“”I.B.M. is the company that is notable for going the other
direction,” he said. “I.B.M.’s footprint is more narrow today than
it was when I started. I am not sure that has been to the long-term
benefit of their shareholders.”“I.B.M. sold off its networking business in 1999 and then
steadily exited lower-margin hardware businesses throughout this
decade. I.B.M. has argued that it makes more sense to concentrate
on higher-profit businesses and leave the grunt work to other guys,
namely Hewlett-Packard. Today, I.B.M. directs most of its energy
toward software and services and continues to sell higher-margin
hardware like Unix servers and mainframes.”Some more unintentional comedy from Microsoft– ed.