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IBM Puts PC Business Up for Sale
valdean writes "When I was growing up (in the 80s), there were two kinds of computers that my friends (or, more specifically, our parents) had at home: Apple and the IBM-Compatible. IBM defined the PC at that time, and deserves a large share of credit for taking the PC out of the hobby shop and into the mainstream. Now it looks like IBM is getting out of the PC business altogether. CBS Marketwatch has another report."
You have to be kidding me. They would be fools to sell off the Thinkpad line! Go ahead, get rid of your desktop systems line, but *please* IBM keep your Thinkpad business. These (and the Apple Powerbooks) are the best laptops on the market today, and well worth a premium price. I've owned 5 different Thinkpads over the years, from the 701C "Butterfly keyboard" model up through the T and X series. Every one of them still works perfectly.
If they sell the Thinkpad business to some company in China the future designs are likely to be less inventive, unique, and reliable than the current generation. I guess I'll have to buy Toshiba instead.
...that IBM would end up making Apple's processor.
The reason people buy Thinkpads are because they are IBM thinkpads. So, lets say Dell buys the business, we get "Dell Thinkpad"... Does that sould stupid to anyone other than me?
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
They made the PC compatibles
I understand they are getting out of the biz, but I really hope they sell or license the IP for the Thinkpad, those are some quality built machines.
That doesn't sound bad at all.
No one had a Commodore 64? (Best selling model of personal computer of all time?) Or an Atari 400/800? Amiga?
You had three friends in high school, I bet.
This is interesting only for the fact that it would allow IBM to further distance itself from Microsoft and Intel. There is no doubt in my mind the big-wigs at IBM are really annoyed their predecessors got punked by Redmond. If they're successful in selling the unit, it would be interesting to see if they would begin migrating their server product lines away from Microsoft as well. There is already much publicized talk about IBM corporate going from Microsoft OS's to linux, perhaps this is just a step away from license dependent products. It isn't as though IBM needs the revenue from the PC business.
They're not good at it anymore - desktop-wise, at least. You can get a superior computer from Dell/Compaq/etc, and it'll be cheaper, even after the 5% employee discount (from personal experience).
The Commodore 64 had a pretty high market saturation at that time. In fact, most of the time the Commodore software section was larger than that of the IBM or Apple.
Next time, give the ole 6510 a nod wouldya?
They make the best Intel servers on the market.
xSeries kick the $h1T out of the competition and they are the only real Intel based server company with a solid support infastructure.
noooo......
...yup...
Microsoft?
C'mon now... don't forget about the good old TRS-80.
Lots of good times with that thing... reading/writing video memory directly... happy days!
The Army reading list
Yeah, 'cause both countries use the Roman alphabet.
Does this mean the end of OS/2?
If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out? - Will Rogers
Now if only Sun would shuffle off this mortal coil, we can pave the way for a new device that is NOT a piece of shit. Dell sucks ass. HP/Compaq sucks ass. It's time for Alienware to dominate the PC market with PowerPC based systems running MorphOS!!!! Go Amiga!!!!!
We want neon kits! We want neon kits! We want neon kits!! (Say it with me brothers!!!)
I suppose at some point IBM will get out of hardware entirely, and then it can re-name itself International Business Services or something else more appropriate.
If you are ever near Endicott, NY (birth place of IBM), try to get into the IBM heritage center at IBM's former Endicott facility. It traces the long heritage of IBM as a provider of machines, computer and otherwise, to business. Lots of vintage equipment on display. A very nice exhibit.
IBM.... Why???? ;_;
What does this mean? Why are they doing this?
I have to say this stinks. IBM was one of the few PC makers that endeavored to build innovative, high-quality products (like the T42 I'm typing this on). The others (Dell, HP/Compaq to name a few) appear to be focusing on building cheap plastic boxes at the lowest possible price. I hope whoever buys the business doesn't forget that there is a high-end segment of the market that cares about more than just price. At least we still have Apple...
I hope they still make mice. I am in love with my IBM MO27FO mouse. Not only is it a perfect fit for my hand the scroll wheel has a blue led behind it so it glows... GLOWS!!!
without ibm setting the standard, will computers still be ibm compatable?
If I had enough moneys I could buy the business. Then I could stop dealing with MS (save costs) and sell the PCs with a real linux build on them. None of this Sun and Lindows stuff. I'd build a gentoo or a debian and setup the desktop all nice with some easy gui tools for updating software. I'd stop making desktops and stick to thinkpads. By taking the windows tax off the price of the laptops I can beat everyone else on price. All the nerds and poor college students would buy them. It would rule.
Oh, but I don't have a hajillion dollars to buy it. Sorrow.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
"For this year, analysts have expected a pretax profit of less than $100 million"
What, only around $100 million profit?!?!!?!?!?!?!?? Sell it now!!!!!!!!!! We don't want that.
The article cites that one reason for the sale is the slim profits on the PC business, and gives as evidence the $100M profit IBM will make on the division this year.
I agree for IBM that in terms of outlay:return, that is probably a pretty slim profit. But the division is profitable, most of the time. Furthermore, I assume quite a few jobs are going to be lost if they sell to an asian (Chinese) producer.
So, it saddens me to see more jobs leaving the US not because the product can't compete or is unprofitable, but because it not profitable enough. Especially for IBM, where even though their business model has been changing over the last 15 years, PCs are still a sort of "core competency." It seems sort of like if GM sold its car production business to focus on its more profitable credit operations.
Anyway, I wonder what will happen when IBM outsources its "services" jobs to some companies in India or Eastern Europe.
If Apple had known IBM was going screw them on that personal powerpc thing. PowerPC based Macs were supposed to be as cheap as Wintels because they were going to be based on commodity hardware.
IBM has not made the announcement yet!
Why is this posted on slashdot? The announcement isn't made yet. What's this become "Rumors and Gossip for Nerds"?
* No VIC 20s
* No PETs
* No TRS80s
* No Ti-99s
* No Timex Sinclairs
* No Colecovision ADAMs
* No Amstrads
* No Compaqs
You must've grown up in a truly boring place.
That is because a lot of (younger) people let buying decisions be controlled by design issues -- a friend of mine has an incredibly loud computer at home - it isn't even a fast or very powerful machine. But the outer design is just "soooo cool". What a moron...
My first laptop was an Thinkpad 600E, and since then I've had 3 more machines (A21P, A30P, T42P), and I wouldn't trade them for anything!
I would sign any "petition"/"begging letter" to IBM asking them to keep their Thinkpad line any day...
The premiums they ask for their notebooks are definitely worth it to have their machines!
Also, if I look at my colleagues at work - my T42P is my company notebook, everyone of us just gets the same budget for hardware, and I just spent my whole budget on the machine, instead of buying a notebook, a larger external screen, keyboards, docking stations and the like. Why should I even consider those? The display on my machine is magnificent, and unlike many other laptops I've seen, their machines are optimised for ergonomics; something that can't be said for some Dell notebooks I've had the misfortune of having had to use them for a while. Those are pretty much unusable without an external keyboard/mouse, and if I had the money to buy an external screen for them, I WOULD.
IBM, please come to your senses and keep the PC business. Even if it's profits aren't large - they are a credit to your company's reputation and it can only benefit you to maintain them!
One goal of the alliance is to make Power chips used in high volumes. IBM has shipped more than 1 million PowerPC 970 chips, it said. The more widely used the Power processors are, however, the more directly they compete against the dominant x86 family such as Intel's Pentium and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron.
