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- From: hwhalen@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Hugh Whalen)
- Subject: Re: Future of OS/2 and IBM????????????
- Message-ID: <1992Dec16.152535.12204@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca>
- Sender: Hugh Whalen
- Organization: Faculty of Administration, University of New Brunswick
- References: <1992Dec15.210437.934@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> <1992Dec16.072137.28867@sequent.com>
- Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:25:35 GMT
- Lines: 54
-
- In article <1992Dec16.072137.28867@sequent.com> furballs@sequent.com (Paul Penrod) writes:
- >In article <1992Dec15.210437.934@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> ashwath@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Ashwath Ram) writes:
-
- [Stuff about IBM laying off 25,000 people deleted]
-
- >
- >I think it would be prudent to ask the question as to where the
- >cuts are coming from. Remember, IBM has started decentralizing it's
- >busineses and while the PC products Division may be going great
- >guns, their mainframe division may be suffering terribly, so you
- >might find the cuts coming from a source that has little to no
- >impact on the product (OS/2) that you are currently using. Also,
- >IBM is among the most conservative of the blue chip stock companies
- >and has long earned it's reputation as a stable commodity in the
-
- Ahem .... stable? I believe that around 1987 IBM stock was trading at
- approximately $178 per share. Yesterday it was trading at $56 per
- share. God help us if this is stability. :)
-
- >volatile stock market. This implies that they have planned for this
- >and are trimming the fat from the company to be come more
- >competative.
- >
- >While the numbers are gargantuan as compared to someone like
- >Borland or Microsoft, it represents a much smaller percentage of
- >IBM as a whole than Microsoft. I would not worry about OS/2 support
- >suffering. Right now, it's becoming a cash cow for them and they
- ^^^^^^^^
-
- Cash cow? I don't think so. The most optimistic numbers I've heard are
- 2 million units sold. Lots went out at what ....$49. Others have gone
- to retail outlets and since the retail outlets have to make a profit
- the full price of these units did not go to IBM. Subtract costs for
- disks, manuals, suppport!!!!, bug fixes!!!!, shipping, order taking,
- advertising, beta testing, etc. and there is no way that this product
- *at this time* is a cash cow. If IBM got an average of $50 per unit
- sold then they received at most $100,000,000 from OS/2 sales. This is
- not much in a company that has over $50,000,000,000 in sales. It is at
- most .2% of their sales.
-
-
- >have announced plans to integrate it into their other system
- >platform. As long as people continue to buy OS/2, IBM will continue
- >to promote it's growth and useability.
-
- Maybe, in fact, probably .... but more as a matter of strategy and ego
- rather than the dubious fact that it's a cash cow.
-
- Hugh Whalen | Where all men think alike, no one
- Faculty of Administration | thinks very much.
- University of New Brunswick | - Walter Lippmann
-
-
- DISCLAIMER: Neither UNB nor I care what the other thinks.
-