Currently viewing the tag: "IBM"
ONE of the biggest back-from-the-brink stories of the 1990s was IBM.
After suffering a staggering $8.10-billion loss in 1992, the lumbering giant turned its declining fortunes around by transforming itself from a hardware company to a dominant provider of software and services.
MOST people who pass Manila City Hall every day hardly pay attention to the the old clock tower that rises above it. The beige structure with two red clock faces capped by a brick-red dome is a fixture, a decades-old landmark from another era. Fewer people, still, will realize that the clock tower was put there by a pioneer of the technology business—IBM.
A few months ago, Toys R Us announced that it was considering selling its toy business. It seemed a bit odd that a company would sell off the heart and soul of its business. What would be left?
Now, it seems, IBM may be doing the same thing.
In 1993, the kind old gentleman of the local PC industry, James Yu of Yutivo Corp., gave me a copy of Big Blues — The Unmaking of IBM, which chronicled the decline of the world’s biggest computer company. The note that Mr. Yu attached to it said: “It is a dramatic industry we are in. Hope you will find this book interesting.”
TWENTY years ago this month, a small team of renegade engineers inside IBM sparked a revolution. Although they didn’t know it at the time, their Aug. 12, 1981 launch of the IBM PC would shake the world—recreating an entire industry; toppling giants and creating new ones; and changing the way corporations around the globe use computers and access information.