Look out Wintel! Look out Sun?
Stick Men
IBM might be selling their Desktop and Laptop lines but it is not getting out of the hardware market. I agree they might be trying to distance themselves from Microsoft but the x and i series servers will remain because they are a growth market. The new focus for IBM will become their Power Platform and Linux http://www.power.org/.
*please* IBM keep your Thinkpad business. These (and the Apple Powerbooks) are the best laptops on the market today, and well worth a premium price. I've owned 5 different Thinkpads over the years, from the 701C "Butterfly keyboard" model up through the T and X series. Every one of them still works perfectly.
I like ThinkPads very much: the TP600 has the best keyboard I have ever used on a portable machine. However, the longevity of my ThinkPads has not been as good:
- the CMOS battery died prematurely in the TP600; now it defaults to the external display on boot and must be reconfigured manually each time it is powered up
- the onboard NIC in the T20 appears to have died and taken part of the PCI bus with it. Three current Linux distributions (MDK10, Knoppix 3.5, RH Enterprise) hang at
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
This announcement has implications for Hewlett Packard, as they spun off everything but the PC and server business. As the real innovation of the old company is now in Agilent, I can't see long term prospects for HP being favourable.
[Note to HP: Invent, not rebadge]
I'm with all the others here who think this is a really bad idea. Anybody know who all the stockholders at IBM are? We all need to email all of them.
How can we stop this? Go on strike or something?
To a politician, one email equals one voter.
In the 80s, me and my friends had Commodore 64s, 128s, Amigas, and Atari STs -- there were a couple Apple IIs and one Mac, and one guy had a Tandy IBM-compatible PC.
It wasn't until the 386-era (with Windows 3.0 and/or Geoworks) that we all gradually migrated to PCs -- although some guys held on to their Macs and Amigas like their lives depended on it.
Sam
...with a lunatic business plan like that.
...to defend themselves better against SCO. :-)
BTW: What would happen to the buyer of the PC Business... will he be sued by SCO as well?
Widely criticized? No, it's been widely noted that IBM's decision not to keep a tight grip on the architecture and the OS led to the adoption of standard technology, which in turn got us where we are.
It's a hypothetical exercise to ask whether they should have written their own OS and designed their own chips. It's sort of a retroactive attempt to kill the goose laying the golden industry. Sure, they could have done it, but no, it wouldn't have helped them, and certainly not us.
sigs, as if you care.
Possibly offtopic, but isn't it quaint that the entire article refers to them as...
"I.B.M."
Does *anyone* put the ellipses(?) in acronyms nowadays? I remember this being more common when I was a kid at primary school (4-11) in the early-mid 80s, but even then it must have been dying out.
Now you just see it and it looks.... old-fashioned.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Anyway, we all remember what happened to Lexmark, right? They used to be the under-performing IBM printer company until IBM spun them off. Now they're one of the more successful printing companies in the industry? Coincidence? Maybe their productivity shot up when they got out from the IBM mandate that everyone in the company use Lotus Notes.
Speaking of non-strategic underperforming dogs, I wonder when IBM is going to jettison Lotus. It really seems like the only people in the industry who use Lotus software these days are IBM themselves. I think it's time the company put that 6 billion dollar mistake behind them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What the hell am I supposed to do with all of those micro channel cards I've been hoarding?
Is still my genuine IBM PS/2 keyboard. It stil has great feel and great clacky sound. And its heavy enough such that I could still bludgeon to death a rabid spammer and then keep on ircing into the night.
its still my one computing true love.
I've dropped that bad boy down the freaking STAIRS before, and it's only got a couple scratches to show for it. Durable, quiet, good battery, solid construction, etc etc etc. My next laptop will be an IBM again if they still sell 'em.
in the long line of systems that went beyond their prime
Ever since IBM rebranded itself (quite successfully, I might add) as a solutions provider, the writing may have been on the wall for the PC division. Instead of worrying about competing with Dell and others for home desktops and laptops, they want to concentrate resources on providing business solutions to large and small companies. Having said all that, and while I do think it's a bold and well thought out buiness decision, I join the others who will lament the loss of the ThinkPad.
But if I were IBM, I'd still maintain a presence in the PC business because it is this business that made IBM a household name. The same thing may happen to DELL or HP.
I see executives using HP or DELL at home and asking themselves: "Why not use DELL/HP for the serveices IBM wants to remain focused on?" IBM will discover that HP/DELL want to eat its last lunch!
Already, HP won a services agreement in with Canada's second biggest bank (CIBC). This trend will surely continue. I speculate that DELL will also crowd the services market once DELL discovers that that is where the action is.
Question: Dies this mean the end of "IBM" on PCs?
Mr. Gates should pick this up, and begin selling Microsoft Brand PCs.
You want a copy of Windows, you have to buy the Microsoft Brand PC to get it.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
I love my thinkpad! How can those insensitive clods do this?? What, do they think only old South Koreans use IBMs now? I guess in Soviet America, IBM Thinkpads turn on YOU!
Ok, enough of that. This will be a huge shame if they start slapping the thinkpad name on any rinky-dink, cheap plastic laptop. It would be like those guys who buy Viper body kits for a Fiero. Dell was able to market at home, and send out those little catalogs, and IBM lost its street cred among the idiots, i mean, the average user. I never was one of those self righteous techies, but man. People choosing HP and Compaq over IBM. It makes me ill.
A friend of mine said he wouldnt buy an IBM cuz they "look old". God, does EVERYTHING have to look like an iMAC these days? Laptops should be sleek, simple, and reliable. Unfortunately, Joe Lattitude cant see past his overheating CPU and broken keyboard to realize this. *Pours out a can of Bawls* This one's for you Thinkpad... at least we'll have your old models. Id take a t23 over a new hp any day.
I would sign any "petition"/"begging letter" to IBM asking them to keep their Thinkpad line any day...
I don't think they would have the slightest interest in that, regardless of how many signatures you had.
Now if you could find a million people to buy computers off them with statements of intent to buy another one within the next 4 years, you might catch their attention...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I did my last two years of high school on a C64 with GEOS and a 1526 printer [..] But I was one of the few who handed in all work on printout and word processed, and the only one to use clip-art...
I bet your dissertation on themes of sexuality and repression in George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was really livened up by a cheesy drawing of wedding-cake figures and "Happy Birthday!" in fancy letters with fireworks in the background.
Or did you keep those for your maths homework?
IBM defined the PC at that time, and deserves a large share of credit for taking the PC out of the hobby shop and into the mainstream.
A strange comment. At the time, the Apple II+ was the serious computer, with stores devoted just to selling 'em. VisiCalc--the ultimate business software--was written for the Apple II.
"IBM defined the PC" is a phrase I don't know how to interpret. I guess, yes, IBM created the original x86-based computer with the monicker "Personal Computer" on it, aka the PC. But we all know that. But the phrasing makes it seem like there were all these PCs out there, and IBM set the standard for them. That's hardly true. The IBM PC paled in comparison to what else was available at the time, at least for the first few years of its life (until the IBM PC AT came along, and the typical PC had more than 64 or 128K in it).
exchange rate.
I think this is a smart play on IBM's part. If you can't make the margins on a particular product line, and don't expect to in the future, it's smart to sell the line while it has value. PeeCee business is a small part of IBM these days. $2billion and IBM market cap is almost $160billion. That's less than 1.3% of the company value in PeeCees.
Read some more from Yahoo finance..
