The long shadow of Big Blue
Can Microsoft now hold on to its dominant position—or might it go the way of IBM in the 1980s?
WHEN the American government dropped its antitrust case against IBM in 1982, after 13 years of litigation, most observers—including this newspaper—thought the computer giant was unstoppable. “IBM may succeed in almost any application of computing it chooses to enter, as it has already demonstrated in word processors and satellite communications,” we declared. But soon Big Blue's core business, mainframe computers, was under attack from more nimble competitors selling cheap PCs. A decade later, IBM almost ran out of cash, before successfully refocusing on software and services.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “The long shadow of Big Blue”
From the November 9th 2002 edition
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