Well, it's the end of an era. Today, IBM announced the sale of the Personal Computing Division to Lenovo. Lenovo's press release provides another perspective on the deal. Although Apple is generally credited with inventing the personal computer, IBM introduced the PC to a larger audience. After Compaq reverse-engineered the IBM PC, the market was soon flooded with inexpensive PC clones. Soon after, Microsoft's Windows became the standard operating system for PCs. AMD brought competition to the market for x86 microprocessors, and Linux now stands to give Windows some competition. As a result of these developments, PCs are now commodities; and it no longer makes much of a difference what company makes the PC. This is a good move for IBM. IBM has probably lost money on its PC business for the past 5 years. IBM is wise to concentrate on the markets where it does well: high-end servers and consulting services.
IBM is getting out of the business of selling x86 computers. It will be interesting to see if IBM now embarks on a new crusade to sell more computers based on Power Architecture.
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