[IP] IBM sells its PC business to CHINA

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: DV Henkel-Wallace <gumby@henkel-wallace.org>
Date: December 8, 2004 1:46:36 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] IBM sells its PC business to CHINA

Dave,

You know, this reminds me of another bubble, about 20 years ago.  The 
dollar was sliding, so people with lots of dollars (mostly Japanese 
companies) bought US assets as a hedge (remember Pebble Beach, 
Rockefeller Center, Columbia Pictures, Universal, etc).  Most of those 
were subsequently sold at a loss -- sometimes to the original sellers!

IBM may have gotten the better deal of the two.  They got to hang onto 
all the high-margin (so-called "value add") parts of that division; 
Lenovo basically got the low-margin manufacturing.

What this really shows is that the PC hardware as innovation platform 
is probably dead.  I think most of us realised this already.

Regards,
-d

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