IBM has quietly acquired a very strong patent and hardware and software development position in mobile-phone technology; according to this morning's New York Times, its business in this and closely related areas has grown by more than 70% (sic) during the last year.
IBM's marketing-to-business skills are also non-negligible; Apple's marketing skills, on the other hand, are chiefly consumer ones. Some days before it announced the completion of Sputnik's first orbit of the earth, the USSR made a meta-announcement to the effect that it would have something important to announce. This provoked a good deal of hilarity on the lines of "The Russians are going to announce to the world that they invented the Waring Blender" by pundits who later came to regret their punditry. As Sean O'Casey observed, "Scepticism on the lines of 'I was in Naples at the same time as M. de Stendhal and he is a great liar' is too easy. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
