IBM is the mamooth computer company in the world. It runs the biggest IT Consulting Services with IGS (IBM Global Services) and add more troops by acquiring PriceWaterHouseCooper IT Consulting Services in 2002. Simply speaking this ex Louis V. Gerstner elephant (now run by Sam Palmisano), is worth an 81,5 billions US dollars a year today, surpassing other competitors that in range 40-60 billions (Dell, HP is the closest contenders).
The only problem with IBM is, it runs too many hardwares. Too many OSes. And too many products to covers. I once worked for Lotus Consulting (IBM bought the company in 1995 after seeing Apple as a target), even the product manager is not aware on how to push the SmartSuite. Ouch! Too big that nobody is notice what’s doing what!!
In hardware side IBM runs all their machines based on POWER and PowerPC architechture. It’s really simplify the whole hardwares headache. One chip to rules the whole product lines. The only problem is when it comes to OS, IBM still have to maintain lots of *NIX product from OS/400, AIX, OS/390, zOS and many more I didn’t aware (forget the defunct OS/2, it’s even shows IBM lack of focus in managing its own portfolio).
Now when it comes to PowerPC business, the biggest customer for IBM’s PowerPC G5 is of course Apple. Apple ships millions of PowerPC based machines worldwide, and of course Apple has something that other vendor could only dream of today, Mac OS X operating system. An industrial strengh *NIX operating system that so easy to use in desktop and server environment alike.
IBM is also playing “ghostfather” (read: god father), when it comes to Linux. It’s spend billions of US dollar back up Linux operation, by investing in Linux, RedHat, and SUSE (through Novell’s hand). It even open up some of it’s jewel crown to be an open source solutions, Postfix, Eclipse, and many more.
With recent IBM PC division swap to Lenovo, IBM now has a bigger chance to once again compete directly with Intel in microprocessor business and Microsoft in desktop/server operating system. Buy Apple today, and make Mac OS X available scalable-wide from Notebooks, Desktops, Servers, and 32 processors PowerPC based Servers and BlueGene. And you gradually transition all the cost its hurdle to support those aging/and not mainstream OSes. Single OS for every machine.
To make the whole world back up your strategy, it’s now also time to look for Taiwanese partners, and again built standard PowerPC machine, and all sudden give the world a better alternative than current Wintel duopoly offering. PReP2 perhaps? or CHRP2 maybe? Remember PS/2 fiasco? Ouch.
As rhyme say “An Apple a day keeps the doctor away”, so why not get the tasty Apple today while you can?
Hello Sam, I hope you got the guts to pull the trigger! You’re the man, nobody has the biggest chance like you do.
Recent Comments