Tag Archives: IBM

Another sign of the death of the PC

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  Steve Ballmer, MSFT CEO

Well, “death” might be overstating the facts, but unit growth in PC sales is essentially flat and revenue from so-called “netbooks” is actually falling precipitously.

The latest evidence of this trend:  for the first time since 1996, IBM’s market cap is now greater than Microsoft’s. IBM has strategically focused increasing on software and technology consulting services and is far less reliant on computing hardware than is Microsoft, given the fact that Microsoft is the dominant seller of PC software. Big Blue sold its personal computer business to Lenovo back in 2005.

The PC is falling in importance in because of tremendous growth in mobile devices and tablets (make that the iPad).

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Who doesn’t want to be IBM?

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Anyone who can think, that’s who.

Fake Steve Jobs outlines a story that IBM is pitching to the press right now. He claims it will appear in some publication soon. He claims it is bogus. And he is right. This take is worth reading in full. And by all means, follow his link to the pitch in full text. Long, but I have a feeling it is quoted verbatim.

Yup. That’s it. Everyone wants to be like IBM. Big, lumbering and fucktarded, with no product innovation in the past 20 years; earnings propped up by financial engineering; profits goosed by carrying over surpluses in the pension plan; numbers made by selling off pieces of the company, bit by bit; aggressive cost-cutting by moving thousands of jobs to India; retirees screwed out of their benefits — yup, there’s a fucking bright shining city on a hill, a model for every company in the world to imitate.

He may be a fake Steve, but he is not a fake reporter. You could do far worse for technology news than reading Dan Lyons every day. What is interesting is that his best reporting is in his Fake Steve persona.

By the way, if you haven’t read his book, Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, you should.