I wonder what the foreign exchange implications are. Chinese currancy is tied to $US. $US is weak. Will IBM take pay in $US or some or all in Chinese currency? What will happen when Chinese currency eventually floats? Lenova says Dell is a strong competitor. Will this keep the deal from happening? Is anyone else looking at IBM's PC biz? Might Dell make a stronger offer? Would SEC allow this? Would a bid from Dell push Lenova to bid more than IBM is asking? Or will the whole mess fizzle into a 'let's watch the global economy for a while' doldrum?
It will be fun to watch.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Now the next time they upgrade they will actually have to think and do price comparison for their next PC Upgrade! If IBM PC are no longer IBM PC who will NYS buy from! This will be caos! State Employees actually working and making a decision on what they should upgrade too.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
How many times has IBM claimed to be getting out of the PC market over the years???
What next, Barney's Gumble going to give up the sauce?
Throughout the 60's and 70's, IBM was famous for their "Think" motto. Apparently that's missed by a lot of youngsters today, but that's why they're called "ThinkPads," I believe.
It is sad to see what a company that has revolutionized computers is doing. They should put more stock into business and got at it more aggressively than trying to sell those AS/400's and other proprietary stuff. When will companies realize that proprietary stuff doesn't sell anymore.
I hope they don't get out of the workstation business. We've had Compaqs and Xi's that self destructed, but the Intellistations kept humming along without a problem.
Many companies have IBM PCs on Lease, the reason they choose IBM was because it was a company they knew will stay thus maintain a consistant support service on their leased equipment. Will IBM support all there systems that they Leased or will NeoIBMPC Company handle the leases? Do they need to renagoate their contracts?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
At this point I'd like to point out that the PCs are not actual IBMs, but HPs. Yet, we all call them 'IBMs'.
** sees good ol' days coming to an end **
Love all, Trust few, Follow one.
People speak highly of the IBM warranty, do you think they'd repair/replace the screen on my T23? Warranty is up early in 2005. There is a group of small white smudges on the screen at the bottom, an inch or two up. It's not a group of stuck pixels, or something stuck on the screen, it looks more like a defect in the screen.
If you look really closely at it, oddly enough the smudges blend in. It's only when you're a foot or two away that it becomes noticeable.
Also, if you move the screen, it visibily pulsates around one of the smudges
Is this only desktops, or their PC-based server range too? They make very solid x86 boxes :-(
Okay so the subject is semi-lame. BUT.... here's a cool what if. What if a company committed to the high-standards of the Thinkpad line snaggs that part of the business? People are willing to pay the Apple Tax for quality, would they be willing to pay the Thinkpad tax? I think maybe there's a future for the Thinkpad in a niche market just like the Apples.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
About time - enough losing money on PC hardware.
They're the best company in the world and they know when to get out of a bad business.
For what it's worth, I agree - in the early- to mid-eighties, I knew *at least* as people that had Ataris (400/800/ST) or Commodores (64/Amiga) than I did people that had a PC or Apple. Apples were the providence of the schools; I only knew one person that had one at home. I had one friend early on that had a Peanut, and we all thought his parents must have been rich ;-).
Seeing as it's Dell, maybe they should call it the "SuckPad".
Dell is squeezing everyone out of the business. While IBM and HP spend chunks of money on Research and Development, Dell eliminates R&D costs by merely copying their best unpatented ideas and sell them at a lower price.
What will happen when Dell is the only PC player in town? I fear by that time, the PC will become a true commodity with no real innovation.
In a way, the market is telling these computer companies that they do not want innovation on their PC's. Perhaps this is setting up Apple for a windfall when Dell is the only player in town? By then, they will be the only ones who will be willing to innovate.
(Disclaimer: I just bought a Dell a few months ago....)
oh wait.
Kind of gives new meaning to "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".
Here
That's funny. To me, "letting buying decisions be controlled by design issues" means that I'd buy a machine that was fast, powerful and quiet even if it was ugly as sin.
For the record, I use a 17 inch Powerbook. I used to own a Thinkpad but the pencil-eraser-head-touchpoint thing used to drive me batty.
"There is no night so forlorn, no mood so bleak, that it cannot be infused with pleasure by tender meat..." - R.W. Apple
They are working a deal with Apple to start manufacturing and marketing an IBM branded Mac. Wait n see.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
I have three, one full size, and two of my favourite keyboard of all time, the Model M 84 Key Spacesaver.
/.ers... Long Live the Model M!
Loud enough to annoy your co-workers, strong enough to survive an Irish wedding, geeky enough to satisfy
--
So who is hotter? Ali, or Ali's sister?
Yeah, just google for "buckling spring keyboards" and you'll find a lot of people feel the same way you and I do. The problem is, I'm a pretty dedicated Mac user and I've never been able to find a USB buckling spring keyboard. If I had one, I'd never let it go.
"War makes me sad." - Me
If you think about it, IBM selling off their PC unit is good business- take a product that has razor thin margains and sell that capacity to someone else who has lower costs. Keep the cash and move upscale on what you want to continue to build.
The did with the Global Network (sold to ATT) and now they'll do it with PC's. At some point they'll spin off the high end stuff when its no longer needed.
Its the same argument you see with outsourcing today (or logic as they call it)-- keep spinning off lower-entry technology as you move up the chain.
I'm not saying its good or bad (or I agree), but just saying that I see their point in selling something that is totally a commodity to a manufactor who doesn't face the same cost structure.....
# nohup
My Thinkpad 390 (P1 233MHz) is still reliable as ever, and it is my primary laptop. Runs VI and SSH well, which is what I use 95% of the time.
I also cherish my low-tech Thinkpad... it's a small pad of bound paper, with the words "THINK" and "IBM" embossed on the cover.
Sad day to see IBM exit the laptop business. They are solid and worth the money. I always give the Thinkpads an excellent recommendation.
Well, aside from the OS (win 98se), its quality!
Thats not to say that I didn't have to use the warranty; when I DROPPED the laptop and the 802.11b pcmcia card sticking out screwed up the pcmcia port, thats no-ones fault but mine. The rest of the laptop worked fine.
And yes- Toshiba support was great and FAST.
I've had it for 5 years and the only problem is the windows running on it.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I must admit, these suckers are the most stable - in terms of software compatibility and durability. I've had a 600x and a T40 - and both are wonderful.
I did hear about some potential hard drive problems with the T22 or T23 models, however, they did a mass recall. At work, IBM brought a crew in that backed every unit up and restored the image on a new hard drive.
It's not only the hardware I'm going to miss, it's the servicing.
I only wish my employer would allow me to buy it back when the lease ends.
Yankel
--- Dan
"[IBM] deserves a large share of credit for taking the PC out of the hobby shop and into the mainstream."
What the fark? Werer you living in the same 80's I was? Are you daft? Sure, they invented the PC, but it was the clone-makers who brought it into the mainstream. IBM fought the commoditization of the PC at every posible chance. Remember MCA (Micro Channel)? That was nothing more than IBM's attempt to proprietize the PC and take back the market from lower-priced clones. While it may have arguably been techinically superior platform, don't think for a minute that's why IBM tried to move the market that way. They wanted either a) all PC sales, or b) large royalties from all PC sales.
Of course, the IBM of today is a very different company (for better or worse), but let's not forget they were unquestionably evil at one point.
"International Business Machines" so I'm pretty sure that's the official name of the company.
Blar.
But I have noticed that IBM only puts very old or very sucky video cards in them. And then they want to charge a premium for the laptop. I just can't buy that kind of a product.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Its foolish to send IBM thinkpad line. These laptops, especially X series, are the best PC laptops on the market.
