Tony,
What's special is that it IS IBM offering this deal, and it comes with Lotus Smartsuite, by the way! When a million lb. gorilla like IBM fires a shot like this, a major price war is on the way; you don't have to be a genius to figure that out....
Winners?.....consumers. Losers?.......Shareholders of AMD, INTC, even CYRIX as the uP market is further diluted and profit margins shaved. Same for the boxmakers. I'm not trying to argue any point, but simply point out that this further drives PC's into the commodity arena. It's going to get real bloody out there, and a year from now many players will have exited the scene.
As for Cyrix not having as reliable a uP as Intel, that may well be, but many potential purchasers, myself included, would rather have a warrantee backed by IBM than Packard Bell, Ace, or CTX.
As for IBM's future financial prospects, I have no clue as to what they might be, but I suspect that "Big Blue" is going to be on the scene for a lonnnnggggggg time into the future.
Cheers!
Knip
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