Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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).
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.
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...
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!
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.
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
*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]
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
Seeing as it's Dell, maybe they should call it the "SuckPad".
Kind of gives new meaning to "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".
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.
--
So who is hotter? Ali, or Ali's sister?
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
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
Do they need to renagoate their contracts?
Runagoat?
Reameagoat?
Reamagoatse?
Rimagoatse???
Oh, renegotiate!! God, I have a filthy mind.
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.
Is that why the Apple slogan is 'Think Different'?
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'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.
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.
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.
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
The situation is more complex than that. Part of what made the IBM PC division the 'worst thing' for OS/2 was just the fact that the PC Division and OS/2 were both under the same corporate umbrulla. For Compaq to, say, ship a PC with OS/2 installed meant paying a substancial per-machine license fee to IBM, one of their direct competitors. This is completely counter-intuitive to the way to compete at that point in time in the PC business. It was much more attractive to pay a per-machine license to Microsoft, an entity that was NOT a direct competitor.
Few people acknowledge this reality. OS/2 being closely tied to a PC Vendor was bad for it's spread.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"