Crushing competition: After trailing rivals for years, sales of
International Business Machines Corp.'s mainframe computers are
booming, thanks to a new generation of faster, cheaper machines. Big Blue
is so eager to regain market share that it is cutting deals to buy competing
machines, such as Amdahl Corp.'s Millenniums and Hitachi Ltd.'s
Skylines, from customer sites and replace them with IBMs. So what does
IBM do with rivals' mainframes? It has quietly installed a
mainframe-crushing machine, much like a car crusher, at its Poughkeepsie,
N.Y., factory. In recent months, scores of competitors' machines have
been smashed, though an IBM spokesman declines to confirm the
existence of the machine.
Amdahl and Hitachi, which also buy
competitors' mainframes but resell
the machines and their parts through
brokers, aren't too happy about
IBM's move. "Clearly, Skyline has
touched a raw nerve at IBM," says a
Hitachi spokesman. Adds a
spokesman for Amdahl: "They can't afford to let those machines back out
into the market at any price so they are trying to take them off the face of
this planet. It looks like an offensive strategy but is actually a very
defensive strategy."
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