In 1981, Apple ran a famous full-page ad saying, "Welcome, IBM. Seriously."
I wonder if Apple is going to run another full-page ad: "Goodbye, IBM. Seriously."
Of course they will, with the cheapass dell hardware and the efficient new microsoft OSes, the computers will work just as well as the nonexistant IBMs, and their uptime will be just as good!
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
The only thing I'm really going to miss from IBM is not longer in production anyway... the IBM Model M keyboard. That rocked.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
As I actually learnt 10 finger typing, I actually prefer the trackpoint over mouse / touchpad anytime, simply because with the trackpoint, my hands do not leave the basic starting position (left hand fingers on 'asdf', right hand on 'jkl;' - only the right hand index finger moves, and the thumbs (which usually only deal with the space key) operate the mouse buttons.
This definitely allows the speediest change between mouse and keyboard.
For a time I was contemplating getting one of IBMs external PC keyboards that had a trackpoint - the only reason I never bought them was that the external keyboards only had two mouse buttons...
Melchett: (coming out from behind the map) `Security' isn't a dirty word, Blackadder. `Crevice' is a dirty word, but `security' isn't.
Edmund: So, in the name of security, sir, everyone who enters the room has to have his bottom fondled by this drooling pervert.
Darling: Only doing my job, Blackadder.
Edmund: Oh, well, how lucky you are, then, that your job is also your hobby.
Melchett: Now there's another dirty word: `job'!
Edmund: Sir, is there something the matter?
Melchett: You're damn right there is something the matter. (heads for desk) Something sinister and something grotesque. And what's worse is that it's going on right here under my very nose. (sits behind desk)
Edmund: (protesting) Sir, your moustache is lovely...
Darling: What the general means, Blackadder, is: There's a leak.
Melchett: Now `leak' is a positively disgusting word.
Darling: The Germans seem to be able to anticipate our every move. We send up an aeroplane, there's a Jerry squadron parked behind the nearest cloud; we move troops to verloin, the Germans have bought the whole town's supply of lavatory paper. In short: A German spy is giving away every one of our battle plans.
Melchett: You look surprised, Blackadder.
Edmund: I certainly am, sir. I didn't realise we had any battle plans.
Melchett: Well, of course we have! How else do you think the battles are directed?
Edmund: Our battles are directed, sir?
Melchett: Well, of course they are, Blackadder -- directed according to the Grand Plan.
Edmund: Would that be the plan to continue with total slaughter until every-one's dead except Field Marshal Haig, Lady Haig and their tortoise, Alan?
Melchett: Great Scott! (stands) Even you know it! Guard! Guard! Bolt all the doors; hammer large pieces of crooked wood against all the windows! This security leak is far worse than we'd imagined!
For one thing, that ad was horribly arrogant, and they quickly came to regret it.
For another, Microsoft has taken IBM's position as the 800 lb. gorilla of the computer industry, and they (unfortunately) probably won't be going anywhere anytime soon. But if they ever do go tits-up, the party'll be at my place, and you're all invited.
Nice job plagerizing the NY Times
"International Business Machines, whose first I.B.M. PC in 1981 moved personal computing out of the hobby shop and into the corporate and consumer mainstream..."
Sound familiar? From the first damn paragraph. Come on...will slashdot ever be serious journalism?
The company I work for was standardized on Compaq.
When they got bought out by HP, we ran to IBM - a bit pricier, but it has been worth it.
Now who's left? HP? (blech - we've had a bad track record with them on everything except laser printers) Dell? (I'd rather not - they change configs more often than some change their underpants).
Any other suggestions out there?
'cuz iBooks and Powerbooks come with graphics boards that were dated before they hit the market. They've always lagged behind the PC in terms of graphics capabilities- at least since 3d accelleration started to mean anything to anyone.
When IBM Thinkpads are gone, who is going to :( This is like DaimlerChrysler selling
innovate in notebooks? No, I don't want any fancy-
schmancy 17" 9 pound entertainment notebook.
Yes, I want a workhorse I can rely on.
And yes, I want the HD airbag, the IBM support,
their firmware extensions, their recovery manager,
everything they did for making great business
notebooks
its Mercedes brand to Hyundai...
... are WHY I still have a four year old Powerbook and don't want to upgrade.
:|
:P
Hard plastic shell that's soaked a lot of damage- this was a point back during the Titaniums, when every other one I saw was cracked or damaged.
Media bay. Can't put two hard drives in current powerbooks- and how often do you use the optical bay, anyway? I haven't had a need for mine since I last installed OS and apps...
Covered port bay- something the iBooks ignore, though it's still a "feature" on Powerbooks.
Dual batter capability. The Pismo is the last machine with it.
Oh, and it's BLACK. So it matches the rest of my wardrobe.
Yeah, the new machines are kind of pretty, but a Powerbook is currently out of my price range and I've heard enough about broken iBook screens, hard drives, motherboards, cases, etc, etc. to not want to spend my money on one.
Upside of PCland is that there's a hell of a lot of choice in the laptop department, and it's likely possible to get some of the features I use that current Apple machine don't have (albeit at the expense of no MacOS).
The design weenies always seem to compare Sony laptops to Powerbooks, but it seems like IBM is the one to look at. O_o
I always considered IBM laptops to be the best of the best, and that was one of the main reasons I idolized IBM (that and its servers & Linux support).
You'd be amazed at the number of people, particularly over 50, who'll only buy IBM PCs. I'm talking about people who'll still buy IBM even if they're $500 more than the exact same PC or laptop without the IBM badge.
Actually most of the 1st tier venders sub-contract their laptop manufacturing to firms like Twinhead, Quanta, Compal, Mitac, Arima, Inventec & Vecta in Taiwan & often these firms will sell exactly the same laptops out the backdoor with generic branding, & I wouldn't be surprised if IBM does sell their Thinkpads at significantly higher price than the equilivent generics off the same production lines (some 1st tiers sign exclusivity clauses on their designs & have had to sack their contractors & hired others because they were caught selling identical generics 'out the back door'), but I'm talking about a markup that not even attempting to be competitive on price.
Really in regards PCs IBM should not even be attempting to trade on price or marketshare & just scale back production of PCs till they only need to cover the IBM at any cost market & just make up on the lost economies of scale by having a markup of at least 50% (preferably 100%)
Afterall what's better business wise? Having a significant share of the market & huge economies of scale, but barelly breaking even; or having a business that's over 90% smaller in regards marketshare, but having a $500 markup on those PCs they do sell.
Look at Morgan, they make a bigger net total annual profit on just the dozen cars they sell a month than billion dollar companies like Volkswagon or Ford Europe that have huge turnovers & marketshare, but are losing huge amounts of money, billions annually. To me that makes Morgan a more successful business than Volkswagon or Ford Europe. Of course a paper loss might not be one in reality if all the management in those mega-manufacturing companies are paying huge salery increases & bonuses to the thousands of employees above the lowest management grades, & are covering expansion/takeover costs. In which case in a sense the official loss is just to minimise tax & to make sure shareholders don't get to rake out a cut dividend wise, but that's another story.
Anyway back on topic, IBM needs to have some sort of range of PCs for IBM's Enterprise sector anyway, so they may has well add some economies of scale that comes from selling extra on the retail side to the IBM at any cost brigade.
Mind you I have to admitt that the IBM at any cost brigade is of a generation that's already entering retirement & early death, but no doubt there's still up to 20 years of business supplying these types till they're all gone.
