The best bits of IBM Corp would have a much brighter future if it broke itself up says Bob Djurdjevic of Annex Research Inc, Phoenix, Arizona. He suggested in his newsletter that a break-up of IBM, would increase its value by $40,000m, and that, as we have long said, the first business that should go is the benighted personal computer business. To make the business even marginally profitable it has taken an enormous amount of executive management and skill, Djurdjevic says – that’s sapping the management resources that could be better used to foster growth of other, more profitable businesses; His three companies would be global services; servers, including operating system software; and the rest of the software. We would also float off the storage business as at least a semi-independent company because in its present form, it seems quite unable to deliver its excellent technology, and a chip business answerable to IBM only as one of a number of shareholders might do much better.
