Shooting close to being the favourite for top job at IBM Corp is Paul Stern, who just announced that he would give up his posts as chairman and chief executive of Northern Telecom Ltd: he is an IBM alumnus and had a long spell with Burroughs Corp and its successor company, Unisys Corp; others showing strongly in the betting are Lawrence Bossidy, chairman and chief executive of Allied-Signal Co, and the recently-departed Michael Armstrong, who quit to head Hughes Electronics Inc when John Akers told him he was out of the running for the chairman’s chair at IBM; two others are Robert Kavner, president of AT&T communication products and Robert Allen, chairman of AT&T Co, but they have no plans to leave AT&T the phone company said.
