Rudedog, other than several points either not being valid or being downplayed, you shouldnt wade into a conversation you dont understand.
First of all, regardless of all your points on "just how profitable or big a player is in all these markets", the point that I was trying to make was that IBM is in almost all sub-sectors of the Computer sector.
Now about your points...
Sounds good until you look at how much of that revenue stream is captive maintenance for the legacy products. Where the S390 and AS400 go, GSD will follow.
So exactly what is wrong with the "Legacy services" that IBM makes money on? I know MSFTies like you think the only computer industry that exists is that which runs on a PC or Risc box. I hate to tell you that IBM still makes (and plans to continue on making) a lot of money on your so-called "Legacy" services. So, services are services and IBM make some good coin on these services. Sorry if the whole world doesnt operate on a MSFT-based Intel PC.
As for the AS/400 revenue, these units are still very popular and are now being positioned into IBM's E@Commerce push. Say what you want, but the AS/400 business is strong and IBM also receives great after-sales IGS revenue from them as well. (I know Rude, its not an Intel box so who cares).
What market is this? One that does not include HP apparently. BTW I have it from a pretty reliable source that IBM is going to phase out AIX as soon as they can manage a replacement, they have determined that it will not get critical mass in the developer community and that they would do better to get behind another Unix, probably Solaris. Just a rumor???
LOL - now thats a greatrumour!!! LOL Rude, I am going to have to tell that to the boys over here. They will get a good laugh at that. First of all, as for your marketshare, I did take HP into account and IBM is still second to Sun in Risc system sales. With IBM's new copper technology and some other developments, IBM is expecting to make a geed run at SUN for the lead (I personally think its still too big a task to beat SUN in these sales). I was just at an internal presentation on the future of the RS/6000 and all I heard was how IBM's new chip technology will give IBM the edge in this area over Sun. Sorry, but I'll give you credit that you made a completely unique rumour on that one. But I will pass your runour onto the IBM SI board and see what they think.
Not just hard to believe, impossible. MSFT passed IBM in SW revenue in 2Q98. It made the trade press here in the US, maybe they don't send that kind of news to Canada.
So now who is forgetting something. Once again you have quite nicely left out that evil "Legacy" component to your formula. I know that you consider your definition of Legacy technology as not important, but many real-world companies do.
IBM's software is simply some PC based "non-enterprise" softwar like that which MSFT produces. It also includes revenue from DBMS, RS/6000 OS and apps, AS/400 OS and Apps, s/390 OS and apps, Java, educational, business software, networking software (i.e. firewalls), etc. Software is software - even if it does not run on an Intel computer.
SO, in your limited view of the world (a view that MSFT lives in) you would likely be correct that MSFT has higher revenue than IBM in PC-based software, but expand your mind. There is other software out there. So, I repeat myself - IBM's revenue is 2 times greater than MSFT.
As for IBM's PC and server market, I didnt say they were the leader in the industry. I said that IBM makes good revenue on PC and server sales. I also wouldnt count IBM out in this area. Remember, that IBM sells their large corp. accounts, "End-to-End" solutions whenever they can, so on those large outsourcing arrangements - you can bet that they will put a lot of influence on evergreening PC systems with IBM product. So I really dont understand your point on the PC systems. IBM is a major player in the PC system sales - like it or not.
PS - IBM even makes money on financing all these other sales.
Clearly you have a PC-oriented view of the world, but, let me assure that IBM is not going away anytime soon. Although I can see by how fast IBM's stock is flying up that maybe they are going under - LOL!!
But thanks Rude for a more intelligent response - its better than I normally get from this board. I will pass on your runours to the IBM board and see if they heard anything. I'll get back to you on that.
Toy |
