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 […]
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.
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 […]
Readers have been asking me about the news that actor Ashton Kutcher is going to be playing Steve Jobs in an independent movie about the Apple co-founder to be filmed this summer. It’s fine with me, I suppose, but if we’re going to get all Hollywood about this, the business implications are interesting, especially for Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson, because it probably means a film based on Isaacson’s book will never be made.