IBM expects hand-to-hand combat [see bottom]
news.com
By Reuters
Special to CNET News.com
March 19, 1999, 3:00 p.m. PT
HANNOVER, Germany--IBM, the world's largest
computer maker, said today that competitors in the
market for Internet devices will fight a decisive battle
within the next 18 months.
Mark Bregman, general manager at IBM's Pervasive
Computing division, said that the winners will be the
companies which can provide consumers with uncomplicated
and focused devices.
The losers will be companies like software giant Microsoft
that produce powerful but complicated devices, according to
Bregman.
Microsoft told Reuters on Wednesday that, on the contrary,
it felt well placed to succeed in the devices segment.
We will soon know the answer to these counter-claims, said
Bregman.
"In five years this will get settled, in fact I think it will get
settled in the next 12 to 18 months. In World War II, in
retrospect we knew when the decisive battle was, but it took
a long time afterwards to get the thing finished," Bregman
said at the annual CeBIT technology fair here.
Bregman said the Microsoft approach worked well in the
business world, but would be less attractive in mass
markets.
"The business model that
Microsoft has is very suitable
when you are in the platform
business because then the
customer wants to know it can
run all these applications. But
in the appliance market you
don't care anymore. What's the
operating system in your cell
phone? You don't know
because you don't care,"
Bregman said.
News from CeBIT this year has
been dominated by companies
competing to outdo each other
with new little computerized
communications devices.
Companies have been setting
up alliances to make sure that
whoever wins, they don't lose.
(See related story.)
IBM believes that in the next five to 10 years there will be
over one million businesses and one billion people using one
trillion mobile and network devices to communicate world
wide.
"What's happening right now is a sign of the fact that we are
in a state of transition," Bregman said.
Story Copyright © 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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