Conceptually, what Gerstner said was that services and networking are the key to the future. PCs although still being bought were tiuted as the everything that would enable the customer (company) to put their solutions together (BTW, IBM's PC sales haven't been doing very well for awhile).
Gerstner used an excellent analogy of a car (in lieu of a corporation's IT solution) to demonstrate why services are and will be the critical piece going forward. The way the IT vendor market is, is like whena company wants to buy a car and has to buy the wheels one place, the engine another, the axels another, the tailpipe somewhere else, etc., etc. The IT client company executives are quite annoyed and frustrated so the solution is GO TO A SERVICES COMPANY WHICH CAN DO EVERYTHING.
Yes, this theory or modus operandi is excellent and YES CPQ seems to be doing ALL that is necessary to address IT Executives problems recommend the parts, sell the parts, consult and service.
Yes too, CPQ and IBM will be competitors for a long time to come .... and PCs will play a role but only a role.
Michael |
