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IBM PC: the end of an era
By Joe Barr
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December 04, 2004 (8:00:00 AM)
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Commentary: So IBM is looking for a way out of the PC business. Big Blue's personal computer division is going to be sold. It's hard to believe after all these years, even though the PC business at IBM has never really recovered from the kidney-punch Microsoft delivered to it by withholding licensing for Windows 95 until 15 minutes prior to launch. The malignant monopoly was just as open to the possibility of competition in those days as it is today, so IBM had to be punished for daring to push OS/2.
For those of us old enough to have already been in the personal computer market before IBM's entry, the launch of IBM's personal computer was a signal-event. In one fell-swoop, all of our arguments to management and fellow workers about the importance of personal computing were magnified and validated.
I had been using a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 at work, writing my own applications for it which I used to track work flow. It stood out in the office like a Dallas Cowboys fan in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Less than a year after the launch of the IBM PC, I was officially part of a team developing new applications for it. And this was at EDS, a firm best known for its COBOL and mainframe skills. The point being that prior to IBM's entry into the field, personal computers were nowhere. Following the entrance of the IBM PC, they were everywhere.
Revisionist historians of the personal computing revolution might have you believe that it was a firm in Redmond that led the way, but don't you believe it. Microsoft has never led, and indeed in the beginning they were simply going along for the ride. The problem is that while IBM was providing the leadership -- and completely upsetting the apple cart as it did so -- it had no idea at all of the consequences of its actions and decisions.
The selection of an unknown vendor to provide the operating system is but one such example. How about the opening of the system unit and the publication of the BIOS code? In those days, if you dared to open the case on a Radio Shack system, you immediately voided the warranty. IBM chose not just to open the case, but to invite others to build hardware you could put inside it. Not until it got hit with the backlash from trying to extort money from those same vendors with its MCA licensing did IBM realize it was too late to try to close the box again. Open was already on the loose.
There were a few missteps along the way: the PC Jr, for one. But I have stronger memories of the good things like the rock-solid good clickiness of those big, heavy AT keyboards, and of the quality and innovation embodied in a long line of Thinkpad laptops.
It's been a good run. IBM -- without ever intending to do so -- has turned the computing world upside down. I'm sad after all this time to see them go. After all, IBM was also the first major player in the industry to begin to appreciate the second revolution in personal computing. The one involving free software projects like Linux and Apache.
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Not to mention that BG's Mother (with all due respect) had a high seat
on the IBM advisory board and had much influence as did his Father with
major business clients of the day. The silly stories of Hollywood fame
that Gates & Gunn-Allen "begged for a Voice before the King of the
Computing Realm (IBM) while hacking a Micro-soft version of DOS at the
last minute" is pretty much fictional.
I live next door to the nephew of one of the original workers from the
MITS factory here in ABQ. Funny how stories get changed around when in
print/film compaired to the ones from those that "were actually there".
IBM is known to do this every 5 years , they say there getting out of the PC business and then suddenly they annonce that they are back. Getting rid of there old infrastructure at
an immense profit will doing so.
IBM make its money on its patent portfolio and its service side , the PC division is loosing money almost every years.
IBM never fully embraced GNU/Linux , they just joined in when they taught it whas profitable for them to do so and they only joined in certain area they knew would not interfere too much with there current business.
Whe may never know what kind of signal to the IT world IBM removing entirely Windows from its own PC line might have done.
an immense profit will doing so.
IBM make its money on its patent portfolio and its service side , the PC division is loosing money almost every years.
IBM never fully embraced GNU/Linux , they just joined in when they taught it whas profitable for them to do so and they only joined in certain area they knew would not interfere too much with there current business.
Whe may never know what kind of signal to the IT world IBM removing entirely Windows from its own PC line might have done.
I still got mine... Original IBM PC -modified with
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 04, 2004 10:43 PM
I still got mine... Original IBM PC -modified with the works... 10 MB external hard drive, RAM card, CPU replacement (turbo card to make it a 286), etc.
But, I still got the original parts...
I remember that when the single sided floppy drive died that the Folks that sold it to us would fix it for around $1000. I called up an outfit I saw advertised in PC MAgazine and PCCONNECTION folks sold me one for around $100 and on the phone helped me to replace the drive (it was easy to do and from then on I have built most of the PCs I have used). I even got into building custom servers with advanced SCSI controllers for customers who wanted to buy something (however did not want to pay $5,000 for a computer just because Dell or someone was selling it with the "SERVER" name (made money on the labor and a bit of a markup on parts)! However, I never made money on the Microsoft software because the was competition and that part of the bidding kept me selling it at cost!
