Apparently I have some sort of fixation on old school commercials (see my entry here comparing Adam Bosworth to EF Hutton), but I can’t help thinking that IBM is sounding a lot like BASF, whose tagline (I have the same reaction as that poster, incidentally) is “We don’t make the things you buy, we make the things you buy better.”
They don’t do applications (my colleague might beg to differ in some areas, but that’s the claim, at least). They don’t do consumer products (and I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague here, SAVE THE THINKPAD!). Yes, they have products that sit in front of people – Notes/Workplace, for example – but most of their work is done behind the scenes.
Although BASF is undoubtedly a fine company, and IBM is not exactly doing poorly, I can’t help but think their aversion to touching end users might be costly at some point. There’s a reason so many small and medium businesses are eager to use Microsoft technologies, after all.
