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buisiness news?
peter
 
 
 
IBM CEOs aren't fans of anything but revenue.


Regards,
Erik P. Olsen

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002 00:23:09 +0100 (MEZ), Sebastian Wittmeier (ShadoW)
wrote:

>On Tue, 29 Jan 2002 16:45:31 -0500, David Eckard wrote:
>
>>Thompson was leader of the software group for IBM.  The new CEO will be
>>Sam Palmisano. I have no clue how this will affect eCS, if at all.

>
>He is considered to be a great Linux fan.
 


--- In eComStation@xxxx, "Erik P. Olsen" <erik@xxxx> wrote:
> IBM CEOs aren't fans of anything but revenue.

Well .. yes and no. OS/2 has been sticky for IBM for some time because
of the accounts that use it. Gerstner would likely have killed off
OS/2 in 1995 if he could have. He killed off the applications group in
one day without notice saying "you can't make money on a $49 product".

But .. OS/2 is the line of business app for some accounts which
contribute significant revenue.  So, revenue is the issue ... yes. But
not just OS/2's revenue.  There are also issues of expense compmared
to revenue.

But ... the case for OS/2 has been going down for a long time. While
there still are significant numbers of the licenses used in
significant accounts  ... it would seem that the number has dropped to
a level where IBM can address this through contracts and services
instead of through a product group. That is much more profitable for IBM.

What does Sam P bring to OS/2 and eCS. IMO .. nothing new. When Sam
was with the PC company, back in the days when OS/2 was still marketed
and promoted by PSP ... he was a typical PC Co. exec. That is to say
he pretty much saw OS/2 as an inconvenience which none of his
competitors had to carry.

On the positive side .. he would be familiar with the industry. BTW ..
as regards being a Linux fan .. he has been working in the IBM server
group .. and, yes .. that is where Linux has really found a home.

Regards,

Lynx friendly