That'd bite big time. It's one of the bennies of working for Itsa Big Mega-corp.
Too lazy to create a sig...
In the context of an ad blitz, "IBS" is theoretically no worse than "IBM", which could stand for "I have a bowel movement".
In a related story, AOL will purchase IBMs PC unit for an undisclosed amount of cash and stocks. One important change to the new AOL PC will be that the caps lock will permanently be on.
-Un
Yopu for you?
Actually IBM published their BIOS in the original PC's hardware technical reference manual.
And to avoid any appearance of copying, Compaq had to search hard to find the three people left at the time who had never seen that manual. Publishing source code without licensing it Freely is a good way to "taint" the programmer population with access to a copyrighted work, and it appears that Microsoft has picked up on this with the so-called "shared source" initiative.
I remember the old IBM 386 at my high school. Robust things, a giant box and small screen and a big clunky keyboard... not to mention the mouse, a big unergonomic and heavy object with clunky buttons as well. Ah, those were the days.
It is a sad day indeed. My First computer I got at the end of 1983 was the IBM PC Junior. 4.77 MHz, 64k of memory, Dos 2.1, 16 Colors, and a 300 bps modem. Man, that computer rocked!!!!! I was young then, but I still remember playing Jump Man, and the original Castle Wolfenstein. Several years later (about 1990) my dad traded it for a Gas Grill.... Too bad, I could really play some Jump Man right now.
I read the article, and it sounded like they were ditching the Aptiva line, as in desktop PC's, not the thinkpad or workstation lines.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Is that why the Apple slogan is 'Think Different'?
As a fellow RTP IBM'er, I'd like to point out that the IBM Thinkpad IS a Chinese made good, and has been for several years. Your solution is somewhat naive--how much of that product made by a "US corporation" was actually made in the US?
Oh, and problem with Durham's property values has much more to do with the city being overbuilt, with new subdivisions popping up every few months with no demand--get off of 40 near Southpoint mall or at 751 some time...
This in no way diminishes the fact that this sucks big time, but let's be fair here.
There's one thing I've been saying for a long time.
IBM has never fundamentally understood the personal computer. Sure, they helped bring it to market...but the entire reason why Microsoft were originally able to get ahead of IBM with DOS was because at the time, IBM still had doubts that the PC was ever going to go anywhere. I remember when I installed OS/2 once...there were tons of communications protocols for connecting to *mainframes.* The only protocol for inter-PC communication that I saw just about was TCP/IP itself.
IBM were originally a mainframe company...that is what brought about their heyday...it's what they've been doing since the second world war...it's primarily what they know. In that sense, their length of history with mainframes was working against them...they were so used to mainframes being the answer, that as ESR might say, on a gut level they just didn't truly grok the concept of the PC.
This is still a sad day however, because they were instrumental to the contemporary PC's adoption...Even if most of the time it was probably in spite of themselves.
I've not used any less than a few years old, but the IBM "IntelliStation" line of business-oriented x86 workstations has always been solid, sophisticated, and fairly standard in terms of components used.
:-)
IBM's consumer PC lines might be different - I've not used one of those since the first IBM AT was released.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I'd imagine this is worse than average, which is why we started buying IBM monitors after I'd been there a couple of months. In the 4.5 years we've been using IBM monitors, I've had 2 go bad. Total.
Which brings me to IBM's biggest strength, service. Anytime I have to call IBM for support, I speak to a real, living person in less than 2 minutes. I tell them the model number, serial number, and, for desktops, what part is bad.
And I have a replacement part the next day. They always say 3-5 business days, but it's almost always the next day. The monitors that I've had go bad, they just send a refurbed monitor, I box up the old one, and send it back. No boxing up my parts, sending them in, and waiting weeks to get them back.
I suppose I sound like an IBM fanboy, but only because of my experience. For a corporate environment, I've never recommended anyone else. I'd be extremely sad to see them getting out of the market. IBM makes great products, but I suppose people mostly buy on price. (except those nutty Apple users)
Redundancy is good And also good.
First they invented the hard disk drive, which they sold off. Then they created the PC, which they're selling off. They got rid of their printers too, but I don't think they invented any of that stuff.
Is there anything left at IBM that they actually invented?
aQazaQa
I remember reading somewhere that they signed a multimillion dollar deal to that effect.
I think Dell was involved in the same deal to, so Acer now manages a assembly plant for making Acer, IBM & Dell machines & all 3 companies combined to get a really good deal on Hard drives from the one supplier.
I think the reason why IBM is getting out of the desktop computer business is the fact that desktop computers on the PC-compatible side have essentially become commodity items. Indeed, nowadays you can assemble a homebuilt computer that is just as good as the brand name computers you buy at places like Best Buy, Circuit City, and so on at pretty reasonable prices.
But IBM isn't completely out of the building desktop computer components. Their POWER CPU technology has created superb big iron computers for corporate and government use, and the POWER CPU technology has created the PowerPC CPU used on the Apple Mactintosh computers and soon the Cell CPU used on future consumer electronics (Sony's Playstation 3 only scratches the surface of Cell applications). Indeed, the POWER CPU technology is (arguably) the only real competitor to x86 CPU technology, and in many ways is superior to x86 CPU technology thanks to not having to deal with legacy code of older CPU's.
Quit blowing BS. Any quick search of the calendar will show that the acquisition of Lotus came FOUR YEARS after the spinoff of Lexmark.
Speaking of non-strategic underperforming dogs, I wonder when IBM is going to jettison Lotus.
Another search will show you Lotus Notes is still successful and being used widely outside of IBM. Lotus has had its challenges, but that doesn't mean it doesn't provide value to IBM. There are also other reasons why IBM maintains Lotus beyond the core Lotus Notes product.
Apparently, you intend to use your post to bash Lotus, by drawing inappropriate connections between data. History did show Lexmark was more successful after being spun out of IBM, but it had nothing to do with Lotus.
IBM PCCO was never a friend of OS/2; they wanted to move hardware even if it meant bundling Windows to do it, and their attitude and actions damaged OS/2 in many ways back ni the early/mid 90's.
:-(
If Microsoft was OS/2's greatest "enemy", IBM's PC company may well have been its second-greatest.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I can name several very large companies that use Notes exclusively. P&G comes to mind, as one example.
One Can Never Own Enough Musical Instruments...
In my opinion, IBM got out of the PC making business years ago. Yeah, they are still in the PC (Proprietary Crapola) business.
Take my Netvista (please) at the office. It, like dozens of others, has had its motherboard burn up. Why didn't the network card work after they replaced it? Because it is a proprietary (extra long) network card which had not been stuck in their prioprietary, mutant, extended PCI slot.
I wish IBM was as passionate about offshoring its PC's as it is American IT jobs.
First IBM split off the pc desktop market and let a company that spawned from the old employees use the ibm name for their clones. Then they got back in the desktop market after they started the laptop line. Now they decided it time for the thinkpad to go...dont suprise me. What will surprise me is if they stay out of it.
Nice, very nice. I never thought of that, but it's probably true.
Actually most of the 1st tier venders sub-contract their laptop manufacturing to firms like Twinhead, Quanta, Compal, Mitac, Arima, Inventec & Vecta in Taiwan & often these firms will sell exactly the same laptops out the backdoor with generic branding, & I wouldn't be surprised if IBM does sell their Thinkpads at significantly higher price than the equilivent generics off the same production lines (some 1st tiers sign exclusivity clauses on their designs & have had to sack their contractors & hired others because they were caught selling identical generics 'out the back door'), but I'm talking about a markup that not even attempting to be competitive on price.
