Last year was IBM’s Year of the Customer (shouldn’t every year be the Year of the Customer?) but the company’s change of heart seems to have been positively counter-productive and their is further evidence for our contention that there has been a fundamental change in the market’s perception of the computer giant: Fortune magazine has been conducting an annual survey of the most admired companies in the US on the basis of eight key attributes – quality of management, quality of products or services, innovativeness, long-term investment value, financial soundness, community and environmental responsibility, use of corporate assets and ability to attract and keep talented people and IBM, which topped the poll for each of the first four years, lost its crown to Merck & Co last year, slipping to seventh place, but that was just the beginning, and in this year’s survey, IBM is relegated to just another company, plunging to 32nd place; top three are Merck once more, Rubbermaid Inc, and Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co.
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