Comments on: I Thinkpad, therefore I am

By: Patrix

Patrix — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 06:54:24 +0000

Chetan – I don’t think you can stifle innovative minds for long. The organization may change but you may see those innovative minds spring elsewhere. Competition always gets out the best in people.

Spaceman – HP unfortunately, even after its mind-altering merger could not compete with Dell. You just need to do things different, instead of different things.

By: Spaceman

Spaceman — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 22:02:27 +0000

IBM has always been a battalion of small companies with a common vision of devouring all the money – hardware, software, networking, services, what have you – that a customer wants to spend. So, this kinda comes as a surprise. Lack of innovation maybe? particularly if you contrast it with the way HP has been able to revive its PC business

By: Chetan

Chetan — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:41:01 +0000

It’s bad news because, so far in the notebook industry (except for Sony), nobody else has done a thing other than packaging components into the box; nobody else has done a butterfly keyboard that’d flip open wide when opened. Such innovation and design is lost for good when a company closes shop or sells it to an unknown bidder. They may sell cheap, but I seriously doubt if they’d rise above the crop of notebook makers to make a difference. And no, it’s definitely not because of sentimental reasons.

By: Patrix

Patrix — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 20:25:29 +0000

Smiley – Reinvention has always been IBM’s forte after it started faltering at the onset of the Information era but seems nicely poised now.Maybe this move to refocus its strategy might be good…pssst rumor has it that they may be interested in buying out Apple.

Chetan – For sentimental reasons, I agree this is bad news but guess in the fiercely competitive PC market, you gotta keep an eye on your bottomline.

By: Chetan

Chetan — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 08:17:06 +0000

This is bad news indeed. Atleast for Thinkpad fans. I felt something similar when intel abandoned their tiny microscope that I promised myself I’d get for my kid when she went to school.

By: :-)

:-) — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 06:09:11 +0000

Yeah..its a surprise how heartless business can be. Especially the American corporate never seemed to have any problem with ‘letting it go’.

IBM is reinventing (already did) itself as a services company.

But sometimes I wonder about the soft assets that get hurt when companies make moves like these based on balance sheet and stock price.

Assuming that the dudes who are leading IBM are 100 times smarter than I am, I cant do nothing much beyond raising an eye brow.