TO ALL: A few questions for the thread....
Dell bull here interested in your opinions...
In April, someone who claimed to have worked at IBM stated that IBM runs their PC business very much like a stand-alone...in other words, in fighting for capital, in trying to make money, the PC biz is viewed like any other biz in IBM's portfolio....Others (on the Dell threads, bear mostly) have predicted that IBM (along with HP and CPQ) will increasingly use the PC biz as their loss leader (in order to get to fatter service revenues/margins)....and sell boxes at ridiculously low prices in order to ge the biz......I dont see a lot of evidence for the latter view/prediction....In all I've read and seen on IBM, it appears to me that Gerstner is serious about trying to get the PC biz to make money (rather than take marketshare).......His crowing about the service margins makes me think that, one day, IBM is more likely to drop distribution/manufacturing of PC's (in order to free up capital to chase other, more profitable opportunities) before he would have a loss leader strategy with the PC biz (which would not even be necessary to accomplish service revenue growth)....The most likely scenario, IMO, is that IBM will keep making PC, but focus on profitability....which will mean a declining/flat/ or slightly increasing marketshare over time (after all, Dell, CPQ, HP and IBM should all benefit from the exit of smaller players in the computer biz over the next few years)...When (primarily) only a handful of comp. manufacturers remain (in a few years), it may be harder for IBM to keep distributing/manufacturing PC's for profit....
(Note: None of this is a commentary on some of IBM's other bizs, many of which look excellent)....Too bad you didn't keep Lexmark <g>
Thoughts anyone? Thanks in advance.... |
