On Jul 12, 2013, at 1:37 AM, Timothy Sipples wrote:
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IBM never seems to have acquired or internalized the value of the
concept of a loss leader.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "loss leader" here. Certain pricing
practices can be illegal, and to my knowledge IBM doesn't do
illegal (or
unethical). But that point aside I still disagree. There's ample
evidence
for my disagreement in IBM's annual report. Take a look at IBM's
research
and development investments. Compare them to other corporations'
investments. IBM's management clearly understands the concept of
"losing"
money for many, many years before turning a profit on those
considerable
investments. Or not turning a profit -- many investments simply
don't bear
fruit despite best efforts.
An example (software wise) was the TSO UTILITIES (can't remember if
it was a FDP or IUP or... pretty sure it wasn't an PP). This seeming
simple product was *MUCH NEEDED* a lot of the functionality (IEBCOPY)
was at that point authorized and "forbidden" (ie going against IBM
stated direction of no authorized programs were to run under TSO.
You had a competitor (which I did not know of at the time) but for us
you were the only game in town. (we were more or less happy campers
and would have continued the monthly charge) but IBM yanked it.
SORT (at the time) was not a front and center stage product until IBM
started to get real competition (ie Syncsort and CA plus one or two
other whose names eludes me). Somebody finally put the spurs in IBM's
side and it is now a strong competitor to Syncsort.
Ed
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