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To: Joseph F. Hubel who wrote (56232)	4/9/1999 2:16:00 PM
From: rupert1	Respond to of 97611

Posted 09/04/99 5:30pm by Linda Harrison IBM to offer entire range direct via Web IBM has confirmed it will sell its entire product range over the Internet from next month. Big Blue is due to unveil the Web site, code-named Project Odyssey, in May. The project, only for the US at present, may swell IBM cybersale coffers to around $15 billion, according to Business Week magazine. The site will target small businesses and consumers. There are no plans as yet to bring it to Europe, according to IBM IBM is no stranger on the on-line business, currently selling its Aptiva PCs and one ThinkPad laptop through its Web site. Last year it netted over £3 billion through flogging kit over the Internet. ®

To: Joseph F. Hubel who wrote (56232)	4/9/1999 2:17:00 PM
From: rupert1	Respond to of 97611

Posted 09/04/99 5:45pm by Mike Magee Will Dell buy IBM's PC business? Analysts are crawling over IBM's loss making PC outfit and are suggesting that Dell will take it over. But that could be a faulty analysis. Certainly the IBM PC people we're talking to are denying it, big time. Nevertheless, there are attractions for the Great Satan of Hardware. It has this humungous OEM agreement with IBM that it signed just a few weeks ago and Dell has this direct model that drives Compaq practically insane with envy. Further, Loot "Boots" Gerstner, IBM's CEO, has more or less washed his hands of the whole PC affair, despite the protestations of the PC division. During one of Britain's more famous sex scandals, the Profumo affair in the early sixties, one of the hookers involved, Mandy Rice-Davies, replied to a UK hack's point that the Minister was denying any involvement with the line. "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?" ®

To: Joseph F. Hubel who wrote (56232)	4/9/1999 2:18:00 PM
From: rupert1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Posted 09/04/99 5:54pm by Tony Smith Dell will ship iMac clone Dell CEO Michael Dell has confirmed the company will offer a Wintel-based iMac clone. Speaking at a press conference organised to persuade the industry and Wall Street that his company's long run of major revenue growth was finally beginning to slow down, Dell said the machine would ship in the next 12-18 months. Interviewed earlier this year, Dell said the iMac had been a "wake-up call for the PC industry", a line he re-emphasised yesterday. Clearly the product is some way off, but such has been the perceived success of the iMac for Apple, saving the company from extinction, in many observers' eyes, it makes a lot of sense for Dell to use it as allay the fears of Wall Street. It sounds like the right thing to do, and that may well keep share traders happy. This isn't the first time Apple kit has been cloned (in the broadest sense of the term; clearly we're not talking MacOS-based Dells here -- though you never know; if it's offering Linux, why not an alternative desktop OS?). Apple's original PowerBook notebooks proved so popular, they were quickly emulated by Wintel portable vendors the world over. Even the Apple II casing was ripped off for a few early Far Eastern IBM PC compatibles. Apple's problem has been retaining the innovation lead. The second generation of PowerBooks weren't sufficiently far ahead of the new, PowerBook-aping competition to persuade buyers to stick with the more expensive Apple brand. If Dell moves down the iMac road, you can bet the likes of Gateway and Packard-Bell will follow, and that will be a major problem for Apple if it hasn't learned the PowerBook lesson. Fortunately, the company's rapid roll-out of faster, more colourful iMacs (see yesterday's story) suggests that maybe the company is determined not to make past mistakes, but the real test will come when the iDell ships. ®