Same with the Citrix stuff... Always bidding and so never marked up the price on the ICA server stuff! With Citrix, I never made money selling thet product when I was Certified with them (they kept wanting me to go to stupid classes to get additional levels of certification when they had a version change and I refused because it was just a profit center for them AND I was one who suggested some of the features early on the got built into the NT4 product before Microsoft told them they could not do it because MS was going to... so, some of my suggestions ended up in the MS product instead)!
Anyway, back to the IBM getting out of the PC business. I think that area is too crowded with DELL and everyone already... and I think that the virtual machine stuff mixed with the Terminal Server stuff (a-la Tarantella, LTSP, NoMachine) is the future for all business apps anyway... so - there will be fewer PCs with harddrives out there and more Terminal Clients... unless you are doing a graphics application you don't need local CPU with Hard Drive and speed of processing for graphic rendering... in fact the most complex of this is being leased out from cluster centers like HP is leasing out CPU cluster time to Dreamworks and other multi-media companies!
SO - At home, yes folks will have PCs that will be all dolled up to do all kinds of entertainment funtions... at work fewer and fewer PCs will exist (the TCO is cheaper with terminals)!
Goodbye, IBM started the whole thing with the IBM PC and I got that piece of history... and they may be starting companies down the road of the data center, terminal server, provider instead! It just makes dollars and sense!
But, I still got the original parts...
I remember that when the single sided floppy drive died that the Folks that sold it to us would fix it for around $1000. I called up an outfit I saw advertised in PC MAgazine and PCCONNECTION folks sold me one for around $100 and on the phone helped me to replace the drive (it was easy to do and from then on I have built most of the PCs I have used). I even got into building custom servers with advanced SCSI controllers for customers who wanted to buy something (however did not want to pay $5,000 for a computer just because Dell or someone was selling it with the "SERVER" name (made money on the labor and a bit of a markup on parts)! However, I never made money on the Microsoft software because the was competition and that part of the bidding kept me selling it at cost!
Same with the Citrix stuff... Always bidding and so never marked up the price on the ICA server stuff! With Citrix, I never made money selling thet product when I was Certified with them (they kept wanting me to go to stupid classes to get additional levels of certification when they had a version change and I refused because it was just a profit center for them AND I was one who suggested some of the features early on the got built into the NT4 product before Microsoft told them they could not do it because MS was going to... so, some of my suggestions ended up in the MS product instead)!
Anyway, back to the IBM getting out of the PC business. I think that area is too crowded with DELL and everyone already... and I think that the virtual machine stuff mixed with the Terminal Server stuff (a-la Tarantella, LTSP, NoMachine) is the future for all business apps anyway... so - there will be fewer PCs with harddrives out there and more Terminal Clients... unless you are doing a graphics application you don't need local CPU with Hard Drive and speed of processing for graphic rendering... in fact the most complex of this is being leased out from cluster centers like HP is leasing out CPU cluster time to Dreamworks and other multi-media companies!
SO - At home, yes folks will have PCs that will be all dolled up to do all kinds of entertainment funtions... at work fewer and fewer PCs will exist (the TCO is cheaper with terminals)!
Goodbye, IBM started the whole thing with the IBM PC and I got that piece of history... and they may be starting companies down the road of the data center, terminal server, provider instead! It just makes dollars and sense!
I switched from Dell laptops to IBM ThinkPad.
My ThinkPad is the greatest portable computer for Open Source about.
Why can't IBM use the PC for brand presence to support their businesses in Server Hardware, Services and Business Software ??
Why can't they make a healthy profit from laptops?
My ThinkPad is the greatest portable computer for Open Source about.
Why can't IBM use the PC for brand presence to support their businesses in Server Hardware, Services and Business Software ??
Why can't they make a healthy profit from laptops?
IBM is not going out of the PC business, they are just dumping the WinTel PC business. Part of their master plan they have been implementing for the last couple years is to revolutionize the PC again. With their Power PC, especially CELL model, new PCs will have new shape and character. We will have PC with or without hard drives. PC that will connect to a grid, mainly for business and to a certain extent for homes. The CELL Processor jointly with Sony <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=23434" title="anandtech.com">http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=234<nobr>3<wbr></nobr> 4</a anandtech.com> will be the killer of WinTel PC. the big winner will be Free Open Source/Linux. Stay tuned folks.
The CELL Processor jointly with Sony http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=234<nobr>3<wbr></nobr> 4 will be the killer of WinTel PC. the big winner will be Free Open Source/Linux.
Nothing's going to kill WinTel(*) until pigs fly out my arse. There's just too much market presence. Sure, Mozilla and OOo will make some good headway, but Linux will make much less headway on the client and home PC end, since the preponderance of commercial and ISV apps are written for Windows. Besides, most people have too much inertia to change.
* That includes all makers of x86 chips.
Nothing's going to kill WinTel(*) until pigs fly out my arse. There's just too much market presence. Sure, Mozilla and OOo will make some good headway, but Linux will make much less headway on the client and home PC end, since the preponderance of commercial and ISV apps are written for Windows. Besides, most people have too much inertia to change.
