That's a silly statement; as for creativity, if you measure by the number of patents issued each year, I can't remember the last time IBM was not first.
The number of patents is not an appropriate measure for creativity; some companies are just more assertive of their IP rights. And IBM certainly spends the money on R&D, which I think is great. My "creativity" remark was discussing specifically the PC, in which IBM -- the biggest brand in computers only 10 years earlier -- failed to add a single significant item other than its brand to the PC. And frankly, they didn't even do that well (by letting "PC-DOS" become the second best operating system for their own computers).
In the PC business, they blew it. They blew it because, as Al has said, they had the brand, as everyone else has agreed, they had essentially 100% control of the PC business, yet they gave it up in a lousy deal with MSFT for the OS. Then, I suppose, in trying to recover from that screw up, they added insult to injury with the OS/2 fiasco.
If they are so creative, why have they not been able to produce A SINGLE IMPORTANT INNOVATION in PC hardware or software? And to be totally frank about it, they are BLOWING IT EVEN WORSE right now with the mishandling of their Internet strategy. If it can be said they even have one.
Don't get me wrong. IBM has made money forever and in that sense is well-managed. But AAPL has been far more innovative and is a far better marketer. Even DELL is a better marketer (but is dying from a lack of innovation, amongst other problems).
IBM lost site of its business -- using the old Penn Central anology -- IBM was confused about the business they were in and basically allowed a big chunk that could have, SHOULD have, been theirs -- to be taken away from them.
That's all I've got to say on this subject. There is no end to it. |
