This is my promised column about IBM — the first of several on the topic, all to be delivered this week. The last time I wrote at length about Big Blue was in 2007. I have been asked by readers many times to revisit the subject, something I haven’t wanted to do because it is such a downer. Writing the last time I hoped the situation, once revealed, would improve. But it hasn’t. And so, five years later, I turn to IBM again. The direct impetus for this column is IBM’s internal plan to grow earnings-per-share (EPS) to $20 by 2015. The primary method for accomplishing this feat, according to the plan, will be by […]
Not your father’s IBM
Watch out IBM!
Back in 2007, when I was still writing for PBS, I posted a couple of columns about IBM that caused great consternation for the company. I predicted an acceleration in offshoring and outsourcing that upset IBM employees and customers alike. Thousands of IBM careers were about to be disrupted. The company denied my story and even, I’m told, made a few changes to its plan in response to what I had written. It showed the power of the blogosphere, how one person with a little insight and good sources can affect an industry. And it’s about to happen again.
This coming Wednesday I’ll post another IBM column based on a look I got recently […]
Microsoft AOL Patent Theater
Nothing is ever exactly as it seems in the business of technology and that certainly applies to AOL’s recent patent auction, won by Microsoft with a bid of $1.056 billion. This event wasn’t really an auction and had little to do with patents, yet it probably marks the peak of the current patent bubble.
On the face of it, AOL selling its 800 patents to Microsoft was about raising cash for the troubled online company, allowing it to pass some of that money on to disgruntled shareholders in the form of a one-time dividend or share buy-back. And the patents were substantial, since they included not just AOL’s own productivity but also that of Netscape, Mirabilis (ICQ), and any other AOL acquisitions over the years. […]
The Jack Tramiel we didn’t know
Jack Tramiel died this week at 83 and that means I missed my chance to know the guy. People have complained in the past that my work ignores Commodore, which Tramiel founded, and Atari, which he took over after leaving Commodore following a fight with chairman Irving Gould. That’s a fair criticism. I haven’t written much about those topics because, frankly, I didn’t know Jack Tramiel. But asking around about the guy yesterday and today it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t at all the way he was typically portrayed.
Here’s what most people know about Jack Tramiel: 1) he founded Commodore in Canada to make typewriters then digital calculators; 2) he was an Auschwitz survivor; 3) […]
Best Buy is Doomed
I have only visited Best Buy Intergalactic HQ once, to meet Geek Squad Chief Inspector Robert Stephens, but it reminded me instantly of the time about 40 years ago when my girlfriend and I picked-up her father from work at Bethlehem Steel. Her dad was a salesman and paid sales commissions but — like every other Bethlehem Steel worker — he punched a time clock every day. I don’t think they punch time clocks at Best Buy, but it has that same 20th century industrial feel that told me in 1973 that Bethlehem Steel was doomed. And Best Buy may be doomed, too, announcing last week the token closure of 50 stores, hinting at a […]
