IBM thinks about the next 100 years

been here for 100 already

[walkman]

[cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com...]

It turns out that IBM has played a behind-the-scenes role in all sorts of technologies, ranging from semiconductor development to barcodes to Wi-Fi. "IBM is a funny company," Meyerson said. "We don't force you to put a little sticker on anything that says, 'We're the smart guys.'"

But enough about the past: What about the future? "Going forward, you have tremendous opportunities," particularly when it comes to making sense of the huge databases that are being built up in all sorts of fields, Meyerson said. For example, imagine a system that can take medical records from the 285 million people around the world with diabetes, anonymize those records and analyze them, looking for potential new treatments or preventive measures.

"The fact is, there is no mechanism today that could do that, and the reason is that medical data is unstructured," he said. There's little consistency in how the records are kept, and medical conditions might be described in different ways by different doctors.

[engine]

That's quite an impressive achievement for a 'technlogy' company. There can't be many that started off in technology and continued in technology.
Probably being able to adapt to market changes and embrace new technology has contributed to its success.

[incrediBILL]

Other than distilleries there aren't many companies that survive very long in the first place. IBM, Ford, AT&T are a few that come to mind.

[Rugles]

Our company is in its 97th year. We have only been taking orders on the Internet in the last 12 ;-) .

I think MS will be here for the long haul.

[incrediBILL]

I think MS will be here for the long haul.

Common wisdom once thought Lotus would be in it for the long haul too and now it's part of IBM which is what I could see happen to MS based on how Apple (iOS) and Google (Android/Chrome) is now kicking MS up and down the block on a regular basis.

I think Windows is on the thinnest ice it's ever been in it's history and the current quality of free Linux and Open Source apps like Open Office, etc. is enough to appease the low end market and tinkering nerds.

MS is being pretty much relegated itself to the biz market which is IBMs major strength. Unless they practically start giving away software for netbooks to drive prices down to be ultra competitive and make sure Google Chrome doesn't carve a major niche they could get in trouble, not to mention they completely missed the raging tablet market.

It won't happen anytime soon mind you, they'll probably buy Yahoo and a cell phone company or two before running for cover under the IBM blanket ;)