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
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...
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]
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?
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.
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
Is that why the Apple slogan is 'Think Different'?
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.