33years after creating the PC, IBM leaves it behind in favour of the cloud

Grazed from Phys.org.  Author: Editorial Staff.

With the sale of first its desktop PC business and now its server business to Chinese partner Lenovo, IBM has come full circle. By exiting the hardware business IBM leaves behind the low-end market it invented and returns to its roots in high performance computers, software, and a focus on the client.

Computer industry companies have to spot opportunities and ensure they change products to take advantage of shifting markets. It is an industry where leading companies can go from boom to bust in a short time, and there are many examples of those that failed to move quickly enough. The once innovative Sun Microsystems was swallowed by Oracle, the formerly cutting-edge DEC was bought by Compaq, and Compaq, instrumental in breaking open the PC market from IBM’s grip, was itself swallowed by HP. In the 1990s the world’s most popular computer games were written specifically for the 3D graphics chips from 3Dfx; just a few short years later the firm was bankrupt and snapped up by competitor Nvidia. Each had fixated on a certain product range, and failed to see the evolution of the market…


While many companies in the computing industry, especially those such as Dell that focus on selling mass-market desktop systems, try to understand what their existing product range should be and where it needs updating, IBM provide a good example of how a large corporation can at first lead, then detect where they are failing, and find a renewed focus…

Read more from the source @ http://phys.org/print327738305.html