No, you've got it wrong. IBM might sub-contract to these offshore companies, but they still design ThinkPads in house. The only time they subcontracted design was with the Acer-designed and built i-series, and they lived to regret that boneheaded decision.
Right now, all the current ThinkPads are built to IBM specs. Anyone that buys the IBM Personal Systems division isn't going to care about the ThinkPad legacy as IBM Personal Systems did. Basically this means death for the ThinkPad as we know it.
My question: who sold Sam Palmisano the crack he was smoking when he made this decision? Darl McBride???
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
IBM & other business machines firms of the 19th century owed the US census for their existence, but that market wasn't big enough for them, so they lobby state legislators & county managers to introduce voting machines, leading up to the mess we have today of even single states having a dozen different types of machines.
But for them the US would still have the most simplest user friendly & quickest system of the lot - hand counted 'tick the box' plain paper ballots, like most of the rest of the western world. Although in many other places its the 'number the boxes in order of preferance' preferential varient, like here in Oz. But even having to number all the boxes in the huge upper house (Senate) ballot it still only takes me 20 minutes to vote, & that includes driving to the local school, parking, queueing up, voting, buying a BBQ sausage & onion sanga from the parents raising money from the school on the way out, & driving home. Bugger spending 30 minutes to 6 hours in a queue & then having to buggerise arround with bloody levers & punchcards, like they do in the US. No wonder most Americans can't be bothered voting. Compare that with Oz where some 90% of those legible are registed & over 98% vote (contrary to popular belief it's not compulsary for adults to register to vote in Oz & it's not comulsary for those that are registed to actually vote either. It's just compulsary for those that are registed to turnup to vote, IE get their names crossed off. Once one has one's name crossed off one need not vote if one doesn't want to). Yet even with attendence figures more than double the US, it's still only take some 20 minutes for some 90% of Australians to vote, including travelling & parking time.
I mean't "they're into..."
When I grew up in the 70's and 80's, it was also very common to also see home computers from Atari (400/800/etc), Commodore (VIC-20/64 and later the 128/Amigas), TRS-80's, Coleco Adams, and Texas Instrument machines.
Apples and IBMs were delegated to the more well-off families, until well after clones started appearing.
I'm not that knowledgeable on IBM history so maybe someone can correct me. But I thought there were two PC businesses within IBM. One of them is descended from the 'business systems' part and used to make PS/2s and before that the original PC, PC-XT and PC-AT. It now sells reasonably well-built workstations and servers.
The other PC business is descended from the PC clone business (marketed at various times as PS/1, PS/ValuePoint and Aptiva). These are the people who, even when IBM was heavily pushing OS/2, refused to sell a machine with anything except Windows.
So which group is being sold here? The big-blue-blooded servers and workstations business, or the evil cheap and nasty clonebuilders?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
See the problem: Apple and ... IBM-compatible. Not I-B-M.
The situation is the same today. Friends and family have Apples (Macs) or IBM-compatibles (PCs).
No wonder IBM is getting out the PC market.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Thinkpads are some of the best laptops in the business and are probably contributing the most to PC profitability for the company.
Is there a chance that IBM wants to re-invent the PC? If you remember, IBM has recently gotten together with redhat and novell, to discuss providing a more open architechture - based on the PowerPC.
Maybe IBM doesn't want to be another bit player in the wintell dual-opoly. Maybe IBM figures that the desktop game is a dead end, unless there is alternative strong enough to effectively compete against the windows/x86 desktop standard.
IBM is about the only company with the juice to possibly set another desktop standard.
Imagine the market share that Microsoft could yield with a PC and laptop market, not only designed FOR windows, but designed BY windows people. I definately am not a fan, but the $2 billion price tag seems almost incosequential to the capital possessed by MS.
What I think IBM plan to do is this:
1. Sell off the Windows based PC business.
2. Then start up a mass market line of 64 bit Workstations and Laptops running Linux on Power for both the corporate and consumer market.
3. Microsoft can no longer threaten reprisals on their PC business.
4. IBM clean up on the 32 to 64 bit conversion and get their revenge on MS and create a lot of business for their FAB plant.
Just a thought
"I personally have boycotted all purchaes of Chinese-made goods. "
So let me get this straight: When Americans impose their economic might everywhere, that's OK; but when someone else beats you AT YOUR OWN GAME WITH YOUR OWN RULES (ie, 'capitalism'), that's boo-hoo time?
You are the ones with the money-over-everything mentality, enjoy the end result, American!
IBM had a PC assembly factory in Oz but sold it about 3 years ago, a condition of the sale was that the factory would still supply PCs to IBM under contract (whether the buyer demanded that condition or IBM demanded that condition, I can't remember), along just-in-time lines, where they would manufacture each PC to a customised specification within a day of IBM recieving a order for the actual machine to that specification & the machine would then be sent out directly to the buyer. I remember reading a thing about this the Sydney Morning Herald's IT section. I thought it strange at the time as I thought IBM were pulling out of the PC market even then.
But even about a year ago I noticed a couple of IBM PCs for sale amongst the rows of demenstration models at a local computer super store. The 2 IBM models were pretty sparse & gave the appearance of bare bones enterprise workstations with base specifications & both had prominent signs listing IBM Lease terms & long-term support terms, so were obviously there for business customers. I think I recall noticing that they were assembled in Singapore or Malaysia, although it may have been Taiwan, as I remember reading about a year ago or more that both IBM & Dell were subcontracting manufacture of PCs to Acer, which built a new plant specifically for the job, & that those 3 companies had combined to order hard drives from the one supplier at a very good bulk price, it may have been Seagate.
Where it embeds your personal information and work habits in every packet it sends?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
I think though this has something to do with the pc business profitability, it is also a very good decision strategically. It is mainly aimed at Dell, in my humble opinion. Selling their pc business to current chinese pc leader will kill alliance between Dell and the Chinese pc company. IBM would also have a friedly ally in China as they would continue to buy pc from them when they win Chinese government contacts.
I'll admit that QNX has been far more popular than any of the others in my list, but I still stand by my statement that it will ultimately be just a footnote.
Well I have to take this out of my chest.
For quite some time, Linux zealots have been saying nothing but good things about IBM, well let me say this to you, do a litle research on COMPUTER history and you will see that IBM was a greater monopoly than M$, and it was much better in hurting users than M$ itself.
They lost the PC market because THEY WANTED MORE MONOPOLY POWER! And M$ fought a risky game with them, and won. I hate M$ like all here, but IBM is not better, an I go even further saying that if M$ didn't steal the reign from IBM, linux would be much more popular than it is now, yes IBM control freakness, would be good to linux. M$ has it's bad tatics, but IBM tried to push IBM/PC with MCA and OS/2 to the world to become the greatest monopoly of all, well it had to be them or M$, and guess what, I prefer M$.
Some IBMers will say, but OS/2 was much better and more stable. Yes, but it was more closed and incompatible(no drivers). So M$ gave the world an OS that could run on COMPAQ(IBM compatible, white box, EISA) PCs, opening the market for asian companies, DEll, etc. So the conclusion that I get is simple, the world sucks, but it would suck EVEN MORE with IBM in control, because nothing would interoperate, nothing would be cheaper, you would have to choose between, the SUPER EXPENSIVE APPLE AND IBM. Quite an scaring fact.
So please slashdotters, think when you praise IBM, it didn't die, because it was too big, and now they won't die because they have learn their lessons.
