Alex Wright

Bigger blue

June 14, 2004

News.com on the fall and rise of IBM. Nothing too startling here, but a decent recap of the last few years' doings among my former paymasters. The first installment paints things in mostly rosy terms, falling just short of descending into an all-out puff piece when the authors finally manage to wax skeptical about IBM's latest enterprise buzzphrase, "on-demand computing":

[T]he definition of on-demand remains inexact to almost everyone outside IBM. Some customers associate it with other industry trends and jargon, such as "utility computing" or "hosted outsourcing services." Those most skeptical of the concept reduce it to little more than a repackaging of existing goods and services.

"On-demand reminds me of the emperor with no clothes--there's nothing there that's new or different," said Michael Cusumano, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. "It's mostly hand waving on the part of a few technology companies that are trying to get people to buy hardware and services." > News.com: Bigger Blue

File under: Ephemera

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