java is not open source
Funny...I wonder what that source I downloaded from Sun was...sure looked like Java. Java might not be GPL, but it *is* open source.
I think what you're referring to is that Java is still a very proprietary entity. The JCP is pretty much a sham for Sun to control the Java specification. Basically, anyone's free to look all they want, just don't touch.
It's a good example to illustrate Stallman's Open Source != Free Software distinction.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
IBM is less a single company than a banner under which a whole group of companies operates. Each division has a different culture and different goals. They sometimes even compete with each other.
IBM is the only company that would make a microprocessor (the PowerPC) and then build desktops using the rival's processors (Intel). This is why it sometimes seems they support Linux, and sometimes not. Sun would be just another division in the mix.
Not that I like the idea of a buyout. Diversity is good. And Sun standing alone is more independent and more likely to act differently.
Lies about crimes
They own Lexmark!
No, they don't. Lexmark is a publicly-traded company with some close business links to IBM.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
Wouldn't SPARC in your scenario interfere with PowerPC development? The way I see it, IBM would be much better off concentrating on 64bit PowerPC than SPARC.
OK, OK, the articles are over at ZDnet, which should be the first clue (I mean, when was the last time you read an incisive, researched, and intelligent article over there?)
Get this folks: IBM is a SERVICES company. Lou made the right transition in the early 90s: IBM makes its money on selling expertise and consulting, not in pushing hardware. Even the more lucrative hardware divisions (Lexmark, the Mainframe group) pale in compare to the money raked in by IBM Global Services and the other custom software/solutions groups. IBM sells services and knowledge; they incidentally sell hardware to promote the sale of the services, but it's not their primary focus.
Sun, on the other hand, is in the business of pushing boxes. The vast majority of Sun's revenue derives from sales of hardware. Sun has a software division whose purpose it is to promote the sales of hardware. Java is there so that Sun will sell more servers.
IBM has no incentive to buy Sun. IBM already sells a boatload of consulting and services contracts to people who have Sun equipment, so they wouldn't gain much additional revenue by owning Sun. In addition, since IBM makes hardware which competes with Sun's stuff, guess who gets the software contract when a client needs to integrate IBM equipment with Sun? That's right, clients go to IBM, not Sun. If IBM eliminated its UNIX hardware (which, if they acquired Sun, would slowly happen), well, all these nice integration contracts would dry up.
IBM and Sun will never merge - there is absolutely no reason for IBM to be interested in Sun - in fact, they gain MORE by having Sun be a competitor on hardware. Sun and IBM really play in different spaces, and there is little if any synergy or logic behind a merger.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Try thinking what will BillG say about it.
The reason Sun can afford owning Java is that they are totally MS-free. As for IBM, they are seriously in bed with BillG because of their PC/PC Servers division (even though they don't really like it), and owning Java will create a lot of strain in this already unhealthy relationship.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Seems many people on /. are very short-sighted in criticizing the (theoretical) idea of IBM buying Sun. Firstly, all "culture clash" theories go out the window as David already asserted it would need to be a hostile takeover. This means they would invade to get all the IP and brands, all relevant management would be canned. Now, why would this be so great for IBM?
Sorry kids, but this type of hostile takeover would make perfect sense. IBM would profit immensely (those who question IBM's ability to pull off a successful takeover need to look at Lotus) and would catapult into the top spot in several markets. The author of this article was one smart cookie...
"time is an illusion, lunchtime even more so"
No.
"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
Remember, Douglas Adams was British, and the British like using the word "doubly."
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Lexmark was formerly part of IBM. They were IBM's desktop laser printer division and were sold off in 1991 and later taken public.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Female Prison Rape in NY