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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (446648)	1/11/2009 9:51:26 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574849

you've lost another argument and are trying to change the subject to how good or bad a company IBM is To be fair, I think IBM is an excellent company. But you made the point that marketing runs the company, controls its direction, etc., and I correctly made the point that IBM's failure to capitalize on the "IBM PC" brand is probably the worst failure in the history of the computer industry. If marketing is responsible for it, then so be it. You're the guy saying marketing controls the direction of the company. The reality is that IBM could have owned the PC business, start-to-finish, yet managed to let it get away from them. I submit that this happened solely because IBM's vision and creativity were hampered by its perspective on what "real" computers were. They saw the PC as having limited utility. While practically everyone else realized it was a sea change in the making. Now, it may be that they determined there was no money in it, I don't know. Or that they didn't want to cannibalize the business for the 5100, which at $15K/copy may have seemed to marketing like it had more potential;) At any rate, it got away from them. It did all the things the others said -- gave credibility to PC as a contender (after all, IBM wouldn't build one if they weren't the real thing, right?). But they had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to Boca to do it. Ask yourself why the an inferior PC became the overwhelming standard in the consumer space? I don't have to ask myself. But let's suppose for a minute that IBM had stayed out of the PC business altogether. What might have happened? - The PC business might have died altogether - Someone else could have captured the market, a little later on - A fractured market could have evolved Those are the three choices. Do you honestly think the PC would have died then and there? Of course you don't. IBM's decision to FINALLY develop the PC (keep in mind, they did so ONLY after people were openly saying, "Where is IBM on this small computer thing?") made it happen in 1981. But it was going to happen with or without IBM. Some of the other posts here have suggested otherwise, but they're clearly incorrect. You make the automobile case for me and don't even know it.. I don't know what you're talking about. I've never made any remark whatsoever about the American automakers' brands, other than to say that it isn't their biggest problem -- a fact about which I am obviously correct. I've told you that they lost me during the quality crisis of years gone by, so I certainly acknowledge the brand has been damaged, and I've never suggested otherwise. But just as IBM went from having 100% of the PC market as other competitors flooded in, so, too, did the automakers. That's what happens in a free market place. Success breeds competition. If they got rid of UAW and its insane drain on corporate resources tomorrow, they'd be able to weather the current crisis. They would be able to go into the capital markets and raise money, because lenders could see that it would, overnight, make them viable. And they would be able to turn things around. Would they still need to focus on improving their image and the quality of their product? Of course. Nobody has suggested otherwise. But elimination of the UAW would, overnight, eliminate the impending threat of bankruptcy and the need to bum money from the government. If you don't agree with this remark, then you don't understand the financial aspects of the business.