In Reply to: Re: IBM is dying posted by GrumpyGuts on 13 June 2004 at 05:44:01:
: IBM is far from knackered and has been in much tighter corners than it is now. It has an enormous customer base and benefits from it's reputation of being an "old established" and reliable IT company. And how many of those are still around in their original form.
Quite. "How many of those are still around in their original form?". What rule says that they should be. In fact it seems that IBM has had far longer a life than could reasonably have been expected. It is not surprising that its heading down. Regardless of IBM if a company can't grow then it will wither and over time die. That's an exponential process as with all natural processes.
Is IBM growing? No.
You do the sums. Last year of Akers? $66bn from memory. Last year? Take off inflation (compounded). There is no growth there.
IBM doesn't spend money today for no reason. Now think again about that glossy we all received recently from Larry.