* That includes all makers of x86 chips.
... to finally get out from under Microsoft and Intel. They already make Power-PC-based motherboards in the ATX form factor; all they have to do is sell 'em as "workstations" and servers with Linux.
I'd be delighted to buy a laptop Linux workstation from IBM.
I'd be delighted to buy a laptop Linux workstation from IBM.
As the actual manufacturer of the Apple G5 processor, IBM does have some real insights into its performance. The present Apple software doesn't begin to employ the power of these chips. IBM knows this. They also know Windows on Intel is a dead duck. Good time to shed that business!
Reading the articles, it would appear that IBM wants to get out of all hardware, since services, etc, earns 10 times hardware. I'm sure that they would continue to dip their toes in new developments (like this 'cell' processor), just to keep current.
I doubt that. Yes, IBM makes more money from services -- it's been that way for many years. But IBM also knows that its hardware sales drive most of its services revenues.
It is well worth noting that IBM has been chafing under Microsoft's rule at least since the OS/2 mess. Since then, IBM has been looking for a great big stick to clobber MS with. Here is what they seem to be looking for
1) some way to regain significant control in the PC marketplace. (as long as MS and Intel control the comodity end of things, IBM is out of luck)
2) some way to make a service oriented computer model work for hardware. (their original model was hardware leasing, and they want it back-its more profitable than selling hardware)
IBM has a specific plan for accomplishing just these tasks. They announced a couple of years ago that systems based on the power 6 server series chips will be price competitive with servers based on the intel x86 series chips. This "cell" processor sounds to me like a gutted power 6 just like the G5 is a gutted power 4(if I remember right).
The other part of that plan has to do with its support of linux. Played right this can move MS into a position of no importance(though not necessarily insignificant).
All in all, each of these moves is specifically to unseat vendors who can and do keep IBM captive, and to recreate the original pure services model, which did include hardware, but in a service oriented fashion.
If you think about what I have said, and you find that there is any truth to it, you should realize that over the next few years we should see prices for IBM computer equipment dropping -- and, indeed that has begun happening, just about on the schedule that IBM announced 2 years ago. (they can't move too fast or their server sales channels that account for some 3/4 of their sales won't be able to stay in business.) BUT, if IBM really does regain the control it had, I would not be surprised to see the old predatory, high priced tactics return. The best scenario I can forsee for the consumer would be if IBM succedes well enough to make Intel and MS compatibility pointless, and there are 2 or 3 other major vendors who are also competing for the consumer and business markets. Preferrably if there are at least 2 or 3 other common processors besides Power, x86 and Itanium.
It is well worth noting that IBM has been chafing under Microsoft's rule at least since the OS/2 mess. Since then, IBM has been looking for a great big stick to clobber MS with. Here is what they seem to be looking for
1) some way to regain significant control in the PC marketplace. (as long as MS and Intel control the comodity end of things, IBM is out of luck)
2) some way to make a service oriented computer model work for hardware. (their original model was hardware leasing, and they want it back-its more profitable than selling hardware)
IBM has a specific plan for accomplishing just these tasks. They announced a couple of years ago that systems based on the power 6 server series chips will be price competitive with servers based on the intel x86 series chips. This "cell" processor sounds to me like a gutted power 6 just like the G5 is a gutted power 4(if I remember right).
The other part of that plan has to do with its support of linux. Played right this can move MS into a position of no importance(though not necessarily insignificant).
All in all, each of these moves is specifically to unseat vendors who can and do keep IBM captive, and to recreate the original pure services model, which did include hardware, but in a service oriented fashion.
If you think about what I have said, and you find that there is any truth to it, you should realize that over the next few years we should see prices for IBM computer equipment dropping -- and, indeed that has begun happening, just about on the schedule that IBM announced 2 years ago. (they can't move too fast or their server sales channels that account for some 3/4 of their sales won't be able to stay in business.) BUT, if IBM really does regain the control it had, I would not be surprised to see the old predatory, high priced tactics return. The best scenario I can forsee for the consumer would be if IBM succedes well enough to make Intel and MS compatibility pointless, and there are 2 or 3 other major vendors who are also competing for the consumer and business markets. Preferrably if there are at least 2 or 3 other common processors besides Power, x86 and Itanium.
The Apple 1 was released in 1976. OK it didn't do much, but the Apple II, released the following year, was a big success. The IBM PC was not released until 1981. And there were many PCs that came before both, like the Commodore VIC-20, the Commodore PET, the TRS-80, CP/M, Heathkits, and lots more . See http://www.pc-history.org/ for a short history. http://www.old-computers.com/news/default.asp is a great site with lots of information about old computers.
