Market History
Among other things, IBM's development and marketing of Lotus SmartSuite and OS/2 placed it in direct competition with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows, respectively. As a result, Microsoft "punished the IBM PC Company with higher prices, a late license for Windows 95, and the withholding of technical and marketing support."
IBM wasn't granted OEM rights for Windows 95 until 15 minutes prior to the release of Windows 95, August 24, 1995. Because of this uncertainty, IBM machines were sold without Windows 95, while Compaq, HP, and other companies sold machines with Windows 95 from day one.
The Aptiva never managed to recapture IBM's early 1980s PC dominance from Compaq, Dell, or HP. IBM's PC Group had higher costs than its competitors which made it impossible to match them on prices. Throughout the 1990s, IBM lost the most market share in PCs during that decade compared to its rivals, and only the ThinkPad laptop remained a stronghold. Most desktop and laptop sales were with longstanding corporate customers that already used IBM mainframe computers. Despite IBM's continued decline in hardware, that was more than offset by the company shifting focus to the more lucrative e-business (integrated e-commerce and Internet technology solutions). By 2005, IBM had sold the Personal Computing Division to Lenovo.
Read more about this topic: IBM Aptiva
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