I agree that IBM is causing some, but not much, of Oracle's pain. The WSJ as much as said so today when they quoted a US SAP exec. who said they are shipping relatively more IBM and Microsoft dbase software than in previous years.
I think IBM is also responsible, alongside Fujitsu, for the recent bloodletting in the storage arena.
On the other hand, IBM isn't immune to the oversupply that this pain creates, so while they gain share, there will also be some margin pressures as a result of the pain they are spreading which would temper the good news.
On another note, I saw that Dongbu has pulled out of the IBM-Siemens-Toshiba DRAM consortium as a result of Korea's ills. When Motorola pulled the plug in 1995, considerable pain was felt at IBM because consortium members contribute cash to the development effort while IBM contributes mostly infrastructure and know-how. Like the MOT money, the Dongbu money was probably already budgeted in 1998, and will have to be made up elsewhere. |
