One Million More Blogs, One Less PC Maker

It seemed there wasn’t any escaping the tsunami of blog news this week.

Microsoft launched
its MSN Spaces blogging service; online dictionary MW.com anointed ‘blog’
the word of the year; HighBeam Research tapped a Blogger-in-Chief; and
Bloglines’ trumped its international expansion.

It was all-blogs-all-the-time, until IBM news made waves of its own.

The New York Times brought the lingering issue to the forefront again
Friday when it reported that Big Blue is
mulling the sale of its PC business.

As I type this on my IBM Thinkpad, the report says the sale is “likely to be
in the $1 billion to $2 billion range” and “is expected to include the
entire range of desktop, laptop and notebook computers,” according to
unnamed sources.


That IBM is considering selling the division to a Taiwanese computer maker
may be the biggest open secret in the industry. Like clockwork, every earnings
conference call or analyst meeting brings up the same question: When are you
going to exit the PC business?

But even though the exit has been a foregone conclusion, it’s still
noteworthy because it’s one of the last steps in a significant strategic
shift that has been developing for years.

After all, IBM’s future is not about selling technology to consumers, it’s
providing the infrastructure of business computing. The company has
struggled for years in the PC business, noted analyst Mark Levitt, vice
president of collaborative computing at IDC.

Look where IBM, and the industry for that matter, is headed: up the stack. Big Blue is busy helping businesses build out the next wave of its computing architecture.

IBM’s hardware division is going gangbusters, as businesses upgrade their
creaky systems or are goaded into new purchases by federal data retention
rules. Its software group has built a major new foundation on middleware
with WebSphere lines, and is seeing very fast uptake across most
divisions.

Just last week, IBM noted that more than 100 ISVs have adopted
its latest Workplace Technology platform that supports collaborative
computing applications on much more than just desktop PCs.

As IBM itself said about its Lotus Workplace platform: Instead of relying on
a PC-centric approach to managing software, the Workplace platform is a
network-centric model that gives users access to only the software they
need, while allowing IT management to distribute and maintain employee
software environments based on unique job functions and requirements.

It’s all about APIs these days, and IBM is rapidly building a new ecosystem
with partners that help a new generation of networked devices serve up
applications and data. (More details on the client computing model are on IBM’s developerWorks site.)

And, of course, the lion’s share of IBM’s revenues come from its global
services division, which includes consulting and managed hosting.

Still, tablet PC makers as well as other PC makers must be licking their chops as a formidable competitor reportedly gets ready to retire from the PC business.

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