Well, somebody's got to reinvent the I.B.M. mainframe; profile: Irving Wladawsky-Berger
Article Abstract:
IBM Power Parallel Systems general Mgr Irving Wladawsky-Berger is tactfully directing IBM's efforts to reinvent the mainframe computer as a parallel-processing supercomputer. Tactfully, since IBM's core mainframe business, which generated $20 billion in 1992 revenues and continues to support thousands of employees, remains a sacred cash cow that the company would like to milk awhile longer before butchering. Wladawsky-Berger must also deal with numerous bigoted adherents of the mainframe religion who remain scattered through IBM's corporate ranks. They consider the 48-year-old University of Chicago physics PhD a cannibal for his efforts. Few industry observers doubt, however, that mainframe systems based on handmade bipolar processors, will soon go the way of the dinosaurs, yielding to the commodity microprocessor-based, $300,000-$1 million supercomputer systems that Wladawsky-Berger is bringing to life.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1993
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Notebooks may hold key to I.B.M.'s revival
Article Abstract:
IBM Personal Computer Co reaps tremendous success with its ThinkPad line of notebook computers, the top-of-the-line of which offers a color screen and costs $4,000. Less costly models, including a less-than-$2,000 3.8-pound machine, have also been introduced. IBM's success in the notebook computer market, the fastest growing segment of the microcomputer market, rivals that of Apple's PowerBook. It also demonstrates to the ailing giant there are advantages to remaining a huge corporation, if it is properly managed. The ThinkPad development team utilized the findings of innovative research by IBM laboratories worldwide and translated these findings quickly into actual products. In recent years, IBM has come up with respectable technology but has been slow in bringing products to market.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1993
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Computer makers told to get involved in rules
Article Abstract:
Edward J. Markey, chairperson of the House subcommittee on telecommunications, urges computer companies to participate in the shaping of federal standards for providing computer services to homes and offices. The congressman says that the Clinton administration's technology plan to build a data superhighway that will reach every home in the country will involve crucial steps to be taken in 1993 to set the plan in motion. Telecommunications companies are seasoned veterans in policy shaping; computer companies, however, have thrived without regulatory control and are therefore not used to dealing with Washington. By taking part in the shaping of the early ground rules, the computer industry can be assured of a role in the development of the data superhighway.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1993
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: Pulling one's weight at the new I.B.M. A leaner I.B.M. still must worry. Another outsider is appointed at I.B.M
- Abstracts: With first loss, Dell shifts gears on pursuing growth. I.B.M. official, passed over, to leave
- Abstracts: How the media distort the news. How to survive the referendum. The triumph of the superficial
- Abstracts: How did it happen; truth remains elusive at the Morin inquiry. Morin fights back: a murder case stirs the legal community
- Abstracts: Lesson for a high-tech president: the I.B.M. problem. White House: a computer nerdville: two mavens try to bring Executive Offices into the age of electronics