Hmmm - first PC was the Altair 8800 - which was even less useful in base form than the Apple 1. The Apple II was released about the time of the first West Coast Computer Faire - I was there and didn't remember much about the Apple II (but did get a flyer). The machine that made the most impression on me was the Compucolor (also made quite an impression on Jim Edlin of the early days of PC Mag).
What made the Apple II a roaring success was Visicalc. Similarly, what made the IBM PC (and 86-DOS -er- MS-DOS) was Lotus 123. Microsoft Windows didn't take off until version 3.0 - the big selling point was that Windoze, not the applications, took care of the hardware drivers (printers, vidoe cards, etc).
What made the Apple II a roaring success was Visicalc. Similarly, what made the IBM PC (and 86-DOS -er- MS-DOS) was Lotus 123. Microsoft Windows didn't take off until version 3.0 - the big selling point was that Windoze, not the applications, took care of the hardware drivers (printers, vidoe cards, etc).
You're right that IBM's was not the first personal computer, but their entry into the field is what legitimized the personal computer industry.
"In those days, if you dared to open the case on a Radio Shack system, you immediately voided the warranty."
These days, if you open the case on a Dell, HP, or just about anything not DIY, you void the warrenty. How times have changed.
These days, if you open the case on a Dell, HP, or just about anything not DIY, you void the warrenty. How times have changed.
I'll be darned. I didn't realize we had come full circle on this.
Another site mentioned IBM's profit was sporatically $100M some years - other years negative. The popularity of IBM's Thinkpad, especially, provided their plus profit margins.
Question: How much does/would IBM pay in advertisements/promotions of Linux?
Compare this with the profit margins of their Thinkpad. Wouldn't it be more economical, as well as Linux supportive, to "painfully absorb the $100M per year profit" versus paying for their Linux PR ads?
Also, 'good will' I understand to be of econmic value. Isn't IBM throuwing away some of their 'good will' in PC hardware by vacating a mere "$100M per year profit margin"?
Question: How much does/would IBM pay in advertisements/promotions of Linux?
Compare this with the profit margins of their Thinkpad. Wouldn't it be more economical, as well as Linux supportive, to "painfully absorb the $100M per year profit" versus paying for their Linux PR ads?
Also, 'good will' I understand to be of econmic value. Isn't IBM throuwing away some of their 'good will' in PC hardware by vacating a mere "$100M per year profit margin"?
was no personal computer market before IBM's entry
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 07, 2004 08:13 AM
As I remember it, before IBM they weren't called "Personal Computers." There were "home computers" and "microcomputers," but the term "PC" was pushed by IBM marketing.-- sorry for ranting, but it's a pet peeve of mine.
"I have<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... memories of the<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... rock-solid good clickiness of those big, heavy AT keyboards"
But why keep only the memory? I am typing on an AT keyboard now.
10 years ago my company replaced IBM ATs with faster clones, tossing the ATs into the skip. But I savaged several AT keyboards and tossed my junk new one instead.
In fact I salvaged half a dozen to keep me going for the rest of my time, as they wore out. However I am still using the first - it has been hammered daily for ~15 years. It's built like a tank. I cannot comprehend the modern obsession love of lightness and fliminess.
Now and then I take it apart to clean it, and I pop off all the key caps into mild detergent to clean off the grime. Now I think of it, it could do with another wash now.
But why keep only the memory? I am typing on an AT keyboard now.
10 years ago my company replaced IBM ATs with faster clones, tossing the ATs into the skip. But I savaged several AT keyboards and tossed my junk new one instead.
In fact I salvaged half a dozen to keep me going for the rest of my time, as they wore out. However I am still using the first - it has been hammered daily for ~15 years. It's built like a tank. I cannot comprehend the modern obsession love of lightness and fliminess.
Now and then I take it apart to clean it, and I pop off all the key caps into mild detergent to clean off the grime. Now I think of it, it could do with another wash now.
i am also a huge fan of the Model M (have a few and love them dearly), but what about when we start finding mobos with no PS2 ports?
ps2 to usb adaptors are expensive and do not work well (most have a big of lag to them, or have kludgy settings that must be configured).
anyone know where one could purchase a PCI card with a PS2 port or two on it? or a way to convert PS2 to USB without expensive devices that suck?
USB to PS2 adaptors are common enough, why is it difficult to make a PS2 to USB?
ps2 to usb adaptors are expensive and do not work well (most have a big of lag to them, or have kludgy settings that must be configured).
anyone know where one could purchase a PCI card with a PS2 port or two on it? or a way to convert PS2 to USB without expensive devices that suck?
USB to PS2 adaptors are common enough, why is it difficult to make a PS2 to USB?
And a fine job thy did Thank you IBM
Corrupt Staff Did IBM PC Division In
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 04, 2004 09:18 PMNo wonder IBM strategies never seemed to work.
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