Word: ibm
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Will the real IBM please stand up? In recent weeks the struggling computer giant has stunned Wall Street with surprisingly strong first-quarter profits and has watched its stock price soar. Along with those gains, Big Blue has rolled out lines of powerful business computers that the company hopes will help to spearhead its comeback over the long haul; the versatile large and midsize machines can handle anything from banking transactions to running factory floors. "I think the worst is behind IBM," says Richard Zwetchkenbaum, who watches the firm for International Data Corp. John Coyle, a computer analyst for Standard...
...IBM remains tormented, as factions within the world's largest computer maker (revenues: $63 billion) fight for its very soul. Just last week Robert Corrigan, 53, whom IBM watchers credit with turning around the company's vital personal-computer business, abruptly declared he would take early retirement next month. The announcement marked the second high-level departure in as many weeks. Earlier, Gerald Czarnecki resigned as the IBM executive in charge of slashing the company's bloated work force and unbuttoning its culture, amid reports that he had been proceeding too slowly to please his superiors...
Worse yet, critics question whether IBM has truly developed a plan that will enable it to compete in the long run against feisty and fast-moving rivals at home and abroad. While chairman Louis Gerstner, 52, has revamped the company's finances in remarkably short order since he arrived a year ago from RJR Nabisco, observers both inside and outside IBM remain concerned about his lack of computer savvy. (At his first press conference after being named IBM chairman, Gerstner conceded that he did not know the brand of laptop he used.) Charles Ferguson, a consultant based in Cambridge, Massachusetts...
Gerstner is candid about the dissension within IBM's ranks as he seeks to rebuild the glory of a once all but invincible firm that has lost nearly $16 billion over the past three years. "There are still some very, very senior people in this company that I don't think have bought into the new IBM," Gerstner told Time in an interview last month. According to a recent survey of IBM executives, "We've got half of our senior management group that is excited and committed, first to the need for change and second to the type of changes...
...chip itself has provoked bitter conflict within IBM. Among other things, IBM hoped the PowerPC would break the stranglehold that Intel has on the production of chips for IBM-compatible personal computers. The partners also sought to end the dominance of Microsoft as far and away the largest provider of the operating system, or master software, that runs the IBM compatibles. But Corrigan had loudly doubted the wisdom of the PowerPC strategy before he stepped down as head of the personal-computer business last week, arguing that Intel and Microsoft were too entrenched to be dislodged by the new chip...