Oh... I thought you said "all together". ;)
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
I Agree, see my post below called IBM is not your FRIEND! THEY LOST PC cause of that to see if you agree with me too.
lol, how did you go from commodores and radio shack trs machines to a Windows versus Linux versus Mac arguement? I fail to see the linearity here in your arguement. Smoke some more dope dude.
;)
What is a suicidal troll? Must be someone who response to utterly stupid comments like you made?
The other GLARING thing you bring up is the Amiga. Nice unit for it's time. It's dead now my friend, except for a handful of religious zealots out there like to practice silcon based necromancy. And if I have my history right, it didn't come about (~1985) until after the PC (~1981) and the Apple (~1976) were both pretty well established anyways. Get your facts straight dude.
IBM has become too academic, too technical, and too services-oriented for its own good. It's not about how many patents the company can file each year. That's only half the battle. The other half is turning some technology breakthroughs into quality and headturning products that will build brand recognition. Technology companies that understand the power of design, such as Apple, will win in the future. Another example is Samsung. IBM CAN make a profit in the hardware business. They "just" have to change the way they approach the business and make design and innovation a top priority. There is so much potential there to make Thinkpads even better than they are today. Most importantly, instead of dumping the hardward division, I would recommend demolishing their marketing department and rebuilding it from scratch. After several years of "OnDemand" commercials, do people actually know what "OnDemand" means? Building brand identity with killer products that people can hold in their hands is the best thing a company can do for itself. Since IBM doesn't get that, like some people said, IBM might as well become IBS. And 10 years from now, IBS will probably get purchased from some new "media" startup like AOL...
Please don't quit the punchcard business!
You are correct that the IBM PC architecture came about by reverse engineering and cloning a proprietary architecture.
You are also correct that PowerPC started as a more open specification.
But in the end the market determines what really is "standard". Since IBM compatible PC's completely dominate the market with more than 90% market share, they have become the "standard".
Just like Microsoft OS's are the de facto standard of operating systems. Yes, if you look at details you'll see that Microsoft OSes are a completely propriety, closed architecture while Linux is an open architecture. But since the vast majority of people on Earth use MS OS's, they have become the standard by default since nearly everyone adopted them instead of any alternative.
I understand what you're saying about getting a reliable car. If you're just looking for a car to get you to work in the morning then a car such as that is a great choice. I had a Toyota Corolla as my daily driver and it did its job well. Putting an expensive badge on that car wouldn't have increased its value to me because that doesn't help its intended purpose.
That being said, Mercedes is a premium brand. Your average Mercedes customer isn't looking for basic, inexpensive transportation that gets them from point A to point B. Their customers are people with more money to burn, who are willing to pay the extra cash for a car with more amenities, who want to drive in style. You don't need heated leather seats to get to work, but some people want that and will pay extra for it.
Now that they own Chrysler, they'll sell those cheap cars under the Dodge name (or the Smart name).
But I do understand what the original poster was getting at. Don't sell off your prestige...what you're good at. Imagine Rolex selling their name to Timex. It kind of dilutes everything that made the name a Premium name in the first place.
The last comp I bought was chosen principally because it was quiet/low power. That's essentially buying on design decisions -- price performance it is a real white elephant, and in terms of components it doesn't even support USB2. I very nearly went with a silent computer instead, but 600MHz just sounded too painful after 3GHz.
And look at Apple. They're fairly well engineered, but the #1 selling factor for them is the nice design.
"When I was growing up (in the 80s), there were two kinds of computers that my friends (or, more specifically, our parents) had at home: Apple and the IBM-Compatible"
Where did you grow up Michael, under a rock?
IBM & GE both always gets out of any business line that has turned into a cheap commodity; its just good business. Nowadays, you can get a business workstation class PC on the cheap from most grocery store chains, and it simply isn't worth-wile to compete in that space anymore as innovation in the x86 market has been consolidated down to a few key players. IBM is slowly transitioning itself in the 86 space to a services/support/development power-house.
"He who has the most developers at the end of the day, wins the game".
IBM has been pushing Linux pretty heavily. I heard a rumour that IBM was making more on "Linux-related" products than on licensing its patents (however that is measured)!
I don't need to tell many Slashdotters that IBM is currently by far the best manufacturer of Linux-capable laptops. Software developers and researchers demand Linux more and more often, and while they're still in a minority, the minority is growing exponentially.
If IBM sells off its ThinkPad business, it will be much harder to persuade people to migrate to Linux, since a homogeneous environment is easier to support and since difficulty of installation is still perceived as a huge disincentive to move to Linux. As an IT manager who has installed Linux on numerous laptops, I can say that IBM is the only company that makes it easy.
IBM has been trying to position itself as the world leader in Linux solutions. If, through the selloff of its ThinkPad line, it becomes much harder for people to run Linux at home, IBM is hurting its long-term strategy.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I want one!
If ThinkPad development were to cease, what other manufacturer would you turn to? For instance, I love the keyboard on my ThinkPad and can't imagine being satisfied with anything lesser. Do any other manufacturers sell laptops with keyboards as nice as IBM's?
There is a very low probability that IBM will introduce a new PC product line based on PowerPC processors and Linux or OSX once they get rid of their legacy PC business. IBM is getting rid of the legacy PC business because of low margins. Selling PCs is a very low margin business because most of the margin goes to Intel and Microsoft. With all the talk about Windows security holes, this may be the perfect timing for IBM to dissociate completely from Microsoft. Linux for corporate desktop applications is still not a very practical solution, but IBM may be able to pull a deal with Apple to ship OSX on IBM branded Mac clones.
First off, you're required to vote or you'll be ticketed. Second, the number of Aussie voters who actually bother to fill out a ballot at all is about the same as the percentage of US citizens who vote. Small wonder it takes many of you Aussie's 20 minutes to vote.
PCs are what they are because IBM did nothing to prevent their own design from being cloned. The whole basis for the PC industry in built on illeagly produced IBM compatibles that were cheap.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Isn't that also a acronym for IRRATABLE BOWEL SYNDROME? I don't think the company would want to be confused with that!
Guess average slashdoter does not know the needle history of IBM.
That it has German roots. Surprised?
That it was at center of Holocaust. Surprised? That its origins were in mechanical punch cards in 1930S. Such humble origins.
If this doesnt register you dont know shit about IBM and its survival.
Would IBM sell its PC business arm or any part of its anatomy without better profits in site?
Not if it wasnt the best option.
Since i dont know when, IBM has arm twisted, drowned opponents and has survied.
Do not look at IBM through naked eyes. Get your binoculars and you shall know the truth.
IBM can survive anything and is not poor at calculating.
Well, since everyone else seems to be saying IBM laptops are so great, here's my opinion: I think they're OK, but I really prefer my 1997-model Micron XPE. I much prefer its design - I have yet to see a system that fits me better, that's half the reason I'm still using it - and I have to admit that the fact that it doesn't have so much proprietary garbage (the only thing I can think of is its TV out utility) makes running Linux on it so much easier ;-)
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
I've had mine for about a year, bought on ebay still under warranty. I had to replace the mini-pci modem/nic card, but it was cheap and easy. It runs Slackware great, except for the Winmodem, which I haven't bothered even trying to get running because I have the 10/100 nic and 802.11b. If I REALLY need dial-up, I can always boot into Win2k.
