Word: opel
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...chance. Under the direction of John Opel, 58, who became chief executive officer in January 1981, the firm has been acting like its brashest competitors-entering new markets, chasing the latest technology, trimming organizational fat and selling more aggressively than ever. In 1982, IBM had profits of $4.4 billion on sales of $34.4 billion, making it the most profitable U.S. industrial company. Says Stephen McClellan, author of an upcoming book on the computer industry: "In the 1970s, IBM was a battleship in mothballs. Today it is a fleet of killer submarines...
...laboratories to satisfy that demand? Opel is clearly not ready to sit back and relax despite his company's achievements. Says he: "We've got an enormously successful operation. Therefore you could be complacent; you could play it safe and not change. All the natural forces in the business pressure you in that direction." But one sign that the pace of the past two years will continue will be the arrival of a home computer, which IBM originally code-named "peanut." This will sell for about $700 and could reach stores in late fall. The machine, fully compatible...
...under its aggressive new chief, John R. Opel, 57, IBM has launched itself in a new direction by marketing a small, low-cost personal computer. The creamy white PC (for personal computer), introduced in August 1981, has set a standard of excellence for the industry...
...Even Opel finds it all a little amazing. Says he: "Who would have believed ten years ago that we'd have computers in the home?" With his professorial manner and horn-rimmed glasses-he is known as the Brain among colleagues-the mastermind of IBM's policy shift hardly seems the sort to upset an Apple cart. The son of a hardware-store owner of German descent, Opel joined IBM in his home town, Jefferson City, Mo., in 1949 after studying at nearby Westminster College and getting an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. For ten years...
...effort to get IBM out of a slump that had hit it in the late 1970s, Opel soon started shaking things up. The company began opening retail stores, not only to sell such staples as electric typewriters, but also to position it for a move into the fast-expanding personal computer field. In 1980 top management secretly gave the go-ahead to an engineering team, cloistered at a plant in Boca Raton, Fla., to begin designing a small computer (the project was code-named Acorn). Twelve months later, the PC was rolling off the production line. Breaking with tradition...