Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
IBM serves a market that doesn't want or need a lot if innovative stuff. Faster drives, smaller one, ones which run in less cold rooms, yes. Things requiring software changes? No.
I'd have to disagree with you. IBM works in many innovative areas.
Just to name a few:
- JStart BigData analytics
- IBM Connections for enterprise knowledge management.
- IBM Websphere
- Supercomputers being used in healthcare and academic research (i.e. Watson)
- IBM SPSS: The premiere statistics and analytics software for predictive algorithms.
Just looking at Watson, I don't see how you can suggest that IBM is not catering to markets that are in need of innovative "stuff". Healthcare requires quite a bit of innovation.
IBM technologies are also very much involved in PCs (Windows and others). Many PCs today have SSDs which started at IBM research labs in the 60s and 70s. BIOS was an IBM technology (now replaced by Intel's U/EFI).
I actually am in the market for a new computer, probably a laptop, and Windows 8 has been a major factor in the delay of my purchase. If they wanted to copy Apple so bad by appealing to the aesthetic preferences of end users, they should have kept their operating systems for tablets and desktops separate, or at least their interfaces. There's a reason why they have iOS and OS X. A phone or tablet interface does not necessarily work on a laptop or desktop.
In reality, though, it's probably only a small part of why PC sales are at where they are. I'm typing this on a computer that was purchased for me in August of 2002. I have not upgraded the CPU or even the RAM (of which I only have 512 MB). While it does not handle complicated Flash websites well and certainly will not edit the HD video content I am producing, it does access City-Data just fine, as well as my OpenOffice spreadsheets and even can edit full-resolution images I take with my 2012-model digital camera in the GIMP. If my computer was only 4 or 5 years old rather than 10.5, I would have little incentive to replace it. Compare this with running a 1992-model computer in 2002. Even my expensive 1996 computer was showing its age as early as 1998. Desktops and laptops don't become obsolescent as fast as they did in the past; the advances in technology have seemed to primarily benefit the mobile sector of the industry. Which brings me to the next thing...
People just don't use desktops / laptops (PCs) as much as they used to. Most people are passive consumers who are fine as long as they have their Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix. They crunch numbers only at work; their photo editing needs are limited to what Instagram gives them; and tweak-ability and customization are more of a deterrent for them rather than a benefit, as more options tend to complicate the experience. Apple has done a great job targeting these kind of people with their iPhone (interestingly, they also have an edge in many producer markets). They find that they can accomplish these tasks just as well or better with a phone or tablet than with a full-out PC. Unless your friends are all techies, look at your Facebook news feed and see how many items originate from a "mobile" device (if their new feed format even says at all). Heck, my friends in Mexico, who studied programming in school, barely ever use their desktops or laptops any more; cheap Android phones or Blackberries fulfill their needs.
Good point. I got my first desktop in 86, a turbo xt which seemed fast at the time with a 600 baud modem. Over the time between then and into the late 90's it was replaced three times and each was dramatically different in performance. When that last one died, about ten years ago, I got a used, repaired laptop. I'm on the third one now, but one was stolen and the second had a short problem so it wasn't for performance. But the actual experience of using it with the exception of the vista one which was stolen, hasn't been much better than the previous and nothing I do on a computer could need more.
What I want is a simple tablet reader, something big enough I don't have to squint. I don't have an internet connection on the phone since its too small to read comfortably. I want to be able to read my own word perfect files. Maybe take the ebook and add that capacity and a few simple functions. And don't charge so much its not worth it. I'm not going to watch movies on it or do much surfing on it or the rest. Hook in a phone setup and an internet connection might be worth it.
Almost everything else comes in degrees of complexity. You can get an alarm clock which is a clock with an alarm up to one which you can program with your digital music collection. You can buy a cheap coffee pot or one with all the bells and whistles. Why do we not provide computers which do the basics and are perhaps upgradable if you choose to later, but don't come with the load of problems making a something for everyone does?
I'd have to disagree with you. IBM works in many innovative areas.
Just to name a few:
- JStart BigData analytics
- IBM Connections for enterprise knowledge management.
- IBM Websphere
- Supercomputers being used in healthcare and academic research (i.e. Watson)
- IBM SPSS: The premiere statistics and analytics software for predictive algorithms.
Just looking at Watson, I don't see how you can suggest that IBM is not catering to markets that are in need of innovative "stuff". Healthcare requires quite a bit of innovation.
IBM technologies are also very much involved in PCs (Windows and others). Many PCs today have SSDs which started at IBM research labs in the 60s and 70s. BIOS was an IBM technology (now replaced by Intel's U/EFI).
I was speaking of your average business with grandfathered systems that they don't want to have to redo thanks to a new operating system. The bank had a couple of systems which ran fine but were twenty five years old written in the pre-simplified assembler code. There was no reason to have to change what worked. Nobody like the switch to the OS system at the bank since they had to put up with delays and questions about how things were done they hadn't quite thought of in a while. They were the people who made the decisions and approved the funding.
Yes, they have some divisions who do amazing stuff. Watson and some of the AI work they've done are incredable. But if you run an IBM system and have been running it for fifteen years and it works you likely are never going to tell them it doesn't have enough bells and whistles for you. That is the market which made and and still keeps the basic income coming in because change is not a good word to the guy who would have to mess up his month if they improved the system too much.
One day that will be a touch screen and 90". Presenters won't have to have a laptop on a podium, or one of those cheap remotes that never seem to work. They won't need a projector that blinds them if they turn into it.
You can already buy a Smartboard. These have been out for years already.
Sizes are measured in FEET not inches.
If you have never seen how a large company does damage control from the inside, the somewhat surreal proceedings are a bit hard to understand. Microsoft’s current strategy to re-brand the failure of Windows 8 is equal parts masterful and disingenuous.
In case you haven’t been following Windows 8 sales recently, or should we say lack thereof, it is a debacle. The release of a new OS usually spurs computer sales, even the lamentable Windows Vista spurred sales quite a bit, as did Windows 7. While I can’t find a list of historical PC sales by quarter for the relevant time periods, the yearly trend shows pretty clearly that the trend has been steadily and significantly upwards almost without deviation.
If this estimate is considered then the operating profits from PC operations imply that Apple generates more profit than all the top 5 PC vendors combined.
PCs are lke refigerators now;only bought when the old goes bad.
That's not true for avid gamers.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Declare war on microsoft. Who will save us?
Microsoft tries a new Windows 8 damage control message
