Yes, but most companies can't rely on the revenue from two gigantic monopolies to keep the zombie alive. It will take a lot more than the failure of the Kin (which it appears was set up to fail all along) to change the corporate and engineering culture at MS.
It saved the company in that it stopped the hemorrhaging of cash and gave them an actually profitable business model. Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s.
It killed them as a center of innovation. IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981. (No, I don't count Eclipse: IntelliJ idea came out first and better, and yet was eclipsed because IBM could afford to offer their product for free.)
Maybe that's the dilemma that Microsoft now faces. They can embrace their mediocrity, cater to their existing customer base, and continue to milk billions a year from their Winoffice monopoly. Or they can try to innovate. But most of their recent projects seem like they're trying to innovate and the coming out thoroughly mediocre, which isn't really a good combination.
Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s.
There is a problem with your timeline. My memory says that IBM only openly embraced open source in 1998, which means that it saved them later than you indicate.
Lemme look. (Searches, finds http://www.salon.com/technology/fsp/2000/09/12/chapter_7_par..., reads.) I was right. They joined the Apache Project in June. They released Jikes (a Java compiler for Linux) in July. In September it was open sourced. At the same time they ported DB2 to Linux. And, what I hadn't known, all of this happened at a skunkworks level. It was not until Dec. 14, 1998 that open source as an issue landed on Lou Gerstner's desk, and the decision was made that the whole company adopted an official policy on open source.
IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981.
Really? They introduced the AS 400 in 1987. I consider an operating system whose _average_ uptime in the field is better than 99.9% to be pretty worthwhile.
They commercialized gigantic magneto-resistance in 1997. That's in your hard drive right now, and gives it at least an order of magnitude improvement over what previous technology could do. I consider that pretty darned worthwhile as well.
IBM is a big company that does a lot of things. I'm sure they have some other cool stuff.
Other than those points, I agree with what you say.
IBM's "problem" is that they don't do consumer stuff.. So they can get slagged off as inventing nothing worthwhile since 1981 - because they don't make shiny toys like the iphone..
Your timeline is correct: the dam really started to break for open source and Linux when Mozilla got open sourced, and when Oracle announced they would release their Linux port. By the dot com boom, Linux was big business.
I'm not so sure. Thinkpad laptops are legendary. They've been spun off to Lenovo but they pretty much set the standard for quality business-grade notebooks. Steve Jobs even used them as inspiration for the updated Powerbook line upon his return to Apple.
They pioneered SOI manufacturing, BlueGene TeraFLOP super-computing, and several other major advances.
Also, their consulting business sort of set the standard for other big players in that market. IME it's not that great, but none of them are great, so kudos for getting there first and not becoming significantly worse! On second thought, lets forget about this one....
That is true (and I am very happily typing on one right now. Yeah IBM) but lets face it - they were sold to Lenevo because IBM couldn't make a profit on them.
> IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC
I have to disagree. The PC was not innovative at all - it was little more than a repackage of existing stuff. It's architecture was hugely successful in the market thanks to IBM's muscle and its poor judgement that allowed Microsoft to sell MS-DOS to clone makers.
But nobody should say the PC is innovative. The Apple ][, the Atari's (both 8-bit and the STs), the Commodores (the VIC 20, the C64, the Amiga) were all innovative, groundbreaking products.
The PC was a kludge. And mostly still is. Recently, playing with hardware detection I found out my Atom-based netbook has an ISA bus somewhere inside it. I wanted to wash my hands.
I would be willing to bet your Atom notebook has a chipset in it that would support an ISA device were it present on a non-existent ISA slot. But it does not actually have an ISA bus in the sense of something actually connected to those pins.
But most of their recent projects seem like they're trying to innovate and the coming out thoroughly mediocre, which isn't really a good combination.
Innovation and milking monopolies generally require different skills and attitudes. MS has tons of people good at the latter (starting with Balmer) and that very fact acts against them when it comes to innovation. Any innovation that happens (C# and LINQ come to mind) is limited in scope and is the work of individuals below senior management. These innovators have very little to do with steering the company.
If MS wishes to innovate they should start by firing or sidelining a lot of the entrenched senior hierarchy. Easier said than done.
Nope, IBM's open source efforts are generally 'lipstick on a pig' sex-appeal marketing efforts rather than something they are seriously invested in.
What IBM doesn't tell you in their PR is that mainframes are still very much the profit engine of the company. Although the money is more in support services and business process outsourcing rather than the actual hardware/software.
IBM makes its money from hardware sales and consulting. You need new hardware to run Linux. You need armies of consultants to post your "legacy" code. IBM is perfectly happy to save money on its software bill!
