The article should read the low end of the x86 business. IBM has already picked over the best parts of System X and moved them into PureSystems and has also started co-designing x86 server hardware with Hitachi for PureSystems. So they are going to be focusing on integrated server, networking, and storage plays instead of just plain standalone servers. Really trying to mimic the success EMC and NetApp have had partnering with Cisco and their UCS platform.

The problem is Mainframe performance is growing faster then demand for MIPS, so most customers or consolidating more and more Mainframes with every release. Once they get to one and have room to spare the upgrade slow to a halt.

I asked some PMs from Intel who they thought the next big competition was and everyone thought Samsung had all the tech and talent to turn into a major adversary over the next couple years.

IBM sold their hard drive division to Hitachi, storage is still in STG Lexmark was essentially a spin-off of the consumer printer group Ricoh purchased IBM's enterprise printer business Lenovo purchased IBM's PC group Network Hardware Group was sold to Cisco, NHD was drunk on token ring, although IBM is back into networking by purchasing BNT. Point of Sales systems was sold to Fujitsu IBM sold their low end PowerPC business to Applied Micro. Lenovo's also been OEMing low end IBM servers for years and if I understand it correctly selling them for a lower price at higher margin.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Selling off PC group was a huge win for both companies. IBM shed a low margin business, margins that were so low investing the money the put into PC group into t-bills would have yielded more profit. Lenovo had a leaner operating structure and different business options being a Chinese company that would let them run higher margin and they've made more then enough profit to pay off the acquisition several times over. IBM also got a nice revenue stream from licensing IP to Lenovo as well as the services for running Lenovo's first line support as well as coordinating their break fix.

Probably dead already. Zombies posting AC in order to hide the coming surge.

I guess this is the difference between your view and my view. I see Savage's redefinition of Santorum's name as only loosely related to what he said. If he made Rick Santorum equal closed minded homophobe much like Benedict Arnold equals traitor, that would be valid. You're right, Santorum was immature and exceptional ignorant first, and he should have been reprimanded, in my mind removed from office, for what he said but he did it first is no excuse.

I'm not sure how you drew your conclusion. I said up front I thought what Santorum said was horrible. I don't think Santorum should get a pass, as a matter of fact as a public official I think he should be held to an even higher standard, in fact I thought Santorum should have been removed from office in 2003 for his comments and was ecstatic when he lost the election in 2006.

For some reason you make the assumption that I think what Santorum said was ok, I decidedly do not think that or that Santorum should get a pass on his comments. I think the comparison he made crossed the line so far he should have been removed from office. I’m actually somewhat disgusted that Santorum can even be making a run at the nomination. I'm totally fine with Savage's site being ranked so high and I'm fine with almost everything he said. If Savage made Rick Santorum synonymous with closed minded homophobe I'd be fine with that, but he didn't he made the name a sex term, that's line I think was crossed. I disagree with your belief that the only way to win is to go negative or go tit for tat. Let them say their stupid things. Call them out on it. Show everyone their idiocy. You will win over new people which will bring change. Be as polarizing as they are and all you do is isolate yourself. You begin to look petty and ignorant and people stay away. Do you really want to become what you call out the Republicans for?

I don't think a lot of the posters here realize what Dan Savage is doing. As a disclaimer I think Santorum's views on homosexuality are horrible I disagree with a lot of his platform, I actively discourage people from considering him. What Savage is doing goes above and beyond what is reasonable. He's not just bashing him for his narrow minded views he took his named and turned it into a juvenile sex term. That's what goes to far. That's what takes it from political discourse to childishness. Bash Santorum, rip him apart for what he says, he deserves it, but don't go down that immature road. The trivializing of his name does more then just affect him. He has kids who have to deal with it and there are other people with the same name that have to deal with this as well. What if a conservative said I disagree with Obama on X, let's come up with a derogatory sex term for Obama and plaster it all over the web. I would bet most of the people here saying it's something he should deal with would be changing their tune, of course I think a lot of people on Santorum's side would change as well, and that's the problem. We need to hold a level of reasonable treatment whether we like a candidate or not. Treat the opposition the same way we treat our candidate of choice. Hammer them when they say something stupid, hold them to task, fight against their spread of ignorance, but don't descend into childish name calling and what is essentially bullying.

I wonder if they used their own patent archives to train Watson to recognize junk patents?

I've often wondered if it time we really need to start thinking about a shorter work week or more vacation time. For the longest time we always had a labor shortage, of varying degrees, where is we automated one job, there was another area that would sink those people, or a large chunk of them. Today, where are those people going to go? I read an article about a power company switching to smart meters that would automate meter reading and they were planning to lay off some 8000 meter readers. They're obviously not highly skilled workers, but they're also not no skill workers. I think it's one of the problems with this economic recovery and the past couple we're replacing lost jobs with increased efficiency and no organization is going to willingly become less efficient.

This sounds so very IBM. How can I help you help me make money.

I really think there aren't enough jobs. There's less bloody edge research. Less bloody edge production. Technology is replacing old man in the middle work and making scientists more efficient overall. I have two examples from a friend of mine. My friend is a hiring manager for a manufacturing division of Pfizer. They had a scientist quit and needed a replacement, which is rare for Pfizer, normally they just say do more with less, elaborated more later. They posted the job with needs at least a BS, MS preferred. They got almost 250 applicants in the first 36 hours after posting, just under 50 of them were PhDs. A couple of the PhDs were looking to swap companies but the vast majority have been unemployed or teaching the odd class at a college here or there. Another telling sign is the division my friend works for has shrunk every year for the past 11 years. They haven't removed product from production or reduced the amounts of any product produced. They've actually more that doubled the output of a couple drugs. Which directly doubles the amount of quality testing and other work that needs to be done. Some groups have seen better than 80% reduction in staffing. There are only about 40% of the number people with engineer/scientist titles at the site then there were 10 years ago, and remember, this is a site that's only increased the amount of drug being produced, so it's not like these people left because a product got cut.

I think it's more of break even on cost, with different drawbacks. Sure you save on gas and car costs, but that's proportional to your distance from the office. If you combine trips into your commute the savings starts to get reduced. I noticed a pretty big jump in at home costs. AC or heat on more often. I had to bump up my internet service to get more bandwidth because online apps I had to use were just too slow. All printing costs became mine. I could use the printer at work but that requires a road trip and defeats the purpose. Keeping my computers running all day at home also eats some more power, as does keeping lights on in the office. With the amount of equipment I had and the paperwork I had to do I needed a dedicated office space, which is really a hidden cost. The big drawback I found with working from home is that everyone expects you to always be working. Most people will respond just don't answer the phone, or set hours, but in practice it's a lot more difficult. Everything becomes a one off and it's just this time you need to sit on a 10PM call, or pull some files you wouldn't ordinarily have access to. I went from an office to telecommute to my choice, which is really the best of both worlds.