My place of employment gets Dells, and they seem cheap and flimsy compared to my Thinkpad. My thinkpad is like a big Volvo, where the Dells are like some cheap crappy car, maybe Ford Fiesta.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
That is because a lot of (younger) people let buying decisions be controlled by design issues -- a friend of mine has an incredibly loud computer at home - it isn't even a fast or very powerful machine. But the outer design is just "soooo cool". What a moron..
Are you sure the computer just isn't old? I know people back in the day that went all out with something like an Athlon 700Mhz processor, whatever Voodoo card was the top of the line, some of the more early 7200RPM drives. Very loud machine, but very fast at the time. Nowadays, they still have the computer, it still works though isn't much of a performer by today's standards. But it still has to dump all that heat somewhere.
In summary, you are describing what I call the "leader vs follower" business approach. Note that there probably is a better name for it, I've never studied economics, and have only really started thinking about how business and markets work over the last few years.
"Leaders", while they take assume higher risks, expect higher rewards, as compensation for taking those risks. A typical situation is that they end up creating a new market, which, because they are the creators, they end up holding a monopoly in it. Because they have a monopoly, they are free to charge what they like, as up until the point where what they produce looses its value when compared to what the customer is willing to pay.
Of course, "followers" are looking for less risk, so they choose to existing markets, rather than creating new ones. Also, because the market already exists, the competitive point of distinction between them and others within the market is usually "commodity" - something that all their competitors can also usually do, such as cheaper pricing, different locations, closer to customers, which also reduces prices etc.
Markets typically evolve over time from being new and monopolised by the creator, to common and existing, with a number of "follower" type competitors.
An interesting book which I've realised relates to this is The Science of Getting Rich. Although it doesn't directly describe markets, what it does describe, as one of the "sciences" of getting rich is change from a competitive mindset to a creative mindset. It criticises a competitive mindset because in competition there is always a winner and a loser. A competitive mindset has a destructive component, as one of the things it creates are losers. It suggests that to become a rich individual (primarily financially, and also more generally), in your area of financial endeavour, you should only create, rather than compete. As soon as you find yourself in a competitive situation, abandon it, and again move into a creative situation.
As a side note, the book is pretty philosophical, and, as probably was common for books written in 1910, includes a religious / spiritual sub-theme. This sub-theme isn't all that overt, and you can generally accept it with the view that all the measures suggested have good "karma". I still think the book is worth reading.
Companies that have a "creative mindset" fit in with the philosophy of this book. Not only do they create new things, which creates new markets, they are a monopoly within the market. As they hold a monopoly, they don't have any competitors. As they aren't competing with anybody, their aren't any losers.
A completely "creative" environment would create a world where everything would be proprietory. All products would have high prices, as there would only be one supplier. I'm not necessarily saying that situation would be ideal. Competition does have value, in the sense that it does drive the price down for products which have a large number of consumers. What you can do though is use the products of the "competitive" producers, and combine them in new, creative ways. The world then becomes a combination of "competitive" and "creative", with "creative" leading, and at the leading edge of the market.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
The operative word - which you used and ignored to take into consideration as important - here is "was". IE, past tense. IBM was a monopolistic power in the PC industry.
Furthermore, IBM didn't win the "PC battle" or whatever you're calling it. They lost. That's why we've got this x86 epidemic now: everyone makes them, and there's a lot of shit out there.
No, I don't doubt that IBM wouldn't mind getting monopolistic powers back, to some degree. But it simply isn't the case that they are monopolistic now, have been for the last 15 years, or even have the potential to be monopolistic again (due to Linux and other open initiatives both elsewhere and within IBM) in the same fashion that they were.
Your last paragraph brings to light your true motivation in this post. It's pretty fucking obvious to anyone with half a brain that IBM has no interoperability problems; their products are cutting edge and their innovations allow for nice, new things to be cheap a year or two down the line. Furthermore, IBM is embracing linux, the hallmark of interoperability in the software world. Get off the gack.
You are right that IBM won't die now because they learned their lessons. They were never in danger of dying anyway. You're, what, 12, 13? IBM is a massive, massive company. Their PC division is a very small fraction of their global operations.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Dear IBMer, first, I knew some of you would show up, and if you are not an IBMer, you are probably just a linux zealot.
:) just teasing.
And I never said they won anything related to PC, and the reasons they lost are simple as two words, incompetence and greed.
:) and when you do
The operative word - which you used and ignored to take into consideration as important - here is "was". IE, past tense. IBM was a monopolistic power in the PC industry.
Hehe, so you think that they are the good guys now? I should ask how old you are. Not you. You don't seem to have any experience in your life, so you think that behaviour would never come back? I prefer to think that it's more likely to come back than not. Time will tell. I'm just a careful guy.
Furthermore, IBM didn't win the "PC battle" or whatever you're calling it. They lost. That's why we've got this x86 epidemic now: everyone makes them, and there's a lot of shit out there.
You call epidemic, the world call this CHOICE my friend. Of course there are a lot of SHIT, and there are a lot of SHIT LINUX DIST AS WELL. Choice brings this, the best and the worse, not only the average. Why do you think there are 95% PCs against everything else? Competition, lower prices, more power each upgrade at the same price or lower. This dynamic, is the reason of the success of the PC, with x86 chips brought by INTEL and AMD, NOT BY IBM CHIPS. IBM could build chips(powerpc), they could do it all, but they didn't, because they would never be able to compete with this frantic upgrade cycle. I used Amiga computer, Motorola based,(later Powerpc), DEAD. I used Atari ST, DEAD RISCPC, DEAD, lots of others, ALL DEAD, because ecomomy of scale is what makes PCs so great. They were great machines, better than PCs at their time? YES, but they were more expensive, non-open, and lesse powerfull than any x86 solutions, in pure processing power. Epidemic? I disagree, the market has chosen x86. Apple not dead the same reason IBM, zealots. By the way, I use beige box since 486, I don't like spending too much money on computers, and suppport? haha, this don't work for people like me(I give support to the support people), and maybe you, a true hardcore geek hacker. What computer do you use? a MAC?
Your last paragraph brings to light your true motivation in this post. It's pretty fucking obvious to anyone with half a brain that IBM has no interoperability problems; their products are cutting edge and their innovations allow for nice, new things to be cheap a year or two down the line. Furthermore, IBM is embracing linux, the hallmark of interoperability in the software world. Get off the gack.
AS400, OS/390, MVS, etc, and the ugliest of them all, the crappy AIXit, that is the most non-UNIX(because IBM ALWAYS TRY TO MAKE THINGS THEIR WAY) of the unices, are capable of interoperability? with LINUX? and OS/2? hehe, what a mess. I would never call this gang interoperable, and don't forget windows, that currently RUNS THE WORLD on desktop. I'm no specialist in IBM, thank god, but I know from experience, since trying to install linux or freebsd on crappy aptivas, and NT4 on PowerPC, that they never run nice with other things other than IBM. And by the way, WHAT ABOUT THE "OPEN" POWERPC, the retry to gain PC market? what a disaster, now they have to join hands with Apple, haha, not in the worst nightmares Steve Jobs could see that coming. IBM is embracing LINUX, because OS/2 tanked, and M$ kicked their asses, and they want revenge. Like everybody that got screwed by M$, like 3COM, NOVELL(NOW SUSE LINUX), ORACLE AND SUN(NETPC), LOTUS(OPS IBM AGAIN), APPLE, etc Call me gack, I call you naive.
You are right that IBM won't die now because they learned their lessons. They were never in danger of dying anyway. You're, what, 12, 13? IBM is a massive, massive company. Their PC division is a very small fraction of their global operations.
Finally